Report erts Mining Day
erts
On Thursday, October 16, we raised a glass at Stadsform to the public mining of erts. We started with the presentation of our manifesto, after which Hans Leinfelder (KU Leuven) gave an intervention. Subsequently, we got to work on space-neutral building, the role each of us can play in this, and collaborated on recipes for a spatial diet. Kaj Zwerver was there and reported on the event.
On October 16, I went to the mining of erts, the official opening day of the recently established design practice for spatial research. Anyone who visits the erts website lands on a site full of playful puns and synonyms in which the well-known architectural discourse gives way to a medical approach to an urgent problem: collective space usage that is spiraling out of control. erts diagnoses society with a chronic disease in the form of spatial obesity; our open space is in danger. The immediate reason for me to attend this extraction day was my earlier meeting with two of the four initiators of erts: Dimitri Minten and Tim Vekemans. I ran into this duo during the Archined Critics Night in Rotterdam, where both they and I were present due to our nomination for the Geert Bekaert Prize for Architectural Criticism. Coincidence or not, Dimitri and Tim join forces in the architectural firm ‘RE-ST’, and if you shuffle the letters around a bit, you discover that you can also form the word ‘erts’ with them. Minten and Vekemans were nominated with their essay ‘Moeder, daarom bouwen wij!’ (Mother, that is why we build!) about a systemic change in construction and an alternative role for architects as spatial care providers.
The participants at the extraction day attempt to take on this role of spatial care by reflecting together on our spatial obesity and offering recipes for a spatial diet. The day kicked off with a lecture by the two other initiators of erts: Amber Vermaete and Marlies Struyf. They gave a striking exposition of the current problem: if we are not careful, Flanders will become gridlocked. Unnecessary construction is taking place while our current built environment teems with unused space. As many as half a million homes could be found within the existing stock. The question is whether the current housing shortage could actually be solved without building more. In any case, it creates possibilities, because building more – or in other words, consuming even more open space – will certainly not be on the doctor's prescription for a recently diagnosed obesity patient.
“Going on a diet together is simply simpler and more fruitful than making the journey alone.”
erts positions itself as a cultural research practice that seeks to find ‘stray space’. It aims to investigate the potential of abandoned building materials and square meters of space in our cities, which are clogging up due to overconsumption, and to exploit it where possible. To this end, she is seeking resources and collaborations. Vermaete and Struyf invite you to join this group diet. Going on a diet together is simply simpler and more fruitful than traversing the path alone.
Hans Leinfelder perhaps articulated it most strikingly in his intervention following the opening lecture: erts will have to search for the nuggets of gold in our overcrowded spaces to change the discourse using effective examples.
Time for spatial recipes to turn the tide for our poor patient. At the work tables, the fifty or so participants put their heads together to brainstorm. Numerous solutions are reviewed: collective expropriation, adjusting parking standards, simplifying legislation, stimulating a sharing culture, cohabitation, combating vacancy, protecting public space, revising second home policy, splitting up homes, and so on.
Leinfelder had already said it earlier in his speech: our patient is addicted to building. Perhaps we should approach our use of space just as we work in addiction care. If we go back to the beginning of the Flemish addiction to building, we arrive directly at birth. Or as Pascal de Decker puts it: the brick is forced down the Fleming's throat.
The advantage of something instilled from an early age is that we can also stop doing it. It requires a cultural shift in which we distance ourselves from the so-called brick in our stomach and present ourselves with a different ideal.
“Establishing a design practice that must sustain itself in the construction world, based on the premise of primarily not building, is perhaps more activist than ever before.”
Shortly before the start of the event, I spoke with Tim Vekemans about their nominated essay and about critical writing. He told me that he had decided to put down his activist pen after fifteen years and do things differently. Establishing a design practice that must sustain itself within the construction industry, based on the premise of not building, is perhaps more activist than ever before.
It fundamentally calls into question the architect’s revenue model and paves the way for the new profession of ‘spatial care provider’. Given that architects’ remuneration is already under pressure these days and the Order of Architects is diligently seeking a new direction, this seems like the perfect moment to pursue this path further.