What remains of the countryside in Wallonia? What is left amidst sleepy villages, holiday parks and the vacancy of detached houses? Yet, thanks to its scale and close-knit fabric, the village can serve as a laboratory for change. It is, in particular, the architect’s task to help restore the cohesion, identity and dynamism of the countryside.

For years, the countryside lay outside the sphere of interest of the architectural world. Recently, however, interest in it has begun to resurface. Even though ‘since the 1970s, more people have moved to regions outside the cities than to the cities themselves, or fewer have moved away from the cities’ (Institut wallon de l’évaluation, de la prospective et de la statistique, IWEPS), it remains difficult to build a future in the countryside. More and more city dwellers are moving to villages. Some of them are commuters who are not very involved in local community life, which means there is a risk that these villages will become ‘dormitory towns’.