Fig. 3
152. On Pigeons
An enhanced receptivity for traces, events, contingencies and encounters in our immediate surroundings, mediated by the lack of noise that accompanies a quarantine,one might discover a void. Turns out our void was filled with feathers, twigs, coo’s anda dramatic lack of trajectory calculation. Right outside our window lives a colony of pigeons, that inhabits all the nooks and crannies of the public space surrounding the Fenixbridge in Ghent. A lot of them live on the underside of a bicycle bridge where they frequently miss their landing and end up helplessly drowning in the canal. As caretakers of the built environment, our practice became concerned withthese kinds of situations, where a specific need or call that takes you hostage imposes itself. From then on, an exercise in the cultivation of an openness to what wasn’tyet thinkable as a subject or practice of care, becomes part of our being architects.
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Fig. 7
99. On Care
The gift of quarantine, found in the forced inertness and focus on our surroundings calls into question our ability to truly practice care when, because of our dependence on the economic validity of our practice, we are forced to look for and answer questions that are not our own. In doing so, we remove the imperative complexity of dealing with questions on care. The practice of caring for others and for oursurroundings, is preceded by the primordial practice of the care of ones’ self. Theneed for use-less activity as experienced in the forced inertness of a quarantine, proves to be vital in our ability to direct our care towards those who need it most.
Marine Boey / Architect / Docent / Mede-oprichter van Poussinsstudios