Two buildings. Two production studios for dance theatre and music theatre. For Les Ballets C de la B and LOD. Where they were expecting to have to share a single building, each found its own building. The buildings stand there, parked on a site that – at first sight – seems impossible, surrounded by 17 different sides. The site is given order again by buildings and open space. Open space as urban space. Open space as private space between the buildings and their surroundings.
Two buildings, copied. A reflection. A copy, but different. Two buildings. Back to back. And yet, looking at each other.
Two closed buildings. And, nonetheless, two open facades. Facades that offer an insight into the building. A particular insight. Open facades that nevertheless also offer an insight into the construction. Of the building. A layering of columns and beams: steel, wood, concrete, and masonry. Construction that shows the face of the building. Detail of the building. The facade opens the building by unravelling the thickness of the facade. And suddenly the subsidiary spaces become visible. The piling-up of those subsidiary spaces becomes visible. An accumulation bound together by a staircase. In this way, the heart of the building – the studio – becomes visible from time to time. And vice versa. Looking out from the studio through the pile of spaces. Looking outside from the intimacy of the building. Likewise from the studio’s loggias. Windows that bring the outside inside. Context. Inspiring context.
Back to the outside and look at the studio’s closed facades. This skin, too, is peeled, layer by layer, in the same way. And leaving openings to allow green growth over the whole facade.
Special remarks:
European Price for Architecture Mies van der Rohe Award 2009. Production studios HeL (Les Ballets C de la B & LOD). Nomination.
Belgian Building Awards. Production studios HeL (Les Ballets C de la B & LOD)
Nomination (non-residential building).
Belgische Prijs voor architectuur / Belgian price for architecture. Production studios HeL (Les Ballets C de la B & LOD). Nomination.
Adventures in wonderland. Les Ballets C de la B. Shane O’Toole. In Architecture in Flanders, Yearbook 2008-2009 edition 2010. Published by Vlaams Architectuurinstituut (VAi) (Flemish Architecture Institute), 2010. ISBN 978-90- 813263-2-2 (NL). ISBN 978-90-813263-3-9 (EN).
Productionstudios Les Ballets C de la B & LOD. Lars Kwakkenbos. In New European Architecture 09/10. Editors: Hans Ibelings, Kirsten Hannema. Published by Sun Architecture, 2010. ISBN 978-90-850698-8-1.
10x10_3; 100 architects 100 critics. Selected by Ai Weiwei. Published by Phaidon Press, 2009. ISBN 978-07-148495-3-9.
Les Ballets C de la B & LOD. Koen van Synghel. In A+U, no 475. Special issue; Architecture in Belgium and the Netherlands. April 2010.
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