Tires, scrap metal, junk, lightbulbs, goats, stuffed animals, tin cans, discarded newspaper images, abandoned cardboard boxes, even his own bed — for Robert Rauschenberg, everything could become useful raw material. From his teacher Josef Albers, he learned the art of combining. He gathered materials during walks around his studio, transforming discarded objects into new artistic compositions.

After Robert Rauschenberg, Oracle, 1962–65. Assemblage study, Campus Richtpunt Zottegem, 2026. AI-generated image.

The Province of East Flanders owns over 400 buildings across 80 sites. In this studio, we will approach this existing reservoir as a curated collection of architectural material. Like Rauschenberg, who limited his search for materials to a single block around his studio, we will define our own territory: the architectural patrimony of the Province of East Flanders.
Within this self-imposed boundary, we will work with what is already there, discovering new possibilities within the constraints of what we find. We will observe, select, dismantle and reassemble existing buildings and their components, transforming them into new architectural compositions.