Trust

Space is tested, conversations take place in wood, iron and cardboard. Decoratelier is a permanent place within the constructional quest for constantly changing spaces in which art, thought and artisans meet. Jozef Wouters

Building Out Loud! As architects, we are used to planning everything, thinking everything through and to drawing every last detail of an ideal we hope to make a reality. During the seminar week we will challenge this canonical sequence and focus on another dimension of our on-site presence in Regensdorf. Building Out Loud! is a method of thinking through making, of sharing through showing, of connecting through performing. This strategy will allow us to build knowledge together and exchange with guests from diverse backgrounds. Experiencing ideas through constructing them will allow us to test and fail, to explore and assess. Building Out Loud! will happen on scale 1 to 1 organised methodologically by way of building together, centring intuition; building alone, focusing on exactitude; and finally taking a moment to engage in not building through critical reflection.

Trust. Doing so will demand trust, as we will not start with a prescribed idea of what we will do. After a few weeks of working in the standardized environment of our temporary studio in Regensdorf, we will collectively reflect on the needs that have been revealed by this occupation. Needs of various natures: practical and related to the collective life and work happening on our floor, or more atmospheric ones, tackling the generic aesthetics of the space and its monotonous spatial experience, materiality and tectonics. Over the course of five days, we will build as we think, with trust in the potential of the space we have, and in the capabilities of the repurposed wood or wood products we will have available as a material.

Together. In varying configurations, changing day by day, we will be tackling needs we have identified. Designing and constructing, thinking and building all at once, testing different strategies of cladding, prototyping or spatial alterations. To accompany this process, we will join forces with scenographer and artist Jozef Wouters, who coined the phrase Building Out Loud, to describe his artistic approach, and with builder Gaia Carabillo. As a complement to this collective effort, an impromptu programme of readings, lectures, films and walks will be offered, helping to frame and feed some of the reflections arising from our endeavour.

Over the course of our seminar week, we will become architects-builders, thinkers-makers, and closely engage our design discipline with craft. A way of constructing that does not always want to know where it is going, that does not look for perfection, but that advances with trust, relying on care and hands-on reflection.

25 -29 October 2021 - Cost frame B (251-500 CHF) - max. 24 students

Building Out Loud! is an integrated seminar week / encounter within Denkraum#9 Trust - Building Values
Team: An Fonteyne, Khensani de Klerk, Els Silvrants-Barclay, Pablo Donet in collaboration with Jozef Wouters (artist and scenographer) and Gaia Carabillo.