2014

The changing attitude to living and living with important social issues and challenging issues compels the young designer to look for new architectural concepts, for a conscious sustainability approach, for reflection on temporary or permanent reuse, for the role and use of design research. , … A new generation of designers is ready: poetic, creative, socially engaged, moving, questioning, investigative and critical.

With the theme “YOUNG!” Archipel wants to pay attention to this young generation of talented architects and offer a platform for their architecture that contributes to contemporary and future society. We choose to organize as many lectures as possible on location because Archipel wants to focus on the spatial and sensory experience. Archipel focuses directly on no-nonsense building: material, construction, form, space in a context as visible facts and direct experience, perception and meaning. We take you on an architectural adventure.

Can we start earlier than with research by design by students of the first master KU Leuven Faculty of Architecture, Campus Sint-Lucas Ghent and Brussels, on a design for a maritime museum in Ostend? At the initiative of Oostende Werft and under the impulse of Marc Felix (chairman of Archipel), models and films of four studios are shown for a week regarding research into a shipping museum with a real program on Churchillkaai in Ostend. It concerns the studios of Marc Felix, Marc Macken, Dirk Coopman and Filip Buysse. Archipel is organizing a tour of the exhibition with a reception on Saturday 15 February at CC De Grote Post.

At the end of February, we will be guests in the home city of BLAF architects. A thorough commitment, research and intuition lead the young Lokeren architects in their search for new forms of living and spatial strategies with a no-nonsense passion for sustainability, ecology and ethics. The equivalence of every part, every aspect, every detail within the architectural and construction process is striking and makes for a very unique architecture.
In March we will dive into the surprising, optimistic world of doorzon interior architects, where craftsmanship, spatial impact, tactility, experiment and special use of color cross paths. The first publication of their work was recently published in the series Vlees en Beton, Department of Architecture and Urbanism of Ghent University, which co-organizes this event as a partner.
In April Archipel will travel to the Westhoek for a lecture by Dierendonck Blancke architects in the recently realized De Leege Platse Meeting Center in Beselare. A creative reinterpretation of the obvious preconditions of context, parameters and program leads to a maximum search for the often minimal design margins, resulting in a completely idiosyncratic oeuvre.
The month of May emphasizes the integration between structure and architecture. The young engineering firm UTIL Struktuurstudies from Brussels is specialized in thinking along, thinking up and designing structural solutions that support and reinforce the architectural concept of other architects. They work together with agencies such as Office Kersten Geers David Van Severen, Atelier Kempe Thill, B-architects, Robbrecht & Daem architects, atelier Vens Vanbelle, URA architects, …
At the end of May we will travel to the High North, more specifically to Finland to follow in the footsteps of the classics Aalto, Saarinen, Siren, Piëtila, Pitkanen and Bryggman on the one hand, and to discover a promising young guard of Finnish architects on the other: Verstas, Lassila Hirvilami, Lahdelma & Mahlmäki, K2S, Play-A and JKMM. Hopefully you will enjoy the Finnish openness in a landscape where the sun barely sets at that time.
In accordance with the annual tradition, we close the spring in collaboration with the Week of Design in Kortrijk. This year we invite the young, extravagant and energetic Studio Weave from London. Their work balances between a positive open approach and technical precision. They love to study idiosyncrasies, isolate strengths from them and transform them into something special with entirely new qualities. Their work flirts with architecture, art, design and public space.
Archipel wants to put young talent in the spotlight and will continue this richly filled calendar after the summer with, among other things, lectures by the Finnish agency JKMM, URA and Bruno Vanbesien.