The Masui 186 project, carried out by Vanden Eeckhoudt – Creyf, involves the conversion of a residential building with a warehouse into a training and professional integration centre. Between preservation and invention, the intervention explores a range of possible relationships between architecture and the ‘already there’.

The conversion of existing buildings is now a well-known practice in the profession. Faced with budgetary constraints and the need to save materials, these transformations often favour one strategy: maximising what is already there in order to preserve, reuse or reveal it. This was the initial position adopted by Vanden Eeckhoudt – Creyf for Masui 186. But beyond this shared principle, the project’s unique intelligence lies in its differentiated responses – discreet or assertive – to the two very contrasting existing structures on the site.