Atelier Kanal architects have created a furniture system based on OpenStructures for the new Kanal-Centre Pompidou in Brussels. The group of noAarchitecten Brussels, Sergison Bates London and EM2N from Zurich who are in charge of the conversion of the former Citroën car factory into a 49,000m2 art and cultural centre, have designed a multitude of flexible and mobile applications for the public areas of the building. The typology includes tables, reception desks, seating, library shelves, mobile storage units and signage-supports. All these elements are designed according to their mission: “… to create a strong public building for Brussels, that celebrates the notion of incompleteness, where there is room for change. A project that will evolve as the users appropriate the space for themselves.’’
They will furnish the future museum of modern and contemporary art, as well as the reading rooms of the CIVA Foundation. The OpenStructures script provides the opportunity for a circular use and handling along the changing needs and the evolution of spaces over time. As all elements are modular they can be dis- and reassembled in other reconfigurations and serving other areas than initially planned. The entire system incorporates perfectly what Stewart Brand once stated about modular building units ‘If you start boxy and simple, outside and in, then you can let complications develop over time, responsive to use. Prematurely convulted surfaces are expensive to build, a nuisance to maintain, and hard to change.’ (out of ‘How buildings learn’)
Photos by Atelier Kanal and OS Studio
Product Family
by Atelier Kanal
Brussels
Jun 2024
