Closing

We as architects, together with the community, want to take a posiWe as architects, together with the community, want to take a position in the current countryside reality. Not by contributing to a certain idyll, but by recognizing qualities typical for the countryside, such as small-scaliness, bricolage and informality. With this project we experiment how trust can be the connecting element in all of this. While we focussed mainly on the scale of a community and its neighbourhood, it does also apply to a larger scale. We are convinced that on different locations throughout the Flemish agricultural landscape where the same phenomenon’s simultaneously arise, a similar exercise in trust could be beneficial.

First of all, the openness of the countryside should be protected and celebrated as a quality that distinguishes the countryside from the city, such as soft boundaries, a minimum of fences, low hedges that allow a transparency. This physical openness can also result in a more open conversation between all the actors. However, we don’t advocate for a boundary-less countryside. Boundaries are needed in a trustworthy relationship. It only becomes a problem when boundaries are obsessively used in order to obtain a feeling of security.

Trust also means communication and participation, not always through real contact or words. In our project we give other suggestions: such as a cooperation between farmers or distribution to local shops or creating social traditions, like a harvesting feast. In this interaction with others, conflicts will occur, mostly caused by an error in communication. But rather than avoiding confrontations, we should walk into to them. So having ‘trust’ in both the conflict and resolution is as essential.

Lastly, we acknowledge the importance of bricolage. Not just as a material construction, but more so the immaterial elements of spontaneity, informality and imperfection. This is in stark contrast with the construction of the idyll and process of beautification we see more and more in the countryside. Trust here also means, finding comfort in changes and uncertainty, because there will always be tools to adapt.

This exercising in trust won’t be achieved with loud architecture or a big statement, but with subtle gestures. A layering in transparency, showing imperfections, favouring informality over formality, setting softer boundaries, being open to failure and conflict... Not by chance, all qualities that bring us back to the beginning:

‘t Stalleke.

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