Geometric Malaise

Views on Geometric Malaise: Causes and Consequences

"The response to the architectural approach is a clear 'no.' The interior architect will not work in this direction because, beyond the legal requirement that stipulates a minimum of 9 square meters with a height of 2.40 meters for a bedroom, the interior architect has ethical considerations. If the framework is not compliant, the form cannot be either. It's a compromise.

The space is confined, which lends it an air of austerity due to its spatial limitations. This is an opportunity to cut corners in the specifications.

So, there's no access to electricity; he will have to make do with this space. He will have to rely on sunlight streaming through the halo, which will also tell him the time, much like a sundial would.

Burdened by this oppression, he feels uncomfortable. He is told he is crazy and needs to be observed. In the process, he loses his privacy, without even knowing if someone is watching him at any given moment.

Now he is faced with a choice: either to strengthen his sense of belonging and conform to the framework or to reject it and define himself in exclusion.

Everything around him serves as a reminder of his condition. The pattern on his floor covering obsesses him and makes him realize that the remaining space in his room, once the essential furniture is installed, is a cube with sides measuring 2.10 meters, an empty cube in which he is confined.

Without a mirror, he projects himself onto the painting placed on the windowsill and realizes that he can escape this fate. He records his thoughts in his A5 notebook, a format that has the advantage of being portable. After all, why should the format of his notebook be more liberated than he is?

He complies because, deep down, he cannot resign himself to succumbing to discomfort and the boredom caused by the lack of freedom. He is transformed. He walks around his cubic space and meditates."

Call "Vues sur #1" - Winner

At the end of 2019, the ICA launched a call for young architects, interior designers, town planners and landscape architects from the Wallonia-Brussels Federation to express their architectural approach through the virtual spatial design of a space measuring 3m x 2.6m x 2.3 m in height. Five winners were chosen. All the projects were exhibited at the Recyclart Art and Cultural Centre in Brussels, one of the ICA's founding venues, in 2020.

In 2021 in Namur, as part of "L'architecture vous veut du bien", young architecture from Wallonia-Brussels was showcased in a tour of Namur from north to south. The five young architectural offices that won Vues sur #1 were showcased in vacant shop windows in the city center and in cultural venues around Namur.