The starting point is an abstract rectangle: a perimeter within which 70,000 m² can be newly built. The existing HIL is not replaced but becomes a secondary body, one that will be protected in the future by the climate of the new building. The extension thus becomes a model for a future economy: architecture as a long-term, resilient construction whose ecological intelligence lies within a horizon of uncertainty.
This way of thinking calls for a radical approach to time: building and unbuilding happen simultaneously. Not optimisation or preservation, but a continuous process – an architectural perpetual motion in which change is not a disturbance but a principle. Two “eternal” cranes symbolise this dynamic future as an ongoing condition.
Methodologically, the studio follows a “research by design” approach: hypotheses and narratives are developed early and structure the entire process. Research is understood as operative – it shapes programme, construction, ecology and economy, and generates scenarios from which design decisions emerge. During the preparatory phase, variants are developed collectively; in the design phase, each participant continues individually, with the existing HIL becoming an open field of interpretation.
The approach builds on the chair’s 3.33%–33.3%–333% thinking: intervention, exaggeration and speculation create unexpected opportunities. After experiences in Charleroi and Zurich, this attitude now turns to the HIL – as a site of maximum transformation, where architecture is rethought: nothing less, nothing more.