Studio №2: NEW SCHOOLS OF ARCHITECTURE

STUDIO:NEW

SCHOOLS OFARCHITECTURE

Texts byMark PimlottEireen SchreursJo Taillieu Jan de Vylder

Works byTomas DirrixHenk de Haan Anne van Hout Michela Mattioni Bart van der Zalm

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CHAIR THE ARCHITECTURE OF THE INTERIOR

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LOOKING AT THE BLANKPAPER

The STUDIO booklets are compact publications that present the teaching and research of the Department of Architecture at TU Delft in the Neth-erlands. The STUDIO series starts with several issues on teaching posi-tions and investigates the connection between positions and didactics of the Chairs.

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MSC1 spring 2012

POSITIONS

10 Interview with Jan de Vylder and Jo Taillieu – Mark Pimlott, Eireen Schreurs and Anne van Hout

20 The Brief

22 The Sites

28 Movements

34 The Practices

CATALOGUE

36 Tomas Dirrix

40 Henk de Haan

44 Anne van Hout

48 Michela Mattioni

52 Bart van der Zalm

EPILOGUE

60 Reflections by students

64 Bibliography

70 Biographies

Studio: New Schools of Architecture

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Prologue

A proper architectural chair questions itself continuously on its architectural position and on the way architectural knowledge should be transmitted to the students. Guest teachers are a much-cherished source of feedback and fresh ideas. This second book-let in the STUDIO series investigates the studio teaching of two guest teachers with whom the chair The Architecture of the Interi-or has enjoyed a long relationship and whom the chair particularly values: our Belgian colleagues Jan de Vylder and Jo Tailleu from the office of de Vylder Vinck Tailleu. In the spring of 2012 they led an experimental Master 2 Studio that revolved around the assign-ment of ‘a new type of architecture school.’ The motto of this STUDIO is ‘looking at the blank paper’. The phrase came up during one of the interviews involving colleague Mark Pimlot and myself. It is a key sentence that reveals their personal fascination and offers a reading of their teaching and their highly idiosyncratic work. Both revolve around the tantalising question: How do you make something out of nothing? How do you think in an open way? Where do you want to go? The students described to us how Jan and Jo worked. “Their endless enthousiasm for the most stupid idea, ... and then they let you work on it so long that it became something”. Students also told us that they had an incredible faith in the students’ process. They relied on it completely and were fascinated by it. During our interviews, they never once referred to successful end results, only to exceptional moves of a certain student. In the office they kept a set of log books: students had to produce one image a day throughout the whole duration of the studio. Concerning the question of ‘where to go’, they used a technique that could best be described as destructive creativity. They set tasks that were bound to cause trouble and friction. They reversed schemes, reversed scales, they reversed models. They destroyed concepts once their task was finished, a particluarly liberating experience for TU Delft students. Jan and Jo’s very distinct ideas on teaching reside in an imagi-nary place: a new school of architecture. This is a place where ar-chitectural practices work alongside students, each learning from the other. This studio didn’t seem so different to that: teachers and students, working side by side, never knowing what would happen next. As one student put it: “Every time you thought, this time I’ve nailed it, but then afterwards you had no idea where you were at.”

Eireen SchreursEditor of the STUDIO seriesChair The Architecture of the Interior

Eireen Schreurs

4 Studio: New Schools of Architecture

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At work in the studio.

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POSITIONS

8 Positions

Eireen Schreurs, Mark Pimlott and Anne van Hout

This interview is a compilation of two discussions with Jan de Vylder and Jo Taillieu in July 2012 and June 2013 by Eireen Schreurs and Mark Pimlott from the Chair of Interiors, and Anne van Hout, stu-dent assistant and participant of the studio.

INTERVIEW

JAN DE VYLDER & JO TAILLIEU


9 Eireen Schreurs, Mark Pimlott and Anne van Hout

Teaching and Practice

Eireen Schreurs: You have been involved in our chair as guest teachers for several years, and you continue to be involved, even though your practice is extremely busy. What is your drive to teach?

Jo Taillieu: What makes it interesting for any teacher is that you have to constantly explain to students why you do certain things. But even more importantly, students teach you to shuffle. They take you to corners of the room where you would otherwise never have come. This is what we try to do in our office, but in teaching it happens automatically. Teaching forces you to open your world again and again.

Jan de Vylder: It is something we enjoy doing. But we also feel it as a social responsibility; we cannot reserve architecture only for our clients. We are part of a larger debate. The university has a huge task to prepare good architects for the market. For a long time the discussion has largely taken place on a theo-retical level, now finally the making of archi-tecture is coming back, and a lot of Belgian practices are currently teaching exactly this. Eireen: Is there any difference for you between teaching and working in the office?

Jan: There is no difference! For us, working with students is the same as working on a project. With one huge difference of course: in the office collaboration ultimately means: you do what I want, and in teaching quite the reverse is true. In our office and in our conversations with the students we have the same attitude. We are very open and critical, we welcome all kinds of idea shifts and we like to share those ideas. I hope that our students have experi-enced this idea of sharing, rather than count-ing upon one idea.

Mark Pimlott: There is something crucial about what you are all saying there. I certainly rec-ognize this flexibility of mind and constantly allow things to expand. But how exactly does this relate to your own work?

Jan: Sometimes we get the comment that all our projects look different. Then it is this and then it is that. I would think this is the case in every practice, but they say that ours is extreme. People ask us: what is your style? When we work, we start differently every time, it’s like having a blank paper on the table, although the back of your head starts to fill up with unconscious knowledge. This is what we do every day: Looking at the blank paper. So it’s all about the blank paper and about think-ing in an open way.

Jan: It always interests me to see young archi-tects having fantastic ideas and then their struggle to confront that idea with something that might be called architecture. This is a daily battle here for us too, even at my age. When we talk with the students we struggle together with them. We still can’t give them a straight answer. I think it might be different if you teach without running a practice. We have to deal with a certain amount of doubt, for in the process towards architecture this is very important. I hope that it was helpful for the students to see us also shifting from one side to the other and not immediately saying this is right or not.

Anne van Hout: One of the students, Anne Geenen, made a very good start on the first assignment, the setup of the classroom. Then Jan and Jo re-ally pushed her to investigate and develop it fur-ther and in the end she came back to her starting point.

Jo: Yes, haha, we had to fill 8 weeks. The con-cept had to quit and the architecture had to start.

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Anne Geenen - The final impression has the same spatial qualities as her initial model for the room in the first movement.

Anne Geenen - movement 1 - room

Michela Mattioni - positioning the volumes.

Anne van Hout - studying the posi-tion of the garden walls cafe

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PositionsStudio: New Schools of Architecture

Henk de Haan - gevel

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The Noise Class

Eireen: Was this a special studio?

Jo: Yes! In this Delft studio everyone was really driven and keen to get on with things. Take Michaela’s project: that was a very nice debate on how columns give direc-tion. Columns are not for engineers, they are our weapons to organize space. For the Delft students it felt liberating to talk about things like the meaning of the position of the column in space.

Jan: Or Henk. After he had filled a book-let with structures, we asked him to look around. Then he came up with this 19th-century thing and we went along with him. He looked at all the buildings that were bordering the site and he started to do all these things, Asplund, Diener and Diener, and Henk said I don’t understand. And then he started to make his own analysis, and that was a complete breakthrough. He started to see things in the site. We liked this very much. He started to do things that he had never done before, that moment with students, that they don’t completely understand. What’s going on? You see them think: let’s do it because I trust those teach-ers. Henk said: But what should I do with it? Maybe in the end he was not very happy with it, but it was something completely new for him.

Jan: Anne, you were one of our students. Are our studios very different to a normal Delft studio?

Anne: Yes, your studios give more of a sense of freedom, and you encourage us to explore that freedom. Normally, if you come to your first supervision and you only show a column, the lecturer doesn’t say, oh that’s interesting, why not take it further. He says: ‘Shouldn’t you be drawing up a floor plan?’Maybe this is partly because this is a Master 2 project, an elective.

With you we got the feeling you had confi-dence in us to carry on with things ourselves. It seemed like you already knew where it would end up, so we dared to go further, even though we didn’t know what the end result would be.

Mark: I really like the idea of running an atelier whose result is that people find their own way. It comes from a very specific teaching method and discussion and guidance and criticism, but at the same time people be-come the architects they could be. Even if it’s for just that project.

Jan: Students tell us that, that we start from their ideas, not the perspective of an archi-tect’s office. Of course you have those kinds of studio too and they also provide good training, but that’s not how we do things here. That has to do with our own practice: in our office we are always looking for au-tonomy, we make a special effort not to act immediately but to wait and see what hap-pens around the table.

Eireen: How do you get the students to the point where they can make this crucial leap?

Jo: The strict way in which the tasks are di-vided up really encourages this. At a certain point you’re in the exercise about the room, and themes start to bubble up. Then you’re talking about spaces, and in the second exercise you’ve moved on to urban planning. So you present all kinds of aspects, search-ing for the thing that fascinates the student. And which the student can then work with. For example, the way in which you took Anne’s plan going from room to room, and what happens in between. How you position the garden walls, and in this way all manner of aspects come together or you touch on a great many different things which slowly begin to cohere.


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Juliaan Lampens also taught some great lessons. I read one of his texts. He was very emphatic that it’s not about developing a thousand variations on a theme. You believe in a certain idea as a starting point, and then you take that idea further. That is bound to lead to an interesting result. And then you don’t let go until you can really feel that it’s going to work.

Jan: I saw a documentary once about Misha Mengelberg, a Dutch jazz musician, he teach-es at the conservatoire in Amsterdam. Late in the afternoon on Wednesdays was the regular time for the Noise Class where the students would come along with ideas or pieces they wanted to play, and then he would improvise on these. That class was different to all the others; the students just brought something along, maybe only an idea, they started to play something and it was worked out further in the rest of the class. I still think this is a fascinat-ing role reversal in teaching: the student puts an idea on the table and you as the teacher have to try and do something with it. Because students are just like the ones in the noise class, they have something that they have no idea how to take further, or that they’ve always wanted to do something with, or whatever. That is what motivates us every week to get in the car and drive to Delft. All day long you’re being challenged to step into that other world, and not so much to put forward your own world. Unless of course you want to say that that is the essence of our world: always want-ing to explore those other worlds.

Eireen: Students do need confidence.

Jo: Yes, but I think, if a student comes up with something, it’s obviously something that’s oc-cupying his mind. That is always fascinating. As a teacher you sometimes need to explain the repercussions. That he doesn’t always see these for himself can be because this requires skills that a student has yet to develop.

Anne: I think that everyone felt that in the studio. That they achieved a final result that no-one had expected beforehand.

Jan: Speaking for ourselves, we are only really happy when we create something that is dif-ferent to the expected result. But to return to your question, how does a student arrive at that crucial moment? Michela’s project had a breaking point, dur-ing the discussion about the positioning of her three blocks. Four buildings were made instead of three, because this existing build-ing was standing there totally expressionless in that setting. That was the intelligent thing about that project: all of a sudden, there was the spatial organization and positioning of the blocks on the one hand, but particularly the position in relation to the other block, so that the fourth building ultimately became part of the whole.

Jo: The lecture about the site plan brought us to building number four. That was one of those ultimate moments, we didn’t steer things in that direction, but allowed the students to see it for themselves. So how did it happen? We believe in serendipity, that you sometimes need a bit of luck. And when you see it, you know that that’s it, that it works. Totally. And she’d built a good scale model. We walked around that model, and we said to her, do you see what we’re doing. This is how we often work, we’re sitting round the table, thinking, and then all of a sudden it comes to you. And that feeling that you’ve got it, you can almost always confirm it right away. You mustn’t get nervous, but have the confidence that it will turn out alright. You do have to go looking for chance a bit. By digging deeper in your project it will come, sometimes sooner and sometimes later. You have to try and familiarize yourself with all the preconditions. If you can’t read the context properly, you won’t feel that connection. You need to optimize the conditions to give things a chance to happen.


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Eireen: How do you help students to get from idea to building?

Jan: We like really to find out who the student is. Sometimes they don’t believe they can do it or they don’t yet know how. Take Henk for example. We really forced him and at the end he said: Wow look what I made! It’s a pity he didn’t understand it completely. For me Henk was the most successful student. The same thing happens sometimes in a project, with no money and a bad client. We have to get rid of the academic idea that architecture comes from the concept. Con-cept and critical are two very important words, but they are rather like the bicycle that you are riding, they are very useful, but they don’t make the architecture. It is the same as when you are scared to start on that paper, it is an ambiguous freedom, because you don’t know what you are going to do. Anything could be wrong or right.

On the Assignment

Eireen: The assignment was to make a new type of architecture school, which the students had to combine with two practices. Is this your ideal type of school?

Jan: This studio is meant as a reaction against the current situation in Belgium. The pro-gramme is a critique, because we think that all the schools should be organized around ar-chitecture practices. It is also a small dream. We saw it at the London Metropolitan Archi-tecture Research unit, run by Florian Beigl. Florian’s office is the school. In Japan there are quite a lot of these kinds of schools, where students work on the project of the teacher. Being around and in a practice, is very impor-tant.

Eireen: How do you go about it, setting the assignment?

Jan: You have to develop a programme like this, purely related to our own thinking and making.

In this studio we insisted on students keep-ing very close to the office that they had as a reference. We should have continued along that line. Teaching is very personal. You have to teach the way you are, show your own work and drawings, and insist that students also make their own.

Eireen: Do you specify the resources you want your students to work with? Jo: We start out with the resources the student already has, and optimize them. Bart for example started with this drawing and model of the classroom. His question was: how can you make a space defined by the col-umn? He came to a module and then brought it to the scale of the school. The next issue is, how do you intend dealing with different lev-els, how you bring the programme into it? He produced some very interesting drawings.

Jan: And then he said, I will go to AutoCAD, and it was really bad, so we asked him to go back, keep to the original, and when he contin-ued, the column was the project. This year we were advising Hinke to stick to drawing to work out his ideas. We simply banned him from using AutoCAD. That is a handicap because drawing everything by hand is a lot slower, but I think it’s really very impor-tant. I think that what gives us the most pleas-ure is that afterwards several students came up and said: now I remember why I decided to study architecture, I’ve rediscovered what fas-cinates me and what I want to do. The fact that that might be all that architecture is about. That’s the great thing. It’s fascinating to see how in the very first exercise, just like during the design charrettes for interiors, buildings and cities, the students panic at the thought of making a simple room. But what is it all about? It’s just sitting in your chair and looking out of the window and think-ing how your world should look. That can be what architecture is about.

Eireen: Maybe the students panic because they have to relinquish control.


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Plan Show IHinke Majoor Studio 2012-2013


15 Eireen Schreurs, Mark Pimlott and Anne van Hout

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Jo: But they can relinquish control! It’s only a study! But it is difficult, to start on something for which you have no context. The room is in a building that you haven’t designed yet. Certain uncertainties are just what make it productive and exciting for the students.

Jan: The pleasure in the exercise like those from the architecture school comes from continuously adding new elements, the move-ments. First the various rooms, then the loca-tion, and then bringing the reference into it, something you have to develop feeling for. This already excludes a lot of directions, but these very limitations provide many new open-ings. Students need to think carefully about what they have already done. They need to learn to trust their own personal approach, while at the same time gaining a realization that they can get far more out of the context and references than if they were to think it all up for themselves. This cross between per-sonal fascination, reference and context also plays a role in how we work in our office.

Eireen: Last year you announced that you were working on a design exercise in which the teacher presents a project which he has spent two weeks working on himself, and which the students then develop further.

Jan: A semester at St-Lucas usually lasts fourteen weeks, and in that time you have two short exercises one after the other, each lasting seven weeks. We do things differ-ently, and give students two totally different exercises, but running simultaneously. Last year we had an exercise at an abstract loca-tion, one following the student’s own model and one following a model from the teacher. From around week 8,9,10 the students began to see correlations. After the initial panic we saw cross-fertilization and students learned to think from a different perspective besides their own. If time allows we sometimes do this in a studio as an interim exercise. Then the students spend a whole day working on their neighbour’s project.

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Rik Lambers

Positions

Dirk Huibers - final model


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Next year’s exercise will be a house, but at seven different locations. A fairly small house with a simple programme that they can eas-ily master, and that times seven. Then we will give them some context to get the ball rolling. It’s not a game, but the set-up gives it a sport-ing element, a little like playing simultaneous chess. And this is what it is like in real life. How many times a day do we not flit from one thing to the other, and then return to an earlier project and then think, oh yes, wait.

Jo: Yes, it’s the number of layers and not the complexity of a project that determines how exciting it can be. That means you don’t keep getting bogged down in three weeks of hard toil to reach the ultimate draft, because that means you’re sitting down and looking at things without knowing where you want to go. Because we keep coming up with new exercis-es, the fascinating aspects float to the surface automatically. Starting with that classroom is not easy for the students, but on the other hand it’s also a luxury, because the student knows that it doesn’t end there.

Jan: Anne, from your point of view as a student, what aspect of the studio made the biggest im-pression on you?

Anne: In the book that you handed out beforehand, everything seemed all thought through, with all the steps you need to take and all the products you need to make. And at the end you do have all those products, but you really don’t feel that you’re working towards that as a goal, that you’re ticking off a list. It all happened naturally.

Jan: We are very strict with that book because it can be a useful guide if you lose your way, which fortunately didn’t happen to anyone in your studio. It’s just like in our office: we work out a lot of the details, with the idea that once we know everything, we will be able to change things if necessary. It’s a kind of ambiguous attitude, working out a project into the small-est details, and then saying, no that’s not how we’re going to do it. It gives us the chance to make changes in the context of time, place or

work. That doesn’t mean we turn everything on its head, but even our best detail drawings are made with the idea that we can change them. That’s how we work in our office.

Eireen: Do you always make such an explicit list of products that students have to make?

Jan: Always, the text is quite prescriptive, like a competition, it always says what you have to do. I think it is revealing for students to see that it works well. Although they have very diverse results, they all stay within the same limits of production. I think that you always have to make drawings, a model, picture and plans; otherwise you don’t have a project.

The Process

Mark: I get the impression that the awareness of the process is very important in your office. The artefacts that you produce, they remain with the project. That is unusual.

Jan: We like this process thing very much. For us it is very important to find the place and time for this process with our client. The more difficult it becomes, the better the results are. If you could talk about a strategy, you could say that it is about looking as intensely as possible at the context. Not only the place but also the time, the budget and the client. It always involves a lot of questioning. We put it down, we look again, and all of a sudden there is something different, and you still haven’t made any conceptual gesture. Just by laying it out, tearing things away, it orders itself in another way. This is very important for stu-dents to learn. They have to be conscious of all the things they can learn about the project. They don’t have to wait for a gesture. All of a sudden there are not that many possibilities anymore. And that is the real key moment in a project. If you do this, you will get a certain focus and then, when you look back in your process, you will rediscover a lot of things.


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ADVVT

Jan: The aim of the studio is to split the assign-ments, which we call movements, so that each assignment is given its own context. One of the things we try to do in the exercises is to multiply different contexts. You can see this in the exer-cise for the room, as well as the one for the city. The context of both existing schools, for example, was very important. The school you were build-ing was opposite the existing school, forcing you into an opposing position. At the same time, the student had to think about integrating the chosen architectural offices during the urban planning phase. First of all, you split everything up and then, like in Dirk’s (Huibers, red.) project, you bring it all together again. You end up with an unbelievable project. In his urban plan, Dirk positioned Xaveer de Geyter and Office against each other in an almost ironic setting. The tower and the beam. That was fantastic.

THE BRIEF


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delft-schaarbeek-ghentnew schools of architecture

In 2019 a new school of architecture will be estab-lished at the old sites of the schools of architecture at Delft, the Netherlands and Schaarbeek, Brussels and Ghent in Belgium. Many others will follow.Since schools of architects are no longer large insti-tutes but have become a network of spread-out studio buildings – all over Europe – in which students and teachers meet; this new vision on education has be-come a starting point of a large building campaign of new studio buildings all around.

Those studio buildings have a typical program devel-oped around the following ideas:– About 5 to 10 studio’s on each location;– Students and teachers are working together in a

period of 3 to 9 months in a concentrated mood on a project in one studio;

– Each studio has about 15 to 20 students, 2 to 3 teachers and 2 assistants;

– An accommodation of restaurant and kitchen is available, not only as a service but also organized so that students can cook and eat as a team;

– The studios are open around the clock;– That’s why a small shop is available around the

clock; this shop will serve also at local level;– Similarly a small coffee bar is set up; once again

also to be visited at local level;– A certain accommodation to stay overnight is pre-

sent as well;– A media library is accommodated as well; – A single studio has a work floor of about 200m2;

next to the studio’s a model studio accommodation is to be set up;

– This model studio accommodates handmade and com-puter aided modelling;

– Of course: all other equipment and auxiliary space as to be expected;

But; and, that makes it very special; also:– An architectural practice will be included in the

school;– Rather 2 than 1;– A small architectural practice for about 10 people– A large architectural practice for about 20 people

It is clear what it is about: it is about the belief that schools of architecture are about architecture. Architecture thought by architects. Architects formed by building. The making of things. Makes the poetry of things. That poetry makes architecture different from building. This new type of smaller architectural schools have finally been established when it became clear that the tendency until then to incorporate schools of ar-chitecture into to academic faculties of many large scaled universities had led to nothing. By giving stu-dents the occasion to spread out their experience of learning through Europe but also in the proximity of real-time specific practices of architecture. In this studio students will meet this program in another city than where the studio is thought. Stu-dents are even free to present another location In Europe. Students will work out the project from room to building; from detail to city.

ADVVT

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Small practice collaborators4 m² / person

Practices

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Big practice collaborators4 m² / person

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Hinke Majoor

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ADVVT

Eireen: Would you like to have your own architecture school?

Jan: Yes. It’s no coincidence that we have cho-sen the site at St Lucas in Brussels. I know it is going to happen. I think that it will become real-ity in 2020. The current school of St Lucas has a beautiful building, but would cost EUR 1.5 milion to renovate. I am teaching there and I said I don’t mind that it is warm in the summer and cold in the winter. If it is a problem we can move to the floor above. We can make the classes a little bit smaller, with curtains. And then I would have EUR 1.5 milion to spend on teaching, for it is such a small school and it costs a lot of money to keep it open. We are part of the University of Louvain, managers would be crazy if they kept Brussels open. So I proposed a plan to open a new school, but we don’t have many people supporting us. We are conducting this debate in a very practical order: we talk about money. We don’t talk about the idea.

THE SITES


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The venues.Belgium, Ghent en Brussels.

Sint-Lucas FAK Faculteit Architectuur en Kunsten / Faculty of Architecture and Arts; Ghent en Brussels.

In Ghent the venue is situated in the centre of the city; exactly at the venue where today the Department of Arts of the Sint-Lucas FAK school is present. This site has something special: a street - Zwarte zuster-straat - is crossing the school. Always this was felt as a strange but even though inspiring situation. It has made that the school was present in the city as no other could be present. In Brussels – or more precisely: Schaarbeek - the venue is situated near the site of the Department of Architecture at the Liedtsplein / Place Liedts. This square is situated around 200 meters from the school but clearly in proximity of each other. One can say that the Liedtsplein is hardly a ‘plein’ – read: place. It is rather an oversized but dangerous cross-ing of cars, trams and busses. This brings the 2 venues together: not only be-ing the former venue of a tradition of schools of art and architecture; but the fact that those schools of architecture are not only present in the city but also really ‘in’ the city.

There is something special about the Ghent Venue. Beginning 2000; xdga – Xaveer deGeyter – won a com-petition for the extension of the Sint-Lucas. As yet been delivered new studio for artists; a project for a new library causes more debate and is till on hold. The debate is not only about the concept of the li-brary itself; but also because Sint-Lucas took by that concept of Xaveer a challenge to go on debate with the city to launch a new city-place by interchanging private property with public space; to obtain a new city area with a new library in the middle. By 2017 all architectural schools and universities will be closed; still this venue and even more where this specific challenge of creating a new city area is thereby the most inspiring ; this is the ideal venue to start the first exercise on those new schools. The challenge as those new schools is thereby not only their new programme that envision the new vision on the architectural debate; but also that those new school will definitely change the city as a whole; by changing the venue as a the instrument to that. Let’s be this even so good the start point for Schaarbeek. Where the actual school has took place in a former but extremely nice modernistic old furniture company; the challenge to go and stand right in the middle of the crossing at Liedtsplein is the only way to step really in the city.

New schools of architecture.New architecture of cities.

Xaveer de Geyter - extension of St Lucas in Ghent(2002-2007)

St Lucas in Brussels

ADVVT

22 Positions

2

Department of Arts of the Sint-Lucas FAKZwarte ZusterstraatGhent

4

Department of Arts of the Sint-Lucas FAKZwarte ZusterstraatGhentInplantingsplan1/2000

Ghent


23 ADVVT

3

Department of ArchitectureLiedtsplein

Schaarbeek (Brussels)

5

Department of ArchitectureLiedtsplein

Schaarbeek (Brussels)Inplantingsplan

1/2000

Brussels

24

Second Movement: The Urban Model with all the different plans in it.


25

26

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First movementJan: That was the room. Many of the students’ projects focused on the elements used in con-struction. That wasn’t really what we had in mind, but it shows the students how you can create space using very simple means. This theme fas-cinates us in our own practice too. The way the beam was attached to the column in Bart’s pro-ject is also a very significant detail. Anne divides the space using walls, and then leaves a piece out to create space, and it all ends up organised. It helped that in both locations, architectonic elements like beams and columns were recogniz-able. In Ghent in the ornaments and the façade and in Brussels in the column structure.

Second movementJo: The second exercise was an urban plan-ning study. It connected the first exercise to the larger scale. Everyone was asked to make scale models for five urban planning proposals, and photographs were made of each model from the same viewpoint. This was an ideal exercise for acquiring insight into the conditions of the sur-

roundings. You begin to get a feeling for what the surroundings can and can’t support, what works there and what doesn’t. And conversely, how the building affects the surroundings. In Dirk’s pro-ject you see that the location starts to play a role, so that he positions two buildings facing each other.

MOVEMENTS


27

20

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-----s

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-------------sint-lucas FA

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------------AK departemen

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------------nt architectu

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------------uur gent / br

artist redocent: xx

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-------------russel 2011 2esidence / rexxx student:

2011 10 0bladnummer

G/B.55.01

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-------------2012 Ba3 sem efugee reliefxxxx / numme6 x

1

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-------------4 oef 55 stu

fer

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-------------udio G/B.55.x

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-------------x eerste bewe

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-------eging

INTRODUCTION.1 session.

The introduction wild be held at deSingel Interna-tional Art Campus Antwerp.

09.00 Arrival. Introduction will be given in the ‘muziekzaal”09.30 Introduction on the exercise.10.30 Introduction on the studio architecten de vylder vinck taillieu12.00 Visit to the exhibition architecten de vylder vinck taillieu – student initiative14.00 Visit to the exhibition INUTILITIES / Valerie Traan – student in tiative15.00 Train to Brussel; North station – student initiative16.00 Visit Liedts & Sint-Lucas* venue Schaarbeek / Brussels – student initiative18.00 Train to Ghent; Ghent Sint-Pieter – student initiative19.00 Visit Zwartezuster–& Sint-Lucas venue Ghent**23.00 Late evening walk trough the city of Ghent with architecten de vylder vinck taillieu

* Sint-Lucas Brussels is situated Paleizenstraat/Rue de Palais 65 Schaarbeek / Brussel. In that street there is also an other Sint-Lukas situated; almost in front of each other. A good reader might have distinguished the difference: Sint-LuCas vs Sint LuKas. C vs K. We are Sint-LuCas. C. (it is an old story; we explain you once) (Doesn’t this inspires you?)

** Why not visiting this on Saturday. The exercise will be explained by this text. The stu-dent is responsible himself to collect all information that is needed for this exercise. However some infor-mation will be available. The program will be explained by this text. The student will by next session work out the program by content and by scheme – this will be called the key-program of each individual student. This key-program will be definitively distinctive with the choice of the 2 practices. It is true that whatever practices, a student must have a general program layout; but even though specifics will be found for each practice. Program not only as a matter of quantities but also qualities. The studio – or what can be expected by or from – architecten de vylder vinck taillieu will be explained in the lecture and the exhibitions. The venues will be visited by the student on their own initiative. The student is responsible to collect all information on those venues. However some infor-mation will be available. The student will by next session work out a set of documents that will be key-documents of each student. It is to be recommended that students will work together for the same venues; nevertheless personal interpretations will be appreci-ated.

ADVVT

Requested format of the a3 documents

28

The specific of the architectural practices is some-thing special in this exercise. It gives the student opportunity to learn to know several practices – it is to be advised that as much as possible diverse choices will be made by the students to have as much as possible broad insight -. The student will work out by next session a set of documents that testifies his insight view in those practices and so that it is valid for this exercise: the school and the practice.All documents as demanded will be presented on A3 portrait – the exact layout is communicated later -. Nevertheless the student will back-up all necessary documents in the necessary format to make his project possible.

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07*%8(9#0%#:;&0%-#:,8*<#!)&&,%+#/#5(+0%8(9#+)",%-.)&!"##/#=32>?1@1233#33#1>A&)08+44%-#B

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Positions

Student work - first movement


29

FIRST MOVEMENT. THE ROOM. THE DOUBLE.2 sessions. Making of the rooms.

Reviewing the demanded documents:– on the program (min 1 and max 3 A3 vertical)– on the venues (min 5 and max 10 A3 vertical; gen-

eral and personal)– on the practices (min 5 and max 10 for each)– all this information on the adequate format to

make the project possible

Also to be prepared for this session and following the content of the first movement:– the daily report (summary) of the advancement upon

till now– counting from Monday to Friday this means 4 A3;

one for each day– to be recommended: more A3 to be added; following

the goals set out below.– to be recommended: first try-outs in model; at an

adequate scale.

A building is defined by its context – the presence in its surrounding -; as a building is defining context – the changing of its surrounding. This is not only on the scale of it surrounding; but merely by the scale of its smallest components. The room. The space of a room. The space. The student will develop first the idea of a room. To be said: 2 rooms. One for the school; one for the practice. To be said: 3 rooms. One for the school. Two for the two practices. To be said: a studio as a room. 3 studio’s. The student will develop or design those rooms in all aspects: plan, elevation, section and detail. When detail is mentioned. It means not only techni-cal – however; technically seen no problems might be caused -; but especially on the matter of aspect: the influence of the tectonic of materialization: not only the choice of material but the way it will be used. 2 sessions will be reserved for this movement.

The importance of the room must not be underestimat-ed. At the end people, although they probably experi-ence the whole building as building and as building in its context, they spend most of the time in the same room. Let the room be your guide throughout the later concept. Develop today a room as a an exercise on the program; not yet on the venue. Let’s accept this very worked out study of the room as knowledge to incorporate without being untouchable. Be prepared to change.

From the first of those two sessions and until the start of the second movement; students will deliver:– the daily report (summary) of the advancement upon

till now– counting from the first session this means 12 A3;



adequate scale; but 1/20 might be recommended.– drawing (sketch; scheme; plan, elevation, section;

axonometric, perspective) and model are all the instruments one will use to obtain his goal.

SECOND MOVEMENT. THE CITY.1 session. Being in the city.

Reviewing the demanded documents:– the daily report (summary) of the advancement upon

till now– counting from the first session this means 12 A3;

one for each day– it is clear that the last of those series is the

summary– to be recommended: more A3 to be added; following


adequate scale.

The moment of the venue is the truth. Is it a truth that whatever program a venue can make a building? Let’s experience this. As yet having in the conscious mind the feeling of program and room; without yet tending towards an all overviewing concept – program and venue -; just try-ing to tackle the venue.

Regarding this 1 session; preparation is the key to the success of this session. Thereby the student will be preparing this by output in following documents:– the daily report (summary) of the advancement upon

till now– counting from Monday till Friday this means 6 A3;


the goals set out before.– to be recommended: first try-outs in model; at an

adequate scale.– drawing (sketch; scheme; plan, elevation, section;


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30

THIRD MOVEMENT. THE ARCHITECT.1 session. Making the concept.


till now– counting from the second session this means 6 A3;

one for each day– it is clear that the last of those series is the

all over summary– to be recommended: more A3 to be added; following


adequate scale.

As the scale of the room and the scale the venue is preparing any consciousness as well as unconscious knowledge; we are prepared to bring this to one: to one concept set out. A concept that is not only a range of first thoughts; but merely a range of deep thoughts. Defining the concept is only a matter of freedom. Defining the concept is led by any media – drawing (sketch; scheme; plan, elevation, section; axonomet-ric, perspective) and model are all the instruments one will use to obtain his goal.

Regarding this 1 session; preparation is the key to the success of this session. Thereby the student will be preparing this by output in following documents:– the daily report (summary) of the advancement upon






– finally; one A3 will tell in schematic narrative the concept in about 5 steps or qualities

– en plus; 3 A3 will tell by perspective the atmos-phere of the concept; in its venue; by its room.


Dirk Huibers - movement 1, 2, 3

31 ADVVT

FOURTH MOVEMENT. ARCHITECTURE.2 sessions. Replacing the concept.

Architecture.







– finally; one A3 will tell in schematic narrative the concept in about 5 steps or qualities

– en plus; 3 A3 will tell by perspective the atmos-phere of the concept; in its venue; by its room.

– en plus; 3 A3 will tell by axonometric the atmos-phere of the concept; in its venue; by its room.

Here we are. Since we have the concept. We want to quit the concept. A concept is never architecture. 2 sessions will change the concept in architecture.

Regarding those 2 sessions; the student will be pre-paring this by output in following documents:– the daily report (summary) of the advancement upon






– finally; a set of A2 plans, elevations and sections.– finally; a set of A2 will tell by perspective the

atmosphere of the concept; in its venue; by its room; from scale 1/200 to 1/50 to 1/20

– finally; a set of A2 will tell by axonometric the atmosphere of the concept; in its venue; by its room.

– finally; a set of models telling its presents in the venue; telling its project as a whole; telling where its space is about; from scale 1/200 to 1/50 to 1/20w

PRESENTATION.1 session.


till now– counting all A3; one for each day– to be recommended: more A3 to be added; following




– finally; a storyboard of the concept– finally; a set of A2 plans, elevations and sections.– finally; a set of A2 will tell by perspective the

atmosphere of the concept; in its venue; by its room; from scale 1/200 to 1/50 to 1/20

– finally; a set of A2 will tell by axonometric the atmosphere of the concept; in its venue; by its room.

– finally; a set of models telling its presents in the venue; telling its project as a whole; telling where its space is about; from scale 1/200 to 1/50 to 1/20

32

ADVVT

Mark: there is some sort of impact of your of the making drawings an modelings that is felt in the studio products. They have looked at the drawings, clearly.

Jan: they all look very much at our website.

Inge: I think that was a good starting point. This is also why they had to research the work of two different offices. They then also look very much at the way these offices develop their designs, how an office is approaching things. And how it is represented. They get inspired.

Jan: In the next exercise we will emphasize this more, we will really ask them to make products that are like the office they study. I find this a very interesting thing. Like the exercise that they have to give the project to their neighbour. Students get comments and give comments in another worlds thinking. When they focus on a practice, it easily opens to them.

THE PRACTICES


33

The practises. Belgium.To be faced as practices – make your combination or use the combination that is suggested -:

Paul Robbrecht and Hilde DaemMarie-José Van Hee Paul Robbrecht, Hilde Daem and Marie-José Van Hee have recently established a new practice in the city of Ghent; to be understood: a new venue. As their collaboration – on one hand Paul and Hilde and on the other hand Marie-José – is a tradition as well they work often in separate modus; yet this configuration is interesting to take as starting point for a new school. Paul makes those drawings that make you fade away in a dream that architecture could be. Marie-José in-vites you on a summer evening to drink a glass a wine sitting in a chair that borders nor the interior nor the exterior. It borders what architecture could be.

Paul VermeulenHenk De Smet If the word “silent” could be used only one more time to frame the practices as present here; it is definitely Paul and Henk who deserve it. Strangely this concept of silent might be seemingly the opposite to the fact that the practice is also known as a prac-tice that embraces the concept of the word. Paul uses the word as the sword to design archi-tecture but also as the sword to judge architecture. Henk is the silence itselve: to hear what he just wants to say about is; silence is around.

Stéphane Beel architectenarchitecten de vylder vinck taillieu Us being definitely really the pupils of Stéphane; everyone appreciates the almost unrecognizable dif-ferentness of architecten de vylder vinck taillieu towards their master Stéphane Beel. Almost; who sees closer sees more and better. Sees that the outcome might be so much different; the underlaying believe in architecture is not different at all. Stéphane has taught us that blue ink can be used both to draw and to calculate the drawing. He will keep on inspiring us yet for decades.

And there is more:

office kersten geers david van severenxdga – xavier de geyter architecten

51N4EFrank Delmulle – Ideëel conceptenbranderij –

noa architectenBenoit Van Innis

T.O.P. office – Luc Deleu1:1 architecten

BOVENBOUWBARAK architecten

Els Claessens Tanja Vandenbussche

Paul Robbrecht and Hilde Daem, Marie-José Van Hee, market hall in Ghent

Paul Vermeulen and Henk De Smet, wijkgezondheidscen-trum Brugse Poort

Stéphane Beel architecten, Museum M, Leuven

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35

CATALOGUE

Jo: It was really a special studio, because everyone produced very per-sonal results, approaching the various tasks in their own particular way. Not a single project fell away in the strategy to make use of contempo-rary architectural resources.

36

TOMAS DIRRIX

Jan: The idea behind Tomas’ design was to use the complexity of the Liedtsplein as it functions now as a traffic node. This fact was used on the ground floor as well as on the level with the studio spaces for education on architecture and the city. Each end of the inter-secting avenue terminates in a square occupied by a cathedral. The proposed structure both cel-ebrates and questions this. Isolat-ing the structural element of the vault and stretching its’ spatial thickness enables it to provide a double interaction with the square. In contrast with the rigidity of the neighbouring church buildings, the vaulted structures overlap and intersect into a new knot-like cathedral, creating intermediate spaces and playing with the cur-rent condition of Liedtsplein as an unstructured urban space.

CatalogueStudio: New Schools of Architecture

Caption Caption Caption

37

Fourth movement

Jan: The finality was more difficult, but here you can see some good facade images.

Tomas Dirrix

38

Second movement

Montage of how the volumes will link to their surroundings.

First movement

Idea of the vault

Initial composition with differ-ent volumes, directly related to the existing axis and surrounding building blocks.

Bewegingen van A tot Z

new schools of architecture, bruxelles / ghent

tudelft, faculty of architecture, departement of interiors buildings and cities

docent: jan de vylder, jo taillieu

student: tomas dirrix

winter 2012


39

Fourth movement

In the final stages the seper-ate volumes are placed in an egg shaped enslosure.

In place and scale it is in line with the two cathedrals opposing eachother.

Third movement

The vaults intersecting, making a building

Tomas Dirrix

40

HENK DE HAAN

Jan: There was a certain double-ness in the project. He made the school twice with two practices. He took Xavier and Kerstens, and then, all of a sudden, with the same floor plan but with other dimensions, he had a tower and a slab. Trapped in the story about Xaviers tower, it all came to-gether, a perfect concequence of his thinking. The tower and the slag: this is the way they greet and meet.

Sometimes they don’t believe they can do it or they don’t yet know how. Take Henk for example. We re-ally forced him and at the end he said: Wow look what I made! It’s a pity he didn’t understand it com-pletely. For me Henk was the most successful student.


41

Movement 1 to 4

Development of the building shape. In the third and fourth model there is an obvious attempt to implement the smaller scale of the room into the urban scale.

Jo: Henk researched a lot of things. From the interior to the urban scale, he gathered all the components to come to one pro-ject. It was not the most logi-cal sequence, and he did a lot of strange things. He was looking for general elements; he was not coming to a focal point. But in the end his urban design made an incredible project.

Henk de Haan

42

Third movement

Jan: The second half was a lot more interesting than the first half. The best moment was when he brought his building into a rela-tionship with its context, with

that which was already there, and the facade typology began to take over, to start a conversation. The analysis and his own building - you should really put those side by side. He positioned his building as a mirror of the building opposite.


43

Third movement

The study of the facades including the different layers. One is lean-ing and the other straight.

Henk de Haan

44

ANNE VAN HOUT

Jan: What I liked about Anne’s pro-ject is that you could talk about the advantage of the intermediate space, having a debate on the fact that this wall is too close and we could say something like yeah, close enough, that is interestingly close, that you could talk about these kinds of elements. Anne started making sketches of all the rooms, and she got an unbeliev-able control over how things hap-pen and how things feel. And after that she made the plans. Shifting techniques is an approved method that we love to do. As long as you teach as your work in your office, these are the methods.

Anne: I started out using the for-mat of papers and how you can use this system to make rooms. Looking at the different architecture firms I tried to see the certain sphere of spaces that they make. My first model was a classroom, with rooms accessible without corridors. Then I took the paper size again, how can you make connections? Dif-ferent rooms contained different activities. I thought about court-yards in Ghent. My most important question was the wall in the mid-dle of the site. How you can deal with that wall? How you can wander through the building? You can see that in my final presentation.


45

A

B

C

D

E

F

G

H

I

J

K

Third movement

A wall that became a beam and a beam that became a wall. In Anne’s project the space is divided by walls, and by leaving a piece out you create space and everything is organized. You can really see that in the scale model. And on that wonderful worksheet, which is re-ally serves as a kind of summary of her whole project. At one point she also produced a sheet combin-ing programm, Office and DVVT all together. And a page showing a breakdown of the programme.

Anne van Hout

46

First movement

Jan: This was an interesting start, applying that shift in scale. At a certain point she said, those lines, that is Office, and those open spaces, that is DVVT.

Third and fourth movement

Jan: Anne started making sketches of all the rooms, and she got an unbelievable control over how things happen and how things feel.


47

4

Department of Arts of the Sint-Lucas FAKZwarte ZusterstraatGhentInplantingsplan1/2000

Z Y X W

V U T S R Q

P O N M L

KI

J

HG

FE

DC

BA

Z Y X W

V U T S R Q

P O N M L

Third movement

Jo: At one point she also produced a sheet combining all together. And a page showing a breakdown of the programme.

context walls spaces structure (office) fascination (advvt)

Fourth movement

Jan: In Anne’s project the space is divided by walls, and by leav-ing a piece out you create space and everything is organized. For example, the way in which you took Anne’s plan going from room to room, and what happens in between. How you position the garden walls, and in this way all manner of as-pects come together or you touch on a great many different things which slowly begin to cohere.

Anne van Hout

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MICHELA MATTIONI

Jan: We experienced a break-ing point with Michela when she was organizing the interior of her building. She didn’t have any walls, and those columns, they weren’t there yet. Then she start-ed trying different orientations: the structure of one building in this direction and the other in a different direction, as a sort of contemporary plaything, like you often see in modern architecture. Consciously exploring a varied image. And then we had a long discussion about those columns. And in this plan here you can see that the column has become archi-tecture. That was what surprised Michela the most in the result of her project: the simple princi-ple that we were able to find. That was the great thing, putting the columns there, and there, that was the ultimate merit. The other good thing about her project was the discussion about the positioning of the blocks. In the end the composition was fairly simple, with a freely-designed façade here, and the perspective seen from the street, but we had a very lengthy discussion about this.

The discussion about the columns was also related to the fourth building. She didn’t make three buildings, but four. Because this building was just standing there expressionless in that setting. That was the intelligent thing about that project: all of a sud-den, there was the spatial organi-zation and the positioning of the blocks on the one hand, but par-ticularly the position in relation to the other block, so that the fourth building ultimately becomes part of the whole.

Jo: The lecture about the site plan brought us to building num-ber four. That was one of those ultimate moments, we didn’t steer things in that direction, but al-lowed the students to see it for themselves. So how did it happen? We believe in serendipity, that you sometimes need a bit of luck. And when you see it, you know that that’s it, that it works. Totally. And she’d built a good scale model. We walked around that model, and we said to her, do you see what we’re doing. This is how we of-ten work, we’re sitting round the table, thinking, and then all of a sudden it comes to you. And that feeling that you’ve got it, you can almost always confirm it right away.


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Fourth movement Structural model of the building blocks in the Ghent location.

Michela Mattoni

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Second movement

The positioning of the building blocks. A very simple composition with actually four buildings.


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Fourth movement

Michela made in the first movement an uniform structure with no di-rection and develop this to an one direction structure and finally into an oriented structure with ir-regular rhythm. She discovered how the position of columns organizes without divisions.

Michela Mattoni

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BART VAN DER ZALM

Jan: Bart started off by examin-ing the column structure and the graphics of the school in Brus-sels itself. He made a detailed study of how this all fit together. Then we had a discussion about the regularity of the structure and any deviations. He finished the room exercise pretty quickly. Next came the exercise aimed at creat-ing space using a column and beam. You can see that strongly reflected here. And at a certain point he started doing this. This scale model (of the room) and these drawings, of his first room, were very good. The connection of the beam to the column in Bart’s project, that was one of those very significant details.


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Jan: He made a great preliminary drawing of a column. See the de-tail of the column. He was fas-cinated by this right from the start, really, seemingly unasked.

Bart van der Zalm

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Third Movement model

Model of St. Lucas in Brussels as made during the third movement.

Final spatial impression

First movement

Jan: He produced this scale model and amazingly, really, he didn’t put the column right under the beam. That thing with the column and the beam, of course it’s really good, but there’s a lot more to it than that.


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Third movement - drawing

Jan: Bart started off by examin-ing the column structure and the graphics of the school in Brus-sels itself. He made a detailed study of how this all fit together. Then we had a discussion about the regularity of the structure and any deviations. He finished the room exercise pretty quickly. Next came the exercise aimed at creat-ing space using a column and beam. You can see that strongly reflected here. And at a certain point he started doing this. This scale model (of the room) and these drawings, of his first room, were very good.

Jo: He arrived at a module to bring it to the scale of the school. How are you dealing with different lev-els, how you bring programme into it? He produced some very inter-esting drawings.

Bart van der Zalm

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Fourth movementA limited set of columns protrudes — through voids.


57 Bart van der Zalm

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EPILOGUE

60 Epilogue

REFLECTIONSBY STUDENTS


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Henk de Haan

If I compare the studio with a ‘normal’ studio from Interiors, I’d say that my ideas were not quite as ‘steered’. It’s a much freer approach. They get their influences and references from all over the place, from countless different directions, includ-ing from the surroundings. At the TU, you focus more on the function, it’s more straightforward. And then this. They want you to come up with a plan, but then you must be prepared to let it go. At the TU, you had to develop your plan in a straight-forward way. The project was a bit too short. Starting with the interior was a strange experience. I had real trouble reversing the order of things. This changed when we started designing on the basis of the surroundings, that’s more what we’re used to. That’s when I started to get into it. Working from the interior, I started with the idea of sepa-rate boxes. Once I had decided where I was going to put my building, I could start a more surround-ings-based design process. Jan and Jo stressed the importance of using other means, encourag-ing us to try other research methods. Sketch a rough design, or make a quick model instead of spending hours at the computer. They wanted us to try drawing more by hand. They taught us that there are many different ways to approach and research a project. I used this in later projects. I found it really funny that when they were to-gether, they both seemed to think along the same lines. They make a really good team, and they’re funny too. They have a good sense of humour. Sometimes they were obviously enthusiastic about something, but then you had to work it out for yourself. I often got the idea that they saw things in your design that you hadn’t seen your-self. In that case, their references were differ-ent from the ones you had in your own mind. For example, for the façade they strongly encouraged me to look at the surroundings, whereas left to my own devices, I would probably have sat down and designed a pattern. They really sent me in a direction I wouldn’t have thought of on my own. Design decisions really don’t have to have a ra-tional basis, you can pick them up from just about anywhere. It’s a real bonus that you have more freedom to do this kind of thing.

Anne van Hout

The great thing is, when you look at Jan and Jo’s work, you get inspired right away through the way they think, draw and design. It doesn’t have to be so terribly difficult. Sometimes, the real strength is in the simplest sketches and a seemingly small idea that you can work out into something very big. You just need to be confident that it might be (or become) something worthwhile. In this studio, Jan and Jo gave you a lot of freedom and confidence to work in this way. They are great at communicating their fascination and enthusiasm for the things they come across during the studio. They see things in your design that you haven’t seen yourself. It’s as if they already know where it’s going to go before you know it yourself, and without them trying to steer you in that direction. And afterwards, they still seem surprised at what you’ve done. And you surprise yourself. They do help you, by suggesting new references or getting you to look just that bit better at what you’re actually doing. This teaches you to appreciate things better, because that scruffy little drawing may very well conceal a valuable thought. The concept was very important, but at the same time it was just a ‘vehicle’; it helped you to progress, you had to be able to let it go but without putting a sign by it later to explain. In the end, it turns out that you’ve actually worked something out very consistently, without hav-ing the feeling of hanging on to it for dear life all the while. The same applies to the products and keeping a record of the process; it all happened by itself. You weren’t thinking about working through your list, you were just making the prod-ucts you needed to showcase your idea. The variation in supervision makes this a good studio. Sometimes we had individual supervi-sion, then we discussed each other’s versions with the whole group, and another time we spent a day working on a fellow-student’s design. That was another thing that made this studio different, you were continually kept on your toes. They were always on the ball. That kept things interesting.

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Bart van der Zalm

What was so different about Jan and Jo? Their endless enthusiasm for even the most stupid idea. They weren’t prejudiced. Highly positive from the word go. In other projects, it doesn’t take long before you start getting criticism on all kinds of aspects, but Jan and Jo’s studio was the first time this didn’t happen. Their enthusiasm gave me a lot of confidence, and it gave a huge positive vibe to the whole studio. That’s why eve-ryone produced something good in the end. We were all happy to put a lot of effort into the studio. That’s what made their studio different and was the most important part as far as I’m concerned. The main thing I learned is that you can stay in a sort of associative phase for as long as pos-sible. In other programmes, it can be fun and creative at first, but then you get into the pro-gramme or the strict requirements, and the fun side doesn’t necessarily disappear, but you lose the associative aspect. With Jan and Jo, you start with a very specific type of inspiration, which you hold onto for as long as possible, and if you just keep working on it, everything falls into place. In a normal project, the practical and technical side (such as integrating your design into the programme of requirements) can make you lose sight of your creativity. Jan and Jo want you to be highly creative for as long as possible and not worry as much because you can be sure that everything else will fall into place. This also had a positive effect on the projects I did after this, at the Leeskabinet as well as dur-ing my graduation project. I was able to set aside the 6 pages of the programme and follow my fas-cination, confident that the original requirements would turn out all right in the end. I also learnt just how much poetry you can get out of the simplest architectonic elements. And how to explore this. A column is not just a col-umn. A wall is not just a line that you draw some-where because you want to separate two spaces. Not having to think about all those other things was liberating and allowed me to get the most out of it.

Tomas Dirrix

Henk de Haan

Anne van Hout

Bart van der Zalm

EpilogueStudio: New Schools of Architecture

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Tomas Dirrix

The thing I found most liberating about this studio compared to others was that it wasn’t all about the final product. You weren’t immediately aware of whether you had to design a building or what it was supposed to be. It was all still very free. The chosen location seemed impos-sible for the assignment. There was a great deal of friction. It gradually became clear that this was typical of this method of working. A con-stant search for conflict, almost a quest for the impossible. You start by thinking about a room, a compact interior. Then this had to be expanded to create a structure that could work as an out-line for the organisation of the building. The next step was to let go of this outline and consider the urban integration aspect. And then we had to bring these two aspects face to face, which of course never fits. But this confrontation led to something new, something that had elements of both the original plans, or maybe neither. I found this very inspiring. It makes you far less dogmatic in your work. Jan and Jo were interested in everything in principle, but perhaps less so in the design products you made. Because you set something down, and you wanted to tell your story, and they had already seen something interesting that hadn’t occurred to you yet, and that had to be enlarged upon. And then Jan went running off to find a foam block and set to work right away. There was so much energy. All the time. I don’t think I ever really had a chance to completely finish telling my story, yet it was very enjoyable. Sometimes, your whole project was turned up-side down within a half hour, and became totally unlike your original idea. That was interesting. The most valuable learning experience for me personally was the basic premise of increas-ing scale, letting go, and then starting again on another scale. And then bringing it all together again. You can’t plan a confrontation in a build-ing. There was friction between our urban vi-sions and our interiors. They didn’t quite fit in but we managed to make them work together. You can’t normally design like this. It really works, that method of designing things sepa-rately and then letting them clash. You don’t

end up with a dry linear concept. If you look at a building, you can identify all the different steps. You get extra layers. In Delft, once you’ve developed a clear con-cept, you’re ready. You mustn’t touch it after that; you have to develop it, make it materialise and present it. If the concept was clear, Jan and Jo said OK, now we’re going to smash that con-cept to pieces. We’re going to cut into it, break it down in various ways. That creates a sort of tension, you can feel there is a plan of kinds, but it’s not clear what it is, because some of the ingredients don’t marry together. It creates an element of surprise. The other thing I found interesting was that they asked you to print a visual summary every day. By the end of the week, you had seven im-ages. The most important thing is a step; you need it for the next step. Then you close the shutters on the day, and on your thoughts. Every time you thought, this time I’ve nailed it, but then afterwards you had no idea where you were at.

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Mark: The literature list is a culture of reading material. It is consistent in its variation. I really liked Constructing Ar-chitecture next to Peter Eisen-mann and atelier Bow Wow.

Jan: We need all these things. Stu-dents don’t have enough knowledge about books and that is a pity. In the office we have an enormous col-lection of books. Not only to read but also to look at, to refer to. For example: Constructing Archi-tecture, it is a very simple book. Anders Abraham, we discovered last year: A New Nature, it is a useless book, but so useful. It is full of drawings and things. Students just have to buy them. Christopher Al-exander, that is fantastic. I have never read it completely.

Jan: Look at the drawings from Rachel Whiteread, this is just something you have to have on your desk. The book shows students what a drawing could be. You have to have these books on your desk, around you. Ante Timmermans’ book. It is not the kind of work I would most like to hang on my wall. It is the kind of book you want to have on your bookshelf, to learn things. Like so many books. Like Lutyens too.

BIBLIOGRAPHY


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A new natureAnders Abraham9788787136884

Constructing Architecture Andrea Deplazes 9783764371890

Graphic Anatomy Atelier Bow-Wow9784887062788

People meet in Architecture Biennale Architettura 2010978883170651

L’Architecture - Edition Ramee CN Ledoux97809104130309

The domestic architecture of Sir Edwin Lutyens - A.S.G. Butler 9781851491001

ADVVT

66

Gebouwen van het plastische getal Ids Haagsma9789051050424

Ten Canonical Buildings 1950-2000 Peter Eisenman 9780847830480

A Pattern Language Christopher Alexander9780195019193

Twenty buildings every architect should understand - Simon Unwin9780415552523

Jan: Super reading matter,it is to say: everybody should have ‘hold it’ and for every cluster of titles buy at least 1 book - it is to say buy at least 6 books!

InformalCecil Balmond9783791324005

Distance and Engagement Vogt Landscape Architects 9783037781968


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Moderne tijden Ingeleid door Geert Bekaert9789077833063

The feeling of things Adam Caruso9788434311862

Architectural Positions Tom Avermaete (red.) 9789085065661

Materials on the work of Christiaan Kerez 97837757227803

Architecture as a craft Michiel Riedijk 9789461051035

*. LaB /Concept and drawings

Jannah Loontjens / Short stories

Ralph Bauer / Book design

johnny golding / Interventions

h o u s i n g

Lieven De Boeck

Housing Lieven De Boeck 9072076222

ADVVT

Caption

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Cuttings Simon Starling 3775716742

Rene Heyvaert 9789055446179

Here/Hier Frank Halmans9789490322137

DrawingsRachel Whiteread 9783791350387

Whistling a happy tune Michaël Borremans 9789055447299

Ante Timmermans 9783869841458


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Sign Painting ProjectFrancis Alÿs 9783865212900

Wijzen van wonenGery de Smet 9789057790157

DrawingPeter Cook 978047003481

Thomas Demand Moma 1905190085

ADVVT

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Jan de Vylder (1968, Sint Niklaas) studied architecture at Sint-Lucas in Ghent. In 2000 he established an office with Trice Hofkens, and since 2006 he has operated under his own name. He studied architec-ture at the Sint-Lucas School for Science and Art in Ghent. He was for several years a project direc-tor for Stéphane Beel. In 2005 he won the Architecture Prize of the province of East Flanders for the renovation of a small terraced house. In 2004-2005 De Vylder also lectured at Ghent University. And since 2005 he has taught at the Sint-Lucas School for Science and Art in Brussels. Since 2007 he has also been a guest lecturer at the TU Delft in the Netherlands.

Jo Taillieu (1971, Wevelgem) stud-ied architecture at St Luke’s Col-lege of Science and Art in Ghent and at the Duncan Jordanstone College of Art in Dundee (Scot-land). He then worked successively for Max 1 Architects (Rotterdam), Jo Crepain Architect (Antwerp) and Stéphane Beel and Lieven Achter-gael Architects (Bruges) and for 6 years was a project director for the temporary partnership of Stéphane Beel-Xaveer De Geyter Architects in Ghent. In addition to his own practice, he also works for Crepain Binst Architecture in Antwerp. From 2002 to 2005 he was a practical assistant in the Archi-tecture Department of the Fac-ulty of Applied Sciences at Ghent University. He won the Belgian Architecture Award in 2007 and the East Flanders Architecture Prize in 2008.

Inge Vinck (1973)2010-architecten de vylder vinck taillieu bvba jan de vylder and inge vinck2008-2010jan de vylder architecten bvba, jan de vylder en inge vinck2001-2007collaborator of Stephane Beel architecten1997-2001collaborator of Patrice Mottini (Parijs) Education2013-2015professor CH, Mendrisio, Universita dela Svizerra Italiana, academia di architettura2011-2012guest professor TUDelft (NL) Msc 22012-2013guest professor Sandberg Institute Amsterdam, Studio for Immediate Spaces - Master Interior Architecture2011-professor Ecole National Superieue d’architecture et de Paysage de Lille2010-jury masters Provinciale Hogeschool Limburg Departement Architectuur2004-2009jury masters Sint Lucas Gent2007-2011jury St Luc Tourcoing1999-2000organisation of studytrips to Berlin/Basel, Rotterdam and Finland for the students of architecture of Quai Malaquais (Paris)


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Students 2011-2012:

Students 2012-2013:

Teachers:

Visiting critics:Tony FrettonMark PimlottEireen Schreurs Jurjen Zeinstra Rosie van der Schans

Concept: Eireen SchreursCopy editing: talen UvAEdited by: Caspar Frenken, Sereh Mandias, Eireen SchreursGraphic Design: Hans Gremmen

Images: All images and photographs presented in this booklet were pro-vided by the authors and students, unless otherwise stated. The pub-lisher has attempted to meet the conditions imposed by law for the use of the images. If we omitted any proper acknowledgement, we encourage copyright holders to notify the publisher.

Cover image: Bart van der Zalm

Spring 2015

To order a copy or pdf of this publication, please visit:www.tudeflt-architecture.nl/chairs/the-architecture-of-the-interior/publications

Tomas DirrixAnne Geenen Henk de Haan Anne van Hout Dirk Huibers

Mariet Kooren Jan-Maarten MulderMichela Mattioni Pim SchachtschabelSarah Marijn Trap

Sanne Verhoeve Bart van der ZalmOdette Zwinkels

Linda Brembs Adriana Carillo Hurtado Jeroen de Graaf Denis Kolesnikov Daisy Koppendraaier

Rik Lambers Hinke Majoor Khalid El Meziani Xylon Ning Roland Reemaa

Bob de Rijk Niek Schoenmakers Ansis Šinke Jonathan de Veen Morris Yang

Jo Taillieu Jan de Vylder Inge Vinck

Colophon


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Studio №2: NEW SCHOOLS OF ARCHITECTURE