“This piece from Filip Dujardin’s Fictions series has been hanging in our studio for some time. What seems recognisable and familiar at first glance is, at the same time, surprising and utopian. That tipping point between reality and fiction fascinates us. The process of reassembling the existing to imbue it with new meaning is, in our view, where architecture and urban planning intersect – two fields that hold equal weight in our practice. The façade can be read as both a structuring system and a multitude of interventions and reactions to it. As if the block of flats were a kind of urban frame within which all sorts of residents have set to work. Architecture, both as an idea and as an artefact, is present in this assemblage, with a certain tension inherent in it.

“For the regeneration of a factory site in Grimbergen, our masterplan focuses fully on de-paving, adaptive reuse, sustainable mobility, and programming. Here, we employ the concept of the assemblage as a tool for transforming the stacked production halls, industrial buildings and a somewhat oversized office block. In the masterplan for the site, we link the new functions to the stream valley and cycle highway by removing areas of paving. The office building becomes a hybrid work and meeting space with clearer access points, and the production tower becomes a stacked building for SMEs. The common thread in the circular design is the reuse of old canopies, pavers, quick-build bricks, shelving and office furniture.