The Arch
A socio-circular gate to technology!
This summer we will provide a living support structure, on top of a former mining site in Genk, for a social- and experimental laboratory.
A support structure is a building tool that stabilises a construction during its installation, also used in the mines to create the deepest tunnels. In the same sense it can be applied metaphorically as a social, artistic and community-shaping tool to be a support and catalyst in a first phase of appropriation.
In connection to the research activities already happening and to be established at Thorpark we propose an applied research laboratory that is situated somewhere between artistic experimentation and public research. It positions itself as a complementary approach to academic scientific research to deal with new technologies in an accessible and associative way. Our built structure will be a place to share existing local knowledge and to learn new skills where instructors and learners can come from different fields of knowledge and social environments.
These moments will be captured in a tangible object, a generic brick that we will design and make together from waste materials. The brick as a memory of our time together at Thorpark will be the building stone for the new entrance-gate to Thorpark, but also a new material that can enter into the existing Belgian brick market.
https://www.facebook.com/thearchgenk
photos by Julie Guiches – O.S.T.
The Arch
