In a Brussels villa, these designers-in-residence are taking their job literally

When designers ‘occupy’ a building, it usually means they’re using their work as a proxy. At the art deco landmark Villa Empain in Brussels, designers from Zaventem Ateliers are actually inhabiting the building. From 11 March, the 32 designers are artists who create and collaborate in Zaventem’s former factory outside town will decamp to the 92-year-old villa along with their experimental work, where they’ll spend 10 days entertaining, working, cooking, napping and creating a ‘living organism’ from the building’s iron, marble and decorative glass.

Taking place during TEFAF Maastricht and Collectible Brussels, the activation invites visitors into an inhabited and outrageously designed ‘home’, with all the friction that comes with contemporary work in a heritage environment.

‘This concept is part of a movement initiated several years ago with the designers of Zaventem Ateliers,’ says Lionel Jadot, the multihyphenate who founded Zaventem in 2018 as a hub of creative production. ‘At the time, during exhibitions in Paris and Milan, we would take over abandoned or unused spaces, installing ourselves there and inhabiting them with our art. We literally lived on site, often in mobile homes.’ At Villa Empain, he says, ‘we will recreate this spirit. The idea is to restore the functions it was originally designed for. Each space will be refurnished by mixing in our own works.’

The daily choreography includes a textile mural by Krjst Studio, pipework by Mathilde Wittock, slinky sculpture by Adeline Halot, lighting by Studio Elémentaires, a hanging textile by Emma Cogné and furniture by Arno Declercq and Thomas Serruys. ‘The intention,’ says Jadot, is not to present a sterile or purely museum-like environment but rather to show the living appropriation of a place. We will be there, working, eating, celebrating, and receiving friends as if we were truly at home.’ No work is considered complete without the presence of its maker.

To complete the environment, the local electronic music brother act EyevEyes has developed a spatial sound design guiding visitors through the villa. The sound functions as invisible architecture that adds another lived-in dimension, carrying visitors from room to room. In the end, both maker and visitor will experience the space in real time. ‘The idea,’ says Jadot, ‘is to take these pieces out of the context of a gallery and bring them closer to a real human experience of everyday life.’