90 Days in Europe: Day Thirty-Three

This morning we did some more work on our studio project. We weren't at Artesis long though because we had a firm visit in another town at 1:30. We took a trip to Mechelen, Belgium, for a firm visit with dmvA Architects. A guy from the firm met us at the train station and then we walked to one of their projects. It was a sort of youth art center that they had left a lot of the decision making up to the youths themselves. It was a really neat project because the youth were allowed to decorate the walls how they wanted with paintings and graffiti that was actually pretty well done. Part of the building had astroturf on the roof which is a lot nicer than the usual black membrane they have on flat roofs.

After that we walked to the architectural firm's office which was actually a part of one of their renovation projects. They showed us a presentation of some of the work they had done. We all received a sort of magazine/ book of some of their projects which was really nice so that we can look at it later and remember what they showed us. When the presentation was over we all hopped on bikes that were at the firm and we went on a biking tour of Mechelen. We stopped by a few of the projects that we had been told about in the presentation. A majority of the projects we saw had elements of old buildings that had to be preserved and incorporated into the new design. All of their work was really interesting and I really love their design aesthetic. They use a lot of black and white for interiors with touches of red. That's an interior color scheme that I have always really enjoyed. Overall, I think that this particular firm visit was my favorite one of all time. Never before have I been to a firm that has an aesthetic that I extremely enjoy and also that takes me on a bike tour of their work.