BIENNALE ARCHITETTURA 2023

We love to share with you that BDR bureau & Carton123 are invited to the 18th International Architecture Exhibition of La Biennale di Venezia, curated by Lesley Lokko. We are honoured to be participating in the section ‘Dangerous Liaisons’ at the Arsenale. We focus entirely on one work, an open call competition Kappaert, won by BDR bureau & Carton123 (construction will start in September).

Boundaries / co-existence
Kappaert is a school campus that includes a variety of activities; a school for children with special needs, an art academy and summer recreational activities. It fits into a (typically Flemish) heterogeneous built environment, characterised by underutilised public spaces and a cemetery. The project is defined by an ambiguity between dissolving boundaries and creating boundaries, to define protected spaces for children on the autism spectrum. We have been working to translate this ambiguity into built form (the shape of the classroom units and their transition space to the corridor, the coherence in the organization between the various building levels, the pavement as a tool to support orientation etc..). A line can be an insurmountable boundary, depending on the eyes of the beholder. An enclosure can become a pleasant place to stay for a while. A separation can accommodate a zone of transition.

The exhibition displays the ambiguous connotation of the theme ‘boundaries', through models and fragments at various scales and visual anchoring points, complemented by hand drawings. Rather than present the fragments as static representations of architectural intent, we aim to share them with the visitors as elements that exist and co-exist, to enable individuals to work together, design, communicate, make progress, imagine and reimagine the world.

Collaborative process
Kappaert is conceived by many individuals and authors, we aim to share this with the visitors. The project is a close cooperation between the designers, the school community and Research[x]Design, a multidisciplinary research group at the KULeuven that studies the way spaces are experienced from different perspectives. Aspects from multiple points of view were considered – from children on the autism spectrum in particular – at a more detailed scale than that of a master plan. The collaborative process between the architects -with workshops on-site and long-distance communication- is displayed but also the discussions with the future users of the campus are shown. It is an essential discussion, to fully understand the relationship between spatial design and the impact on mental stimuli.

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