not a bag*

not a bag*
scale model & part of plan
A (naive) exploration of how architecture could be, being dominated instead of dominating our surroundings.

Lucien Schmidt-Berteau
Brussels, Belgium
Links
Team members
Lucien Schmidt-Berteau
Field of work
Architecture, Design, Urban planning, Multimedia, Research
Project category
Raising awareness
Project submitted
2023

I'm an architect born in Saarbruecken(GER), currently living in Brussels. Exploring our role as architects as spacial practitioners, the way we treat and address our surroundings.


It tries to be a manifestation of how architecture can be; adaptable (to needs and surroundings), generating spaces and situations, leaving space for appropriation (in any way) while respecting and reflecting the surrounding. It furnishes a space, frames it (whatever space) and gives the user the opportunity to make something out of it. It is movable, transportable, uses the existing and creates spaces to interact. It is spontaneous.
It messes with typologies, and brings a domestic sense into any environment, either hiding or revealing the surrounding. It raises questions; What is domesticity? How do we produce space?

Does it start with a chair, or is it more the items, ideologies and references you bring on your own?
Half of the bag is dedicated to personal belongings or things that equip or complete the instantaneous space.
It makes things (objects), places and atmospheres for people to relate to certain things, each other and the surrounding. Generating situations that take into account social life and introspective at the same time.
It is an architecture with blurred lines, that varies depending on the user, the location and the needs. It is versatile as it has the ability to adapt or to be adapted to many different functions or activities.
It is probably not the best room, chair, tent or whatever but it stays low-tech and efficient at the same time. That’s what makes it valuable.
In a rapidly changing world, we sometimes need this certain moment of awareness, of immediate settlement- the bag allows for those moments to happen. While the spatial situations stay quite generic it is the user that activates them, it is a positioning in the way that architecture gives the frame, but what happens afterwards is up to the user. Therefore, the possibilities are reduced and stay more propositional than suggestive. It is an invitation rather than an instruct.
Rather than dominating the direct surrounding, it is shaped by the site.