FEDERICA SOFIA ZAMBELETTI/KOOZWe’re so glad to bring together Ken De Cooman, co-founder of the Brussels-based BC Architecture, Studies and Materials; architect Daniel Bell, who leads a collaboration with BC and Assemble at Atelier LUMA, among other projects and Jamiee Ma Williams, Head of Projects and Partnerships at the OBEL Foundation.

It would be fantastic to draw a line back through OBEL’s development of the Build initiative; it’s interesting to see how the OBEL Award has evolved within the wider discourse and ambitions of the OBEL Foundation.

JAMIEE MA WILLIAMSSure. So the OBEL Award, as it originally was called, was founded in 2019. It was set up after an endowment left by Henrik F Obel who was friends with Jørn Utzon; and started to understand the impact that architecture could have. The experience of travel, of exploring new cultures — that was a gift, if you like, and he decided to dedicate his fortune to the power of architecture to shape society and the way we live. He really wanted to show the potential that architecture has to act as an agent of change, both socially and environmentally — but also, in regards to our programme, the power of travel and cultural exchange, understanding how architecture evolves in different regions and contexts could offer Danish students a new global perspective that they could bring back to Denmark.

So part of the initial programme set up by OBEL is the annual award that goes to an outstanding piece of work within the field of architecture, and it doesn't necessarily have to be a building or a project: it could be a manifesto, an idea, a political action… The intention is towards unfolding the plurality and potential of architecture. The second programme is a travel grant, whereby Danish students can apply to the OBEL foundation either to study for a semester abroad or to pursue research in a country of their choosing.

When I joined the OBEL Foundation, I thought it could be interesting to connect the travel grant with OBEL’s annual thematic focus. Every year, the OBEL jury finds an annual focus; this year, it's ‘ready made’. So we reached out to Atelier LUMA — for us, a natural partner — to see if we could actually bring students together in one collective experience, undertaking a week-long workshop to really dive into the theme of the ready-made. They will be immersed in thinking about bioregional design, the resources that exist and how to interpret them. That’s how OBEL Build was born, and this is the first time we're running it. Next year we hope to expand the programme with more students: our first workshop in October is both an inauguration and a test run!

Looking at the type of travel that students have the opportunity to do elsewhere, we felt that what was really missing was an extra level of knowledge exchange and skill-building that can really help with industry transition. There are aspects of architectural education that are shifting, with new methodologies of teaching practice. How, then, can we offer a workshop or an experience where students can dive into a singular topic that holds real relevance today, so they can take that back to their home context and apply it in a new way? With LUMA, we're discussing how to work with materials and ideas that are present both in the Danish context and in the context of southern France, so that participants can not only learn from a new bioregion, but take those learnings home as well.

KOOZJamiee, you mentioned exploring the subject of ‘ready made’ through Atelier LUMA’s bioregional approach: what prompted you to combine these two positions? Is bioregionalism a perspective that is already encouraged within academic institutions in Danish culture, or would this be a novel addition to students on the exchange programme?

JMWIn the Danish context, there are initiatives like summer schools popping up now, that are actually starting to give students a more 1:1 bio-based experience. But what excites me about LUMA is that they then also connect it to a local cultural-industrial heritage: it prompts questions about what the industrial potential might be, and what has been processed before in a given region — how can we look at that with fresh eyes? With a broad bioregional approach, you’re not going to explore one single material; the lab allows you to really dive into multiple opportunities and entities within this region. Whereas what I've seen here in Copenhagen or in Denmark is a tendency to focus on one specific plant or agricultural process. It would be great to show students the multitude that is actually there, and how you can process it and work together with different professions. You're almost becoming a scientist or ethnologist when you're taking a more bioregional approach.

DANIEL BELLThis is especially true for the Electrical Store or Le Magasin Électrique at the Parc des Ateliers, also known as Lot 8, which is the project designed by BC and BC Materials in collaboration with Assemble — and which Joe Halligan from Assemble calls “my first album”. Lot 8 was the first opportunity where we really had to try and put all of this stuff into practice: in a wall, or holding something up, trying to get as many elements of bioregional thinking into the building as possible — which was only really possible with a generous and very open client.

KEN DE COOMANI think it also goes back to the question of how to organise education, right? Either you go broad, and touch on a lot of different things —like moving along the horizontal, in a way. In industry and science, they focus on one thing; they go super vertical, deep down into a subject, and the field of knowledge is very closed. In architecture, generally, we touch on lots of different topics in a horizontal way, which is also really interesting. But I think at BC, what we try to manage is doing both at the same time.

For me, Lot 8 — the project for Atelier LUMA — is a little bit like this. There are lots of materials, but the workshops were also drilling down into materials implementation in real life situations, using testing and laboratory capacities, also talking with stability engineers, acoustical engineers — everybody had to be on board. So there is this interesting overlap between the broad view and diving into detailed aspects. I think that's a bit unique, it doesn't happen a lot and there is still a lot of work to do in this area. But that’s the combination that takes place.

DBI describe this project a bit like learning on the job. Most of us have done or encountered some of the experiences on the workshop in some form — perhaps a little bit, but not at a scale where you are going across, up and down, with ten or twelve people working across different aspects. It's a big team. But having worked on projects like Lot 8 at Atelier LUMA, people will often invite us to work on a project that follows a bioregional approach. We have to start a project in that mindset; people aren't asking us to make a building, they're asking us to research a certain region, its materials, its culture, its industries and all of these things. In recent years, we've had to develop a working methodology of how you might apply this approach in Champagne, in the United Arab Emirates or in South Korea — where we've actually started working, too.

DBI mentioned that we were able to get through that first project because of a very open and generous client; you couldn't do that project in other parts of the world, you really need a coming-together of many conditions to make it happen. The project took elements of bioregional design and then applied it to the scale of the restoration of an existing building, formerly known as the Electrical Store; not everything, but things like the straw insulation, the raw earth bricks and other elements that fit within a more constrained budget.

KDCThis economic cycle is typical; in the beginning, there is what they call the green premium; due to new methods and materials, building costs are amazingly high. From what we’re seeing at Paoli — another site in Arles that we’re working on — costs are moderately high. Now, in a third and ongoing project in the vein of social housing, the cost is not so high anymore — and it's because these routes or paths are like the neural networks in our brains. We need to repeat stuff to really engrave these networks and pathways, and it's the same with interdisciplinary, intercommunal connections. You need to work together — and multiple times — with the farmers, with the contractors, the architects, the people at Atelier Luma, the builders. Everybody needs to have done it a few times for it to become more engraved as a process between crafted networks in the construction sector, for it to become more viable, more doable, affordable and less effortful — because these processes also take a lot of human effort.

So things get easier. We have a nice example with Lot 8 for Atelier LUMA; you can always benefit from these special ‘kickstarter’ environments— we're now doing the same in Barcelona, as some subsidy funding which has given us a good budget to get things off the ground. The aim is precisely to get things going and to start a practice so that afterwards, it can survive beyond and without this large initial injection of budget. That's a really beautiful example of what good investments — which include the efforts of the community — can bring about, and how these impacts can live on in the future.

KOOZYou mentioned that the LOT 8 was something of a new kid on the block, and that it led you to develop a series of ongoing projects. When looking to export this bioregional model to countries like Korea, does it always require this initial funding? How do you ensure that there is a long-term cultural life that can be shared in the future — is facing the future always part of the way that you think?

KDCI think one tries to think like that, but it's not fully under control, because the community needs to be involved, the actors need to be in place. The context needs to be welcoming; the economic context should make things possible. So there's a lot of factors at play, there is no pre-made track or trajectory to follow. In some cases, you can go further; in others, not as far. What does happen, I think, is that you can create a practice, not only within BC or Atelier LUMA, but with these actors, so that projects can continue evolving through the next versions, the next updates or whatever. Local actors can also initiate change or start new actions within their own community, with others — that's the concept of creating alliances, and building a global community of bioregional approaches. You don't control the trajectory, but it always has an effect on the community.

KOOZThis really challenges the image of the sole architect focussed on one project, but really shifting towards the idea of systems thinking. How has that impacted on the way that BC is structured as an office, and what it requires to operate as an architect — how wide or narrow does your scope need to be?

KDCIndeed. Yeah, it's a hybrid approach of how to practice building — I wouldn't even call it architecture anymore; the things that we do align more to building in general, of which architecture is one part. It includes material development, material production, lots of education, sometimes execution of works. It's research, like with bioregional research: we’re setting up learning contexts and learning networks. Indeed, it's quite a wide scope, because the process is not set; it needs to be considered and designed every time. So I really think we're more like process designers than end-result designers.

With the Lot 8 project for Atelier LUMA — renovating the Electrical Store or Le Magasin Électrique — we had no idea how it would look at the beginning, or even really during the design phase. We didn't really know what it was going to be because the materials were being developed at the same time. Then too, we found opportunities and ideas on site. We discovered things during the process that totally shifted our thinking; when you design during construction, you have to modify certain things. It's really a hybrid process with all the supply chains and material chains linked to it, so there's no proper control.

As a very striking contrast, within the Parc des Ateliers you also have a tower designed by Frank Gehry, who evidently said that it needs to have this form: “I don't care what you do, but it needs to have this form” So if you look behind the facade, you see complex solutions to create the end result that he had in mind, to make it work. Like, “Okay, this is what we're going to do, and we're going to bend the world so that we can do what the architect thinks.” And then on the other side of the Parc des Ateliers is this warehouse where everything is a discovery. No part of it was designed by an architect with a grand vision; it's totally the reverse. These are the materials we have available and this is what we can do with them; these are the contractors that we have.

All of the beauty of the Atelier LUMA project was actually found, not conceived. I think that you feel that in the building; it’s quite humble, but it's very intense, very effective. When you are there, it really has an impact, but not necessarily impact that is anticipated when the designer conceives the end result. You can feel its authenticity in some way, and the materials doing their thing; this is specified because it’s tactile, or because it's about smell, or a consideration of how materials sound inside a space.

Materiality and material awareness can be a really nice way to direct and change our behaviours, because materials affect everything: economy, ecology, the relation between humans and our environments. Materials are like the entry point into this broader network of much more. That's the beauty of it. I think that we managed to do it, and we managed to get the client to invest in the idea of really letting the materials speak, let's say, and letting the networks do their thing in the coming-together of this building.

KOOZAt the heart of this process is the idea of prototyping. I visited the Atelier and it was a real honour; the space is beautiful, subtly elegant and full of a deep understanding. You mentioned how certain materials were developed on the basis of standards, stipulated for certain functions: for use on a fire escape, for example, a material would need to meet certain safety standards. In my opinion, today’s industry standards can be a real hindrance to transformation in terms of how we build. When you were constructing Lot 8 and making early prototypes, how did you face this issue in relation to materials and experimentation — looking to scale out, as you said, rather than scaling up?

DBTo quickly return to something Ken was saying: I'm trying to write an article related to our work with LINA, as an opening to our collaboration with that organisation. I titled it, ‘It's okay not to know’. When you go and do a project in a new place, you actually don't know anything, but you can't really tell the client that you don't know anything, or what's going to happen. People don't like to hear this; they like to have certainty. But in some cases you actually just don't know, and it's okay — we need to kind of accept this. When you do start looking at a project, it's about uncovering certain things — as Ken was saying, finding stuff — and trying things. It goes a bit further, but I think the idea of not knowing is an interesting phenomenon to think about.

KDCYes; at the Barcelona project that we just initiated, I made exactly this point in the presentation: I don't know where we're going to end, but let's trust the materials, trust the process and let's see where we will end. I think it is becoming more and more acceptable that we don't know; actually, we need to realise that we don't know the way out, or how to encourage transition in the sector. Of course, we have ideas, it's not that we are totally oblivious but we don't know how to get there, and we shouldn't focus on the end result. It's the same thing again: we should focus on designing good processes and trusting them. In the end, if we design the process in the right way, we will get somewhere.

This also links very much with education; we're creating school environments for ourselves, in fact, where we can look into the materials, contexts, partners, actors, and their associated knowledges. I guess that's what we mean by scaling out. If scaling up is about efficiency and norms, standards, certifications and investments, then scaling out is more about creating the learning environments. The real impact is made by setting up these learning environments; norms and the standards are one of the parameters around which you can organise part of your learning process.

DBWhat we've done since is set up modules, you might say; we're like a professional design or professional research practice, with modules on mapping techniques and various things that we need to find. If we work in a specific region, we will need to look for the relevant resources, technical knowledge, cultural knowledge, traditional building techniques and so on, almost like data points. For one project, we could have up to 120 data points that reveal what exists in a certain region. We can then work up a matrix — perhaps for materials, at an early stage. From these two datasets, we could go into the stage of making prototypes; we will review a number of samples and proceed to laboratory tests. From here, we might be able to see what the outcomes could be; based on those possibilities, you might reformulate the recipe, test a bigger sample, push the prototyping a bit further… And we then have these discussions where norms, standards and other desires start to complicate things. You have to kind of go through these hurdles as you reach them.

KOOZAs you have suggested, architectural education is gradually shifting towards learning through process and prototyping, rather than solution-oriented thinking. Could you share a little bit of your thinking around your own pedagogical experiment, where there is no fixed building and no output?

DBMaybe architects shouldn't have to design a building for the first… ten years of their practice!

KDCI can talk more generally about how we see architectural education. I think it depends on the time that you have; for instance our workshop will run for less than a week. If you have a week, the process around what you can conceive is different to what you’d aim for over six months or a year. For us, the entry point is always the materiality — not because we're material scientists, but because material is so interwoven with nature and human society; as I said before, it affects economy, ecology, craft practices, labour and so on. It’s a way to harness uncertainty, with a material starting point into research.

In the university of Aachen in Germany, we teach a course where we design what we call a folly — a building that actually shouldn't be anything. These projects should simply show the creation of spaces through a constructive system, based on material cultures from a particular region. The fact that the brief is free of function — it’s very open what this building does — allows students to design for and with uncertainty. This enables them to really focus on the materials, the process and the cultures around those materials, and to see where that takes their designs. It makes for really beautiful approaches, always surprising, always out of the ordinary. That's what education should provide: the moment where we can discover, be surprised and learn new things that we didn't think we could reach before.

DBThe proposed workshop is quite short, so it’s a question of what can you do in five days? One of the things that we developed with LINA was the bioregional game. This is a board game we developed; as you play, you get to understand the principles of the bioregional approach. Your character might be a farmer or a local mayor or a stonemason; these characters must work together in order to solve the environmental imbalances of a region through material construction. It's quite a good way to get into it, and tools like this are quite useful for students to quickly get a handle on main principles. It's also important to then provide a hands-on approach for certain things. BC has been very good in developing what we call Discovery Days, where students might get an intensive crash course in earth or some other material — these are super effective.

We recently ran a two-phase workshop with students from Harvard University, which was actually two weeks long; the first week was just about discovery. We brought stonemasons, earth builders, plasterers and joiners; students had one day on stone, another on earth construction, another day on straw and so on, directly from people working in those specialist trades. This was very interesting as an approach; based on that experience, students had to design a detail using only these materials. They had to produce a scale test — for instance, a straw construction with a window in it — and then, having worked on the design for a few weeks, they would return to build their design with the local contractors. Within a short duration, they really got involved in the principles of using materials, sourcing them, their properties; different types of quarries, different types of waste… which is really what this is all about. It's about the network of where things come from: understanding those environments, visiting the sites of extraction, visiting the waste dumps, all of these things.

JMWFor sure, the inaugural OBEL Build is going to be an intensive crash course. But I think it's a success if the students come away having found comfort in the unknown — right? That's really a success point, understanding that the outcome is not necessarily what they will end up building — it's the process and the methodology that they'll dive into over those days.

KDCAnother point that Jamie raised when she shared the genesis of the OBEL Foundation is the aspect of travel — being in a new place. The act of travel really opens you up, again allowing for uncertainty.

We also started out by travelling, and I am reminded of the parallel story of Anna Heringer: right at the moment when she published the METI school in Bangladesh, we were building our first small library in Burundi. We were also in full discovery mode, not knowing anything but learning all the time. We worked with Salvator Nshimirimana in Burundi who, while he didn't study architecture, was actually taking on the roles of an architect and a builder at the same time. We were with him on site, learning about details and local materials, and it was a super-intense learning period. We could not have simulated this setting in Belgium, in our own society. The same applies to the project that we have worked on together with LUMA in Gwangju — the Gwangju Pavilion V, in 2024 — the new environment, the learning process was extremely stimulating. Travel and the realities of being in a new context are very good in terms of triggering and facilitating learning models that work with uncertainty.

DBOur partners in Gwangju were also, from the start, really open to this bioregional approach. They knew exactly what we wanted to find, what we were looking for, and they knew how to support us. This is really vital and it’s one of the great things about coming to the Atelier: there are people who know where to go and what to look at. Finding partners and collaborators in local places is really important; we couldn't have done the Korea project without them. That’s how it goes; the local element becomes crucial to success.

KOOZI remember the studio-based work experience model from when I was a student, but having an intensive programme around a certain material — or even the Discovery Days that BC is running — sounds like such a special and formative opportunity. You mentioned embracing the unexpected as a successful outcome. In terms of OBEL Build, is there any ambition of continuing to follow up with these students and the research they pursue? To what extent would the next OBEL Build programme — with a fresh cohort of fellows and a new theme for 2026 — itself build on this iteration?

JMWOne interesting thing about the student cohorts is that they’re drawn from four different schools [of architecture in Denmark]. Furthermore, they come from different tracks or routes. So some arrive from political architecture, some are landscape architects; some come from transformation, all with different approaches — not only in education, but from their interests and background as well. Going forward, we will certainly document and trace their experience, as well as sharing knowledge beyond the cohort that joins the programme, allowing others the opportunity to engage. Obviously, it's different to watch or read about an experience from being there in person, but it's important that those learnings extend beyond the group itself. For sure, we'll follow the students; many will draw upon their experience in their academic work and thesis projects.

With each year, OBEL Build, will be reframed within the annual focus for the Foundation. . This also applies to the Teaching Fellowship programme, where we really encourage practice and education to play together. These fellows are implementing new modes and methods of education through their teaching practice. It's going to be quite interesting to analyse how these different knowledge building models — the teaching fellowship where practice and teaching go hand in hand, and the Build programme with its intensive deep dives — can create and generate new and shared knowledges and research within the same thematic focus. It's all new, so we're open to feedback from all parties and will reiterate as we go.

KOOZIt’s worth noting that we have long admired the multi-generational perspective and support system that the OBEL Foundation — among a very limited number of organisations — seems to support. Atelier LUMA seems to take the same approach in fostering emergent research, by collaborating with LINA as well as students from Harvard and elsewhere. Ahead of the inaugural OBEL Build workshop in October, is there anything else you’d like to share?

JMWFrom our perspective, we're just really excited and appreciative that there are organizations like BC and Atelier LUMA that are willing to take the time to form new collaborations, exploring how practitioners, students and educators can learn together and expand their knowledge. One of the things that we initially discussed with Jan Boelen, the director of Atelier LUMA, is that even over the course of five days, what we’re looking for is an exchange of knowledge — it’s not just about going somewhere and learning something, it’s sharing your own knowledge and discoveries too.

DBIt’s probably more challenging to think about it that way, especially as we have a mixed group of students in terms of interests and expertise. So one thing that we have set up at the Atelier is what we call a digital documentation tool. We document all the research that we do; this tool is updated every week, as fellows and researchers upload and input their information onto it, so that it becomes a really rich database. If people are prototyping in the Atelier, they could share their test conditions, recording what worked; if they're on a field trip, they might document what happened, who was there, what they made. Students can access this tool to look at everything that anybody has researched or produced in the past 18 months — which is quite useful. It acts as a record and repertoire of information that would otherwise get lost in files, folders and phones, making it impossible to retrieve. So accessing this Documentation Tool might be useful for students over the week.

KOOZIs the ambition to make that documentation open to all, or does it remain within the Atelier?

DBThe primary ambition, from my perspective, is not to lose knowledge; to find a way to document and share what we do. In the second instance, it would be very interesting to open it up to other parties, to use or even contribute to it. The idea is to open up at some stage, at which point it would start to act like a platform for the work undertaken at the Atelier.

KOOZThank you so much for sharing your thoughts and aspirations for the forthcoming OBEL Build workshop; we wish you all the luck in the world. We look forward to seeing what emerges from this collaboration at the unique learning environment of Atelier LUMA in Arles.

About

The OBEL Foundation recognises and rewards architecture's potential to act as tangible agents of change that contribute positively to social and ecological development globally. Founded in 2019, OBEL values the plurality of architecture as a practice through expanding who and what defines our built environment. Through various activities, OBEL supports influential ideas and approaches that can spearhead and seed future developments, while driving architectural discourse and education.

Atelier LUMA is the research design lab of LUMA Arles. Founded in 2016 and based in the Parc des Ateliers in Arles since 2017, the Atelier is deeply connected to its geographic and cultural environment. It brings together a team of designers, engineers, scientists, and experts from the fields of culture, craftsmanship, humanities, and social sciences and innovation, who explore the potential of non-extractivist, and often discredited, local materials, such as invasive plants, agricultural coproducts, algae, and industrial waste.

Bios

Daniel Bell is an architect who works on various projects within Atelier LUMA. He is leading a project within Atelier LUMA, in collaboration with BC and Assemble, to renovate Le Magasin Électrique using experimental and innovative practices integrating local materials and regional crafts. Before joining Atelier LUMA, Daniel Bell practised as an architect in the United Kingdom, Ireland and France. He began his architectural studies in Belfast before completing his training at the Mackintosh School of Architecture, Glasgow.

Ken De Cooman is co-founder of BC Architects, Studies and Materials. With these companies, BC starts from architecture, over research, expertise and experiment, towards material production and contracting. The use of local, circular materials in open construction processes has led to innovative public and private buildings on the European and African continent. BC architects renovates buildings using bio-sourced, geo-sourced and urban-sourced materials. BC currently collectively holds the junior professorship at RWTH Aachen, called “the act of building”, and runs the postgraduate programme “Building Beyond Borders” at Uhasselt.

Jamiee Ma Williams leads Projects and Partnerships at The OBEL Award. Having trained as an architect, her career has primarily been focused on innovation and strategy, with climate, nature based solutions, social inclusion and accessibility as a running core interest. Jamiee has held several previous positions within the architecture and cultural scene in Copenhagen ranging from CHART Art Fair, Head of Architecture at SPACE10, Development lead at Co-living company Almenr and Grants Lead at re:arc.

Federica Sofia Zambeletti is the founder and managing director of KoozArch. She is an architect, researcher and digital curator whose interests lie at the intersection between art, architecture and regenerative practices. In 2015 Federica founded KoozArch with the ambition of creating a space where to research, explore and discuss architecture beyond the limits of its built form. Parallel to her work at KoozArch, Federica is Architect at the architecture studio UNA and researcher at the non-profit agency for change UNLESS where she is project manager of the research "Antarctic Resolution". Federica is an Architectural Association School of Architecture in London alumni.