Microcosms, Unconscious Landscapes

Microcosms is a collective work, thought on a territorial and architectural scale with the aim of sublimating the lowlands of Liège. Our project is based on different tools, references and definitions whose purpose is to build the city of tomorrow and reveal microcosms, "small extraordinary worlds, alongside the ordinary".

In order to highlight the architectural and urban potential of these landscapes, we have based our reflection on the philosophical concept of the "Sublime" described by Edmund Burke : “Whatever is fitted in any sort to excite the ideas of pain, and danger, that is to say, whatever is in any sort terrible, or is conversant about terrible objects, or operates in a manner analogous to terror, is a source of the sublime” . In the same sense, our four architectural proposals contain the sensation of both escapism and isolation. \nThe Oasis, a water treatment facility, shows a human figure in waiting which we have chosen to represent a therapeutic approach to the mind and body. This “architecture-sculpture”, suggests the intimate space of an outpatient clinic or day hospital.\nA Thousand Plateaus, the industrial site extracting Dolomite at Namêche; is to be converted into a huge natural park that will accommodate a central funeral home, and a cemetery with columbarium. The whole complex is to be inserted and anchored in the limestone that surrounds it. \nDestination Moon, today the Leopold fort in Diest, is an abandoned military site which we have decided to reshape into a casino. We have chosen to build this project between the two brick walls surrounding the main trench, which could be undone in time. This with the objective of maintaining its unique identity and timelessness. \nDestination Moon, now the Battice fort, is situated in a beautiful place, on a headland without borders. On this site, near to Germany and the Netherlands, public benefit and secret reserve intermingle to reveal, layer by layer, a huge ribbed monolith. \nIt is by combining these four programmes that this dreamscape starts to take shape both from a poetic and a scientific perspective. The “sublime” has been at the heart of our approach. We have sought to implement it at every stage, from its conception up to the finishing touches. As Gilles Deleuze wrote: “The sublime is an act of dissent, rather than an agreement; a contradiction between the necessities of reason and the power of imagination.”