Although the empty plot on the TACT site suggests otherwise, the planned ‘StadsAtelier de Ville’ cannot be a conventional new building. Unlike the residential development opposite Tour&Taxis, it will be a temporary spatial constellation, determined by a concession on the land, granted for a period of 30 years. After this, it should be able to be dismantled entirely, with the materials awaiting a new use.

The programme, a depot for circular building materials, a production hall for BC architects and a range of local smaller players, is known but not yet written out in detail. A robust framework provides a solution to this programmatic instability and shapes what is known, the diversity of functions. A three-part structure is the spatial translation of the various needs, housed under one large roof whose canopies protrude on either side. This autonomous structure is pushed up against its neighbour. The canopy on this side will be arranged as a covered logistics inner street. From here, a series of storage rooms are supplied, opening onto a large ‘market hall’ flanked by an enfilade of rooms housing the offices. On the south side, an awning provides shade and a covered space to be used as an outdoor studio.

The project adopts the language of industrial storage boxes from the port. The building system consisting of concrete stacking blocks exudes permanence despite its dismantlability. Composite wooden beams span the identical rooms, blown in with paper flakes. The large forum is structured by a grid of ‘possible’ columns. Their position will be determined according to the desired free span, their materialisation will be a consequence of what is available. The glazed sections anticipate in their rhythm the glass curtain wall system of neighbouring high-rise buildings to be reused.