Brusal: Paris!
Semester 2
Ghent
English
Tutors: Bram Aerts and Jan Baes
Outline
Brusal goes to Paris.
In Paris as in Brussels, there are several buildings dating from the 60s and 70s, expressing brave ambitions, some with brutalist aspirations, some with latent modernist residue, that are entering a crucial phase in their excistence. They are often threatened by generic transformations only ensuring regulatory compliance or simply by demolition.
These buildings need a new start, not only making sure they can survive in a performance driven reality. There are also opportunities in their shaky status. Opportunities to devise a new spring that will bring about more fundamental changes than a performance upgrade or preservation of the status quo. Corrective action is needed to address their shortcomings.
We visit Paris and draw up an assessment framework, trace, map and document these often forgotten buildings.
This phase is a collaborative undertaking.
You will than choose a site and document it further.
Subsequently, you will explore new possibilities in terms of design. Starting from the hypothesis of (partial) preservation as an ecologically sound choice, the studio searches for an architecture that is built up from the residue of qualities that are determined, without avoiding the objectively measurable performance that is expected of each transformed building. You work in a group of two.
Much emphasis will be placed on understanding the way the buildings are made and continuing, converting, adapting and complementing these constructions.
Without falling back on a wide range of historical examples or similar precedents, we will look for a relevant tectonical and material explorations that can give these buildings, which are both loved and vilified at the same time, a new place in our cities.