BLAF

BLAF is a Ghent based architects office founded in 2003 by Bart Vanden
Driessche & Lieven Nijs.

Lieven Nijs is an architect and trained at Sint-Lucas Ghent. He has been working as a practice assistant at the Department of Architecture and Urban Planning at Ghent University since 2008, and has been part of the Ghent Quality Chamber for Architecture and Monuments since 2016, since 2018 under the first Ghent city architect in the capacity of vice-chairman.

Bart Vanden Driessche is an architect.

Both interned with the same Lokeren architect, a real master builder, with an eye for detail, with an eye for wood. From childhood, Bart was familiar with the material wood in his grandfather’s workshop. He recently found a notebook in which, as a 10-year-old, he wrote down that he wanted to become an architect and drew plans.

BLAF initially started with small projects, mainly renovations where the material wood was more of an obvious choice than a choice. Based on the properties of wood, the agency unconsciously entered the domain of low-energy construction. The collaboration with Barbara Oelbrandt in designing the zero-energy house with textile skin made it a consciously ecological building: how to build differently, think about traditions and non-traditions, and this in full consciousness.