_Floatingroof

Proposal for an artist residency festival (Bekegem, BE)

Bekegem is a very small village in the west of Belgium with about 1082 inhabitants. Three people from Bekegem met each other in the art school of Ghent. Amazed by the fact that they all came from this traditional non-artistic village, they decided to organise an art festival in their village, happening every summer. There, they could show their town that there is more than fields and cows. Each year, the festival became more extensive, when residencies and concerts were added.

The organisation asked us if we wanted to think about a sort of stage were performances and concerts could happen. This would take place in an open field. We thought about visibility and about the integration of our structure within the field/village. Very typical in a village as Bekegem, is the way the houses are built. There are a lot of small farm buildings. In Belgium, we typically call them ‘fermettes’. After looking at these fermettes, we decided to design a wooden traditional roof structure that inhabitants of the town could recognize. Also important for stability and aesthetics was that there would be a gutter.

Instead of building an entire fermette we decided to hang the roof on a crane, the space underneath the roof would become the space were people could perform. This crane would be standing in the field and because of its height, it would be visible from the entire village. We also gave the roof a chimney, whenever there would start a performance white smoke would come out of the chimney, so the people would know that something was starting. The gutter was needed to balance the roof, this would look like a normal gutter but would be filled with concrete, so the roof wouldn't turn with the wind.