Modehaus Antwerpen
Master's thesis summer 2020

Published by the Institute of Design and Sustainable Construction (Prof. Christoph Kuhn).

The new fashion house is a place where fashion is designed, tested, produced, presented, sold, repaired, recycled and archived. The detailed program reflects these heterogeneous and hybrid demands on the spaces to be designed. The house is, as it were, office, studio, workshop, apartment, showroom, store and communicative meeting place for employees, customers and visitors. The goal is to develop a functional and spatial organization that promotes interaction and exchange between all these areas and generates positive synergies. Creative, manual and administrative processes must complement each other and not hinder each other. Space should be used appropriately sparingly, efficiently and flexibly, and the rooms should give rise to differentiated and inspiring atmospheric qualities.

The site, at the transition from the historic city center to the new harbor district, offers a variety of points of contact and friction with its rough, commercially influenced environment.

The water level of the harbor basin, moving in rhythm with the ebb and flow of the tide, forms a special urban and natural space as a living projection surface with the MAS Museum as a vertical anchor point. How does the fashion house interact with this multi-layered context, how are transitions and targeted permeability between the public and the fashion house designed with a positive effect for both?

The size of the site leaves room for open spaces to be used as an integral part of the building concept. The existing old customs building can be preserved and become part of a new building structure or give way to a completely new building concept. In both cases, a consistent strategy is required in terms of resource use and energy efficiency. The connection to the Youth Cultural Center “Het Bos” to the south also needs to be clarified. In the thematically arranged field of tension between (building) body and clothing, between permeable materiality and hermetic materiality, the relationship between the wearing and the covering requires special attention. This applies equally to their functional and technical construction as well as their visual, haptic and tactile perception, both internally and externally. The fashion world is critically discussing the unbroken development towards the resource-wasting and climate-damaging rhythm of fast fashion. Fashion houses and the clothing industry postulate the urgently needed change to the sustainably slowed-down concept of slow fashion. Where does the architectural answer lie in the conflict between an adaptable fast fashion and a preserving permanence? What garb does Slow Architecture wear? Two trendsetting fashion designers from Antwerp are available as “builders”: For Shuting Qiu or Brandon Wen design the fashion house. Her/his fashion concept is the starting point and framework for your architectural concept. Alternatively, you choose your favorite yourself.

The fashion house for the designer Toos Franken from Antwerp is divided into two visible cubatures, which develop from the structure of the existing building on Godefriduskaai and on the one hand add 3 upper floors. The main building to the north thus forms a prominent address. Visitors enter the inner courtyard on the first floor through a public passageway. This central open space creates a connection to the Het-Bos Youth Center and also leads to the public café and co-fashion lab.

The main building facing the Godefriduskaai contains the studios, the sustainable production and presentation of Toos Franken in a circumferential, open structure with air spaces.

The new fashion house functions as a collective temporary production, presentation and living space for three designers.

The design concept is based on preserving the genius loci and reusing the existing building. An integral part of the building concept is the open space, which is newly created as an inner courtyard. This communicative center is the point of intersection between public and private space. The addition is intended as a purely wooden structure, the transparent white shell of perforated aluminum sheeting wraps around this new cube in curved paths. In this way, the added volume is wrapped in its own new garb. Old and new thus form a new unit, but can still be clearly distinguished.

The new fashion house functions as a collective temporary production, presentation and living space for three designers.

The design concept is based on preserving the genius loci and reusing the existing building. An integral part of the building concept is the open space, which is newly created as an inner courtyard. This communicative center is the point of intersection between public and private space. The addition is intended as a purely wooden structure, the transparent white shell of perforated aluminum sheeting wraps around this new cube in curved paths. In this way, the added volume is wrapped in its own new garb. Old and new thus form a new unit, but can still be clearly distinguished.

The Antwerp-based fashion house bears the name of designer Tayfun Kaba, who this year previewed his first collection, Arrogant SS202X.

In a time when we are overrun by fast fashion, his fashion is an antithesis to the mainstream and stands for sustainability and transparency. This transparency is translated in the architectural design. The design is based on the existing building, while retaining the skeletal structure. Where light and air are needed, ceilings and walls are cut out. The new building represents sustainability with stained light wood. Transparency is created by numerous windows and air spaces, giving visitors a glimpse of what is happening in the fashion house.

The fashion house for designer Toos Franken takes its cues from her clean and straightforward fashion, as well as her work with layering fabric. The facade of the existing building serves as a backdrop for the urban space, which continues to develop in the block.

The fashion house consists of three volumes, which are arranged in the existing grid of columns. They pick up edges of the neighboring buildings and create an urban open space within the block. Each volume takes on specific functions, while the spatial connection of these is formed by the open spaces and bridges that connect to each volume. These open spaces extend the use of the building, making it an expression of urban industry and social networking.