Not its grams or its load-bearing capacity. But its real mass. The echo of its extraction, the dust of its transport, the ledger of emissions, the strain in a builder’s arm, the digital residue of drawings, simulations, spreadsheets. We ask: what is it we really carry when we build?
The 2025 edition of Paraply turns to the theme of Load. In architecture, to load is to carry the forces of the structure. Defying the rules of gravity where stacked stone became symbols of endurance. Cast iron and ornament flirting with the air in the sky. As well as heavy concrete cantilevering over glass seeking to levitate. And now, matter is no longer enough. We find ourselves scrutinising the very need to build. Architecture itself begins to evaporate, replaced by its paper footprints.
Beyond the elegance of structure lies a thickness we rarely measure. What is the psychic load of endless PDFs? The infrastructural weight of late-stage capitalism? In the 2025 edition of Paraply we will explore the physical reality of architecture along with its metaphysical becoming. Inviting participants to think through the emotional, logistical, material and historical load we design with. To treat weight as more than gravitational pull, but to see it as memory, debt, fatigue and responsibility. Will we carry the weight of the profession or will we carve out new paths?
This summer, we handle discarded matter, not as surplus but as a symptom. We work with what has already been shaped and handled. We remember that no object is without lineage, no structure without innocence, and no architecture without change.
Sima Bučar Fiškin
Rin Kawamoto
Louis Garden
Vanja Edevåg Hellström
Katrina Marta Peizuma
Maite Santos Alcocer
Anneke Sandow
Louis Emil Baurmann
Koralia Stergiou
Paula Heucke
Malte Peters
Beck Flore
Rita Rui Ting Wang
Katinka Pi Madsen
Gabriel Higgins
Vinzent Hadschieff
Philipp Kitzberger
Breanne Taylor
Santiago Madueño
Mike Sullivan
Johanna Tapper
Charlotte Audifax Gauthier
Margaret Gallagher
Lukas Raabe
Maria do Mar Cavaleiro
Beyzanur Barut
Marion De Bie
Maya Ghosh
Anastasia Sougioultzoglou
Olivier made spatial interventions and artistic installations for venues such as: Het Nieuwe Instituut Rotterdam, Hamburger Bahnhof Berlin, Ruhrtriennial Bochum, Biennial Lyon, Extra City Antwerp, BNKR Munich, Triennale Milano & Palais De Tokyo Paris.
His drawings and paintings have been shown in Palais De Tokyo Paris, Kunstverein Arnsberg, Kristof De Clerck Ghent, Fred & Ferry Antwerp, kunsthal Kade Amersfoort, 019 Ghent & Biennial of Lyon.
Previously he worked as a freelance architect for De Vylder Vinck Taillieu (2008-2016). Since 2010, he has been teaching at the KULeuven Architecture Department. He was a guest critic at RU Ghent faculty of Architecture, LUCA School of Arts and Architecture Academie Maastricht. Olivier is actively part of the art collective 019-ghent.
Finn Gredel
Mats Hanekopf
Hatice Elma
Bella Thomas
Maya Eddegdougui
Amelie Kotte
Annika Brammer
Ollie Sachs
Marina Jolliffe
Ellen Van den Eeckhaut
Lea Notsch
Pauline Jahnke
Maaike De Groote
Bianca Chiara Blair
Johann Weber
Emily Brodszki
May Florine Rehse
Emily Nausner
- Charles Jencks & Nathan Silver, Adhocism - The Case for Improvisation, 2013
- Nelo Magalhães, How much does your road weigh?, 2025
- Charlotte Malterre-Barthes, A Moratorium on New Construction, 2025
- Charlotte Malterre-Barthes, Architecture of Extraction: Space and the Political Economy of Construction Materials, 2020 Ongoing
- Viktor Kossakovsky, Architecton, 2024
- The Architectural Review, Repair, 2024
- Simone Weil, Gravity and Grace, 1947
- Hannah Arendt, The Human Condition, 1958
- Jane Bennett, Vibrant Matter: A Political Ecology of Things, 2010
- Tim Ingold, Making: Anthropology, Archaeology, Art and Architecture, 2013
- Philippe Simay, Bâtir avec ce qui reste, 2023
- Christophe Bonneuil & Jean-Baptiste Fressoz, The Shock of the Anthropocene, 2016
- Byung-Chul Han, The Burnout Society, 2010