In 2009 artist Pascale Marthine Tayou bought a series of adjoining sheds near the Gent-Dampoort train station which he wanted to transform into a studio. BC architects proved to be the ideal partner to lead the project, from the specific choice of materials to the realization of the design during a ‘building camp’ with students and volunteers. ‘We gave him a story’, says architect Laurens Bekemans. ‘The project is not so much the result, as the process and the collaboration.’

Pascale Marthine Tayou is a Belgian-Cameroonian artist who raises social and cultural issues through conceptual installations and performances. Without having a specific programme of requirements, Tayou went in search of an architect who could transform the existing sheds, according to his philosophy, into a creative place in which to make, show and store his work. He ultimately found the right frame of mind in BC architects, a Brussels-based firm that designs architecture in the first place on the basis of materials, people and processes.