architecten De Vylder Vinck Taillieu . photos: © Filip Dujardin
The ambitions of AG SOB (Ghent Urban Development Corporation) go further than developing new urban districts and redrawing, in broad gestures, the existing urban fabric. Their Kavel project is an exercise in the precise implementation of small-scale housing following unconventional principles. The corporation seeks opportunities within the urban fabric – arising if necessary through demolition – to build new homes, either individually or in groups ranging from two or three to seven or eight. However, they do not manage everything themselves. Instead, they offer the site to a young or otherwise suitable family, selected from a number of candidates, as a package complete with a selected architect, on highly advantageous terms. The deal is also bound by stringent conditions for financing and program requirements: a high grade of sustainability is required on a practically impossible budget.
Much remains to be said about the meagre budgets, about the arbitrary selection process and about the exemplary role of the projects – as real examples or only as exceptional examples. But it is the boldness that matters. Having the courage to approach property development in a new way is probably the only way to help property development out of its (real or alleged) predicament. Four plots, or to be precise four families, declare themselves. Four houses are drawn. At first sight four identical houses, but none of them is exactly the same. Not only are the plots different but the families too. Actually, they may be really four different problem situations. Like any other assignment, they have nothing to do with one another. Or maybe they do.
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