Drooghal Arbor

The distortion executed by OFFICE Kersten Geers David Van Severen on the common image of the warehouse — a box imposed on its site — seeks to produce an architectural effect. None of the angles of the Arbor timber drying shed in Herselt is of the same height, so that the volume never allows itself to be grasped as a uniform entity. The loading of the trucks takes place at the back and below, thereby concealing this function and its presence on the site. As for the interior lighting, perceptible through the micro-perforated sheet metal that covers the warehouse, this is attached under the beams at a decreasing height between the front and rear façade, thereby emphasising the perspectival effect. At dusk, the building becomes a luminous layer that floats on a section of the forest filled with trees awaiting transport. Just as the configuration of the landscape is constantly changing, the form and aspect of the building also varies. The distortion is part of the architectural staging that seeks to highlight the skin of the building rather than the structure, and thereby to make the architecture disappear.

This text is based on an article by Audrey Contesse, published in Flanders Architectural Review N°12: Tailored Architecture.