BC architects discuss their evolving approach to circular materials and sustainable architecture
Laurens Bekemans, one of four founders of BC architects & materials & studies, is unequivocal when asked how he responds to fellow architects who argue they can only work within the imperfect, unsustainable building industry as it is. “I say that’s wrong. It’s true the system will not change overnight, and will not change from black to white. But if you’re able to imagine the type of impact you wish to have it helps you to understand the trajectory you can set out on.”
Bekemans and his co-founders, Nicolas Coeckelberghs, Ken De Cooman and Wes Degreef, certainly haven’t set out on an easy or conventional path. Their practice is now composed of three entities: BC architects, an architectural studio; BC materials, a cooperative creating circular, earth-based building materials; and BC studies, a non-profit education laboratory. “If, in our first year, you had laid out the trajectory we would take, I would have said ‘Oh my God’,” Bekemans smiles, looking relieved the founders nurtured the practice into its current form by evolution more than design. “We started out as friends at university and had an initial vision that went further than only building. This helped inform how we should grow as an office, not in size or in the number of projects but rather to grow in impact.”
And the impact they seek is ambitious: nothing less than a change in the building culture towards what they define as “bioregional, low-tech, circular, beautiful and inclusive design”. BC tend to go far, and then further, in their experiments towards this aim. They first developed circular building materials for use in their own projects with earth excavated from construction sites. Then they took the step – you might say leap – of moving into mass producing and marketing circular materials as off-the-shelf products. Bekemans explains, “BC materials allowed us to develop a network around these materials, to allow other architects to use them and to facilitate the construction sector using them.” BC’s work producing materials led to further challenges, including the development of building norms for earth-based materials.
Bekemans is unfazed when reminded of this diversity of headache-inducing challenges, his focus apparently rarely straying from the ends when faced with the means. “Suddenly you realise how deep you should go if you want to have an impact at certain levels.”
BC, short for Brussels Cooperation, was forged far from their current base on an industrial site in the north of their home city. In 2012, the practice’s founders designed and collaboratively constructed a library in Muyinga, Burundi. Their stumbling into the use of unfired earth blocks for this project came initially not from a desire to use hand-crafted materials but pragmatism: these blocks could be made on-site affordably. Conventional wisdom would, however, say that what worked so successfully in Burundi may be unrepeatable in Belgium. BC, on the other hand, were enthused by their hands-on experience and the credentials of earthen materials which, when compared to those made with cement, have lower embodied carbon, better regulate indoor humidity and can be returned to the earth harmlessly. They bravely decided to take a similar approach to the construction of an education centre in Edegem, a wealthy suburb of Antwerp. Here, compressed earth blocks were made onsite through what has become one of BC’s trademark tools, the workshop: 19,000 blocks were produced and 312m2 of hempcrete – an insulating material made from hemp and lime – was installed as the building took shape with the help of 150 volunteers.
Since then, BC’s roster has quickly grown to include increasingly ambitious and sizeable projects. Lot 8 in Arles, France, designed in collaboration with London-based Assemble, is a tour de force of locally sourced materials. Rammed earth walls using by-product from local quarries and acoustic plaster using waste from the sunflower industry are two among a list of bespoke, beautiful and – in the end – “pragmatic” materials used. All integrate to form an outcome that is not only ecologically sound but also architecturally captivating.
Responding to whether BC have found it creatively beneficial, as well as impactful, to be involved in the ‘dirty’ side of architecture and construction, Bekemans has no doubts. “100%, yes. A hands-on practice, one that is open to these different perspectives on architecture, means that you’re open to a whole new range of inspirations that can inform your work.” Traversing boundaries between architectural practice, materials research and the circular economy is becoming a popular approach for architectural practices seeking to change the polluting habits of the building sector which, at 37% of global emissions, is by far the most polluting sector today. “The idea of the architect has been evolving in the past few years and has to keep evolving in the coming years due to the challenges we’re facing,” Bekemans continues.
In this context, BC stand out for their ability to wear many hats and yet create coherent outcomes where ‘design’ and ‘ecology’ are intertwined, neither dominating at the expense of the other. Their finished projects have a feeling of inevitability despite, and perhaps because of, their material experimentation. “We’re not either thinking of ecology or thinking of architectural quality,” Bekemans elaborates. “When designing, we’re thinking about the logics of materials and places and the outcome is a result of this process.” It’s a process for which the intrinsic qualities of materials, rather than only their surface appearances, are central. “I think of a haptic beauty of these materials. Once you use them and design with them according to their characteristics, then beautiful buildings will follow. If you start the other way around, where you design something and then you start to think ‘which materials do I want?’ Well, you design such a space that you can choose only two types of materials, and neither are very ecological.”
Captions: To promote carbon neutral construction, BC architects developed circular building materials for use in their projects with earth excavated from construction sites.
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