Welcome to the Going Public lecture by Doug Allard – XDGA BUILT NOTHING
Tuesday 11/03/’25
Alexianenplein, 9000 Gent (Auditorium A4)
- Please register here.
SOMETIMES, things are better when something is removed, rather than added… In 1927 Anna Wagner Keichline, architect, inventor, suffragist, and World War 1 special agent, applied successfully for a patent for a hollow wall clay brick. The ‘K’ Brick, allowed for taller buildings, speedier construction, utilised less raw resources and was simpler and quicker to make. Anna Wagner Keichline had wonderfully succeeded in the often ignored and neglected enterprise of making something better by removing, rather than adding.
XDGA BUILT NOTHING The lecture outlines the exploration of the theme of ‘absence’ in the work of the international architectural practice XDGA. This theme is explored through built projects, unbuilt competition entries and the design methodology in the practice.
XDGA The architectural practice XDGA, located in Brussels and Paris, works with 60 collaborators from 14 countries. XDGA’ s work, both built and non-built, has been widely published and exhibited over the last 20 years. XDGA has engaged in a number of important collaborations with schools of Architecture in Europe and the United States (ETH Zurich / KU Leuven Sint-Lucas Brussels / Rice University Houston) whereby a resonant theme in the work of the practice is researched through Masters Design Studios. The most recent collaboration established the Academic Design Office ‘BUILTNOTHING’ at Sint-Lucas Brussels whose work and working methodologies reflect fascinations that arise in the work of XDGA.
Doug Allard is a British architect, partner at XDGA and visiting professor at KU Leuven Sint-Lucas Brussels.