Brutal and banal with a hint of floral
The --scapes of Antwerp

The aim was to explore and interpret what exists between strongly recognisable urban facts, allowing unclear and unspecified places to become the fundamental starting point of a critical reinterpretation of pockets and slices of Antwerp.
Looking for spatial, formal and material features that do not comply with binary logics, the students have been asked to apprehend a new language and react to new ways of doing, seeing and inhabiting.
Giving up dichotomies and oppositions, we discovered, analysed, documented and understood -scapes1 of Antwerp (unused sealed surfaces, forgotten spaces between properties, outdated infrastructures, unexploited rooftops).
We then structured a set of strategies aiming to reinterpret the selected -scapes, both domesticating and enhancing them. Leaving margin to experimentation through different mediums and ways of communication, the participants produced a series of artefacts: videos, spacial interventions, sculptures, performances.


International Design Workshop at UAntwerpen
2023