Behind one of the expressive entrance areas of the former Terhaegen monastery in Ghent, a meticulously integrated intervention connects the various rooms of a network house. Elsewhere in the complex, the murmurs of the Sisters of Charity can still be heard, but here, introspection alternates with meeting and networking in a modest but precisely designed environment. Studio Lauka’s design leaves room for the user and the pious atmosphere that still lingers in the corridors, but seeks an active and contrasting dialogue with the existing building in its use of materials and geometry.

Studio Lauka, the design agency of Mira De Winne and Aaron Michels, played a real home game in the design of the network house: the drawing board and project location are just a stone’s throw away from each other. In a conversation at the studio’s office, this proximity leads to reflections on the position of the designer and the tension between ownership and authorship. Studio Lauka, Michels explains, is not so much interested in the latter: whether someone still remembers the name of the designer of a place or building after three years or so is not that important. What is important is the realisation (whether or not in creative collaboration) of places that can be appropriated completely, and above all to the complete satisfaction, of their users.