Museums often try to reflect the world around them, but rarely are they built so literally from their surroundings as the new design museum in Ghent. Rising above the Belgian city’s medieval tiled rooftops like an angular white watchtower, the new building has gathered up the city’s discarded concrete frames, windows, car windscreens, sinks and old toilets, and transformed them, phoenix-like, into a gleaming monument to recycling. “There’s nothing new about reuse,” says Andy Groarke, co-founder of Carmody Groarke, the London-based architects who designed the €20m (£17m) project with local firms Atama and Re-st. “We’ve just forgotten how to do it.”
He says the team drew inspiration from Ghent’s 16th-century gothic cathedral, Saint Bavo’s, which was partly built using the white limestone blocks of the 10th-century romanesque basilica that had stood on the same site (recent renovations also gruesomely uncovered walls made of human bones, femurs and tibias apparently having particularly useful structural properties, with crushed skulls for infill).
The new design museum doesn’t quite go that far in its nose-to-tail approach, but almost. The toilet cubicles are a showcase of “biomaterials”, each featuring different tiles made of seaweed, flax, wood terrazzo and volcanic ash (you can scan a QR code for more info while you’re sitting on the loo). Some walls are plastered with local clay, while a chunky column in the entrance hall shows off its earthy layers of rubble dug straight from the building site.
But the real innovation is the brick, which was specially developed, tested and certified for the project (funded by a grant from Circular Flanders and Sogent, the city’s development agency). Each brick is made of 63% construction waste, sourced from within 8km of the museum, pulverised and compressed with hydrated lime, saving two-thirds of the embodied carbon of a regular fired clay brick. And the lime will continue to absorb CO2 from the atmosphere as it cures over the coming months and years.
“We’re not claiming this is a panacea, or a solution to the climate crisis,” says architect Sian Ricketts, Carmody Groarke’s sustainability lead. “But it is a sort of 82,000-brick proof of concept that you can do something different, with the right collaborators and the right clients.” Developed by East Sussex firm Local Works Studio and Brussels group BC Materials, the bricks were made in a former railway depot nearby, with the public invited to mix the ingredients and press their own blocks during a two-day festival of brickmaking. For €10, you can take one home from the museum shop.
Public participation extended to defining the very essence of the museum, too. In keeping with Belgium’s democratic traditions, a “citizens’ panel” of 40 people, drawn from a wide variety of Ghent residents, was established to inform what the museum should be. Their 100+ recommendations ranged from incorporating unticketed areas, to being able to see work-in-progress, and having plenty of seating, as well as ensuring that the “chic” building didn’t put people off. The result is as locally sourced and collaboratively created as big civic buildings come. “This expansion and renovation are not about creating more museum,” says the outgoing director, Katrien Laporte, “but about creating more than a museum: a community sense-making museum with real social relevance.”
The extension fills a leftover plot on the museum’s site, uniting the galleries that were previously spread between an 18th-century rococo mansion, called the Hotel de Coninck, and a troublesome 1990s addition – designed with a moving glass floor thThe old building, which had rarely been used, has thankfully been demolished. The new building has the presence of a grand Ghent house, rising in five large storeys and turning as it climbs to face the city centre, with big picture windows looking out in different directions on each floor. “We wanted it to feel domestic, industrial and civic at once,” says Groarke. It certainly has a bold presence.
Not everyone has welcomed its industrial bulk. Concerns have been raised about how the boxy white mass looms into view from the city’s quaint historical centre, and there is something slightly clumsy about the form on the skyline, topped with multiple roofs angled in different directions. Silicone joints between stretches of brick don’t help either, reading as unsightly seams from a distance. The museum defended the height as providing never-before-seen views of the city, and it’s true: when you’re on the top floor – a freely accessible public loft – or the roof terrace below, the panoramic vistas of Ghent’s castle and church spires are a treat.
Skyline concerns also fade away as you approach the museum at street level. A gate in the form of a billowing metallic curtain, frozen in motion, signals the new entrance in a delightfully surreal touch. Designed by Antwerp studio Unfold and 3D-printed in aluminium, it is a welcome change from the previously off-putting carriage entrance of the historical hotel down the sidestreet. The striking gate is one of a series of special projects commissioned by curator Siegrid Demyttenaere that have been dotted throughout the building, from a cast street number to a reception desk and lockers, making functional parts of the museum exhibits in themselves.
A lobby lined with timber salvaged from a tobacco factory in Brussels leads into the stadskamer, or city room, opening through big sliding windows on to the museum courtyard on one side, and the street on the other. It was thronging with visitors during the opening weekend, with the feeling of a true public square. The chubby earthen column (a commission by Grond Studio) rises to support an intersection of the deep wooden beams that crisscross the ceiling, the first glimpse of the building’s sculptural timber frame. The architects say it is the biggest mass timber public building in Belgium, featuring walls and floors of spruce CLT (cross-laminated timber) and chunky beams of beech LVL (laminated veneer lumber), imported from Austria. A beautiful oak staircase connects the floors, with joinery details in darker walnut, its angular geometries lending a Piranesian air.
The new building is “a stack of five rooms”, says Groarke, “each with a particular identity”. The stairs lead to the Forum, for lectures and events; the Atelier, a light-flooded studio for education workshops; and the Vitrine for temporary exhibitions – before arriving at the Loft, a grand event space with spectacular views. Its balcony became an urban-scale DJ booth for the opening party, when local duo 2manydjs performed above the rooftops to 5,000 revellers dancing in the streets below.
Spectacle aside, one of the building’s most useful achievements is connecting the museum’s pre-existing wings in a continuous, accessible loop for the first time. Visitors can now move from the chandelier-bedecked suites of the Hotel de Coninck, through to the 90s wing – from which 60% of the columns have been removed and voids filled in to create more display space for the permanent collection – to the light, woody world of the new tower. It was made possible by a wise use of funds: while competing architects proposed taller towers and deeper basement levels, the winning team suggested a better use of some of the tight budget would be to refurbish and renew what was already there.‘Functional parts of the museum are exhibits in themselves’ … the entrance gate by Unfold. Photograph: Johan Dehlin
“The competition was such a great process,” says Groarke, praising the renowned Flemish Open Call run by the Vlaams Bouwmeester (the government architect), with a jury that included five international museum directors alongside architects and planners. You can still see all the entries online. “Architecture is in the public consciousness here in a way that it’s not in the UK,” Groarke continues. “Back home, it’s seen as an extension of the property industry, with a pyramid scheme of mediocrity in the way.”
He’s got a point. It would be hard to imagine a building of such quality and imagination being realised on British shores, where contractors rule all and architects are forced to compete on fees in a self-sabotaging race to the bottom. Public procurement rules also mean architects generally have to have built several buildings of the type they are bidding for before they can even qualify to compete, meaning few opportunities for young practices.
Our bureaucrats might do well to spend some time in the museum’s opening exhibition, Public Matter(s): Design and Democracy. Curated by Amelie Klein and Vera Sacchetti, it is a fascinating exploration of the design of democratic decision-making, examining everything from ballot papers to the layout of parliament buildings, to how nature might be given a seat at the table. One particularly revealing project, The Flemish Scrollers by artist Dries Depoorter, uses AI to track distracted politicians scrolling on their phones during parliamentary sessions, and automatically posts screenshots of the live stream to social media, asking the elected officials to do better.
Perhaps a similar algorithm could be used to name and shame each time a public tender is awarded to the same old suspects, with dismal results for our built environment. Once again, the Flems are leading the way.
Frequently Asked Questions
FAQs Ghents CO2Absorbing Design Museum
1 What is this building
Its a new design museum in Ghent Belgium that cost about 17 million Its known for being ecofriendly and for being built partly from recycled materials like old sinks windscreens and toilets
2 Where exactly is it
In Ghent a city in Belgium
3 Why is it called a green marvel
Because its designed to absorb CO2 from the air and uses recycled waste materials in its construction making it unusually sustainable for a major public building
4 How does a building absorb CO2
Through materials and surfacessuch as special concrete or planted facadesthat capture carbon dioxide from the air The building is designed so its surfaces actively take in CO2 rather than just reducing emissions
5 How can old sinks windscreens and toilets be used in a building
Theyre crushed and processed into recycled aggregate and materials that replace some of the new raw materials normally used in construction
6 Is the building made entirely of recycled waste
No Recycled materials make up part of the construction the rest uses conventional materials The goal is to reduce not eliminate new material use
7 What are the main environmental benefits
It lowers carbon emissions from construction absorbs CO2 during its lifetime reduces landfill waste and saves raw materials
8 Does using recycled materials make the building weaker or less safe
Not when done properly Recycled materials are tested and processed to meet the same safety and strength standards as new ones
9 Are there any downsides or common problems
Recycled materials can be harder to source in consistent quality may cost more to process and CO2absorbing surfaces need monitoring to confirm they keep working over time
10 Is this the first building of its kind
Its one of a growing number of projects experimenting with CO2absorbing materials and recycled construction waste but it stands out for combining both at a large public scale
11 Can I visit it
Yesits a public museum so check the museums website for opening hours and tickets
12 Could this approach be used for ordinary homes
Parts of it yes Recycled aggregate is already used in
