Architects: V+/Bureau vers plus de bien-être Location: Ternat, Belgium Client: Cortier – De Lat Design Team: Jörn Aram Bihain, Thierry Decuypere, Shin Hagiwara Engineers: Kathleen Mertens Contractor: CPR Construction (main construction), De Meersman (carpentry), FMP (metalwork) Design year: 2001-2003 Construction year: 2003-2005 Surface: 360 sqm Budget: 325.000 euro Photographs: V+, Olivier Chenoix, Patrick Van Roy
The USA counts 31 inhabitants per square kilometer. Belgium is ranked second (excl. microstates) in human population density in Europe with 350 inhabitants per square kilometer, and everybody wants his own piece of land to build on. “A Belgian is born with a brick in his stomach” is a saying often used. So it’s reasonable that the land development and the architecture on it are bound by strategy and certain rules, based on economy, ecology, sociology, urban design, etc.
However, since Belgium is divided in several governments, determined by language (dutch, french and german) and jurisdiction, the Belgian landscape is mainly moulded by past varying political authority, (federal, by community, by region, by province, by local authority, … you get the point) absent of a joint policy or vision, only serving a capitalist economy. This is how Belgium became one big suburban patchwork by scattering the nostalgia of the garden city, in the shape of the allotment.
