OUEST’s master studio is built up in the spirit of BAS “Complex Buildings” and/or “Complex Contexts” approach, with a clear and specific fascination for the city, the urban context and its complexity. The studio aims to work with what – and who – is already there in an enthusiastic, respectful, and uninhibited way. Together, we’ll try to see how to operate on urban issues, from the tools and perspective of architecture, aiming to strengthen the urban dynamic and address with precise tools and proposals the big question: how to live together?

With radical consistency, the studio would like to focus on the already there, in the broadest sense of the word. Site of projects will be on renovations or transformations of existing structures, where the reuse of materials and building components plays a central role, aiming to embrace cocreation with communities, engineers, scholars, contractors and potential users. In all these processes, dialogue comes first. The classical doctrine of hylomorphism—whereby the architect imposes form onto matter and context—would fundamentally be questioned and redefined in the studio.

During the Spring 2026 semester, we have been working on a part of Brussels, Belgium. More precisely, in Forest, along rue du Charroi. We deliberately decided to work around that street, in an area which is more a collage of different parts and urban infrastructures (train tracks, big entrance/exit to the city,…) than a coherent ensemble. How to make a (collective) project from/in that specific area?

TEAM
Teachers: Stéphane Damsin, Jan Haerens, Marina Bauer.

Students: Cecile Dentjens, Anna-Lena Fiedler, Tone Firing, Sarah Guernut, Rashad Hussein, Anders Haagenrud, Floriane Jarry, Iver Kubberød, Erlend Kvitte, Yu-Ting Lin, François Mouzelard, Nelowfer Muhammadi (partly), Marcus Ringen-Sørensen, Neshat Shirazi, Daniel Sneltvedt, Mia Alette Stenseth

Thanks to guests (mid crits, extra tutoring and end crits):
Christopher Dell, Bernice Donszelmann, Guillaume Eckly, Espen Folgerø, Emma Nilsson.