Time, Matter & Encounter ( Tijd, Materie & Ontmoeting)
Architecture as an encounter between time, matter and people, precise enough to protect and open enough to change.
MARS3 · BRUSSEL · BILINGUAL
teacher(s): Fabien Van Tomme
field of interest: Materiality · Transformation · Embodied (spatial) experience · Building Culture · Research
attitude: Reparative · Experimental · Reflective
method of inquiry: Observation · Precedent Study · Research by Design
design media: Material-based · Curatorial · Prototyping
learning environment: Individual trajectory · Iterative · Collective learning
study trip: No
Description
Each student chooses a real, material context somewhere on Earth today. Starting from what is already there, the student develops an architectural entity capable of receiving and protecting at least two people, together or apart. There is no predetermined programme and no fixed meaning. Openness, however, does not mean neutrality: space, body, matter, construction and time are investigated with architectural precision.
The studio proceeds through finding, choosing and encountering. Existing architecture, matter, places, people, techniques, actions and references are brought into confrontation. These encounters may transform the work, make it branch and produce unexpected meanings. Not only the outcome, but also this process of thinking and making must become visible.
No fixed representational media are prescribed. Drawings, models, fragments, material tests, film, photography, performance, writing or digital media may be used when they genuinely advance the architectural investigation. The student’s contribution is central: what is observed, chosen, connected, rejected and transformed?
The output is not a format, but evidence of a process of architectural thought and action. The medium is open; the architectural evidence is not.
Key questions
How can architecture remain precise without fixing its future use or meaning?
How can matter carry traces of previous lives while remaining open to transformation?
How can architecture enable encounters between people, matter and different moments in time?
What can architecture inherit, transform and pass on without remaining unchanged?
Can architecture protect what is vulnerable while allowing people, uses and meanings to change?
Position statement
Nothing begins from zero. Every place, material and body already exists in time. Architecture is not a finished object, but a temporary state within a longer process of use, care, repair and transformation. People act and meanings shift. The studio explores how architecture can be precise without fixing the future: how it can receive and protect while leaving room for other people, actions, encounters and meanings.
Learning outcomes
The studio addresses these learning outcomes through an individual and iterative architectural inquiry grounded in a real material context. Students develop their own research and project strategy by observing, selecting, confronting and transforming existing conditions, references, materials and ways of making.
Context is understood not only spatially, but through time, use, matter, human action and changing meaning. Architectural structure is investigated as a precise framework capable of receiving different people, encounters and transformations without prescribing a fixed programme or future.
Students are expected to make their own position and decision-making process visible. Drawing, models, material experiments, film, performance and other media may act as mediating tools when they contribute to architectural thought, testing and communication.
The studio understands architectural work as an ethical and imaginative practice: precise enough to protect and give form, yet open enough to accommodate change, appropriation and meanings that cannot be predetermined.
Expected deliverables
Process documentation · Presentation · Prototypes · Project-specific output (determined by the project’s inquiry)