The Urban Interior | Freek Persyn from 51N4E

Freek Persyn, co-Founder of Brussels-based international architecture practice 51N4E, introduced the studio’s approach on working with the existing urban fabric and the creation of places that encourage collective human interaction as well as social and urban transformation.

Challenges in environments of urban anarchy

Persyn kicked off the lecture with a project exposing the challenges found in environments of urban anarchy, dictated by historic and social issues and how they influence design. 51N4E’s design for the Skanderbeg Square, located in the centre of Albania’s capital Tirana, takes into account the introverted social past and complex history of the city and proposes a new urban room, a spatial void in the midst of urban chaos. Currently Skanderbeg Square is defined by the anarchy of the surrounding environs. The new square however, mediates between congestion and emptiness and presents a new space for communal activity in the city. Skanderbeg Square is activated at different moments and by a wide range of events that allow for human interaction to create a sense of space.

Turning voids into spaces of interaction

Another example of the studio’s design approach of turning voids into spaces of interaction is the BUDA Art Centre, a former textile factory turned into a cultural space that is part of the transformation of the wider area into a cultural hub. 51N4E worked from the inside–out, defining the building from its centre. The space remains a factory – now one of culture instead of textiles, and keeps the aesthetic of a space of production. 51N4E took advantage of the generous open spaces found in the former industrial unit, and inserted two hollow pentagonal spaces. The new additions, one internal and one outside of the existing, introduce a set of spatial and atmospheric sequences that aim to activate inhabitation.

The design of the new NCCA (National Centre for Contemporary Arts) competition in Moscow raised the issue of designing interactive cultural spaces, emphasizing on the challenges as well as opportunities of architecture in metropolitan peripheries. Located in a former air field outside Moscow, the proposed design endeavours to generate not only a place suitable for art display, but one that also allows us to challenge our perception of scale and form. 51N4E’s diverse collection of buildings for the NCCA proposal aims to stimulate interaction between the artists and the public and turn spaces of display into ones of activity rather than static representation.

Creating the conditions for events

Persyn introduced two additional cultural projects that showcase the studio’s ongoing passion for architecture that is transformative and sets the conditions for events to take place.

With C-Mine the studio has showcased its flair and ability to design successful cultural buildings that are strongly contextual. The design centre is located in Genk, Belgium, and is part of a city that is trying to reinvent its recent past by transforming its old coalmine infrastructure into a cultural hub. The project reinforces the studio’s ability to create spaces that are open, flexible and easy to personalise.

Persyn concluded by presenting an urban study that enabled the audience to rethink the design of cultural spaces and their use as national landmarks. The project is of national importance to France and is located in a former mining and steel industrial area in north Lorraine, close to the border with Luxembourg. The studio’s investigation seeks to create an innovative way to generate a cultural centre that is not a building but an open space, which enables shared use of existing territories while connecting abandoned sites.

Persyn’s lecture was an inspiring showcase of 51N4E‘s socially and contextually conscious architecture that seeks to create environments, both buildings and open spaces, which activate the existing urban fabric and enable inhabitation.

Watch the interview with Freek Persyn (Video clip | 0:51 Min.)