On 21 and 22 October, [email protected] Kortrijk will be holding its tenth edition in its home town. All of the seminars and fringe events have now been scheduled and organiser Kortrijk Xpo is fully prepared. And perhaps the best news of all: there are no longer any restrictive measures regarding masks, social distancing or catering.
Focus on ‘Healthy Materials’
This historic edition revolves around the central theme of ‘Healthy Materials’. The focus is not only on the material and its production, but also on all the processes a product goes through. It goes from development to recycling and the impact on people and the environment and comes down to giving a relevant overview of the mega-trend of our time, aimed at both the (interior) architect and the specifier.
In addition, an extensive seminar programme on this theme was completed in collaboration with NAV, AiNB, KBKW, Orde van Architecten and various media partners. In addition, the event will be organised as a completely hybrid event, allowing visitors to attend both live and virtual events. Hybrid means that all seminars can also be followed online and that all products on display can be consulted extensively online. Visitors can also schedule meetings with the exhibitors in advance.
Seminar programme
A lecture by Herman Konings will kick off the seminar programme on Thursday 21 October at 11 a.m. Konings will talk about his new book ‘Gap the Mind’ and the impact of a (pandemic) crisis on the human mind and – by extension – the market and society. At 2 p.m. there will be a seminar powered by ProLicht, with the famous self-made British interior architect Tom Dixon, entitled ‘Designing light: the balance between beauty, function and technology in the Code concept’.
At 4 p.m., it is the turn of Orde van Architecten – Vlaamse Raad, with ‘Taking care of healthy materials: is our future healthy materialized? This seminar will include the question of how we can evolve from mass production to mass reproduction. The day will be closed at 18h00 with ‘In the breach for our modernist heritage’, an initiative of architectura.be.
On Friday 22 October, NAV opens the debates at 10.30 am with a very topical lecture: ‘Climate-proof design against droughts and floods’. This will be followed by a seminar, on the initiative of KBKW, with guest speaker Maria Alessandra Segantini of C + S ARCHITECTS. The topic will be how smart densification in the city is being worked on at Hoog Kortrijk, thanks to a new office building.
Equally interesting will be (at 4 pm) ‘Are you greenwashing your sins away’? AiNB has invited the Finnish speakers Tatu Aleksis Ahlroos & Tuomas Hänninen, who argue that no time should be lost to save our planet. The closing word at 18.00 is for Filippo Lodi of UNStudio-UNSx with the seminar under the rather vague title: ‘What is it about experience design that will change the way in which we think about architecture?
Side events
It will come as no surprise that the fringe events are centred on Material District, this time with the exhibition ‘Healthy Heroes’. This exhibition is divided into two main themes: ‘Healthy Spaces’ and ‘Healthy Planet’. The first part shows a selection of materials that contribute to a healthy indoor climate, materials that protect us and materials that contribute to good acoustics and connection with the outside. The second part pays ample attention to materials with a low CO2 footprint, materials that generate or save energy, materials that are recyclable or reusable and materials that save waste or are made from waste.
In all this, we must not forget two other participants who have been defining the image at [email protected] for years: Images by DAPh and the Project Wall by world-architects.com. The specialist architectural photographers of DAPh present new work that fits within the theme of ‘Healthy Materials’. The Project Wall showcases projects by architects, interior designers, lighting designers and landscape architects from all over the world.
Finally, not to be missed are ‘Art by Rifa’ by ART 84 and the Bookshop by Theoria Book House.
“After a much too long, purely digital period, this will be an ideal opportunity for optimal physical networking and doing business again,” laughs Director Nathalie Sandra. “As a total event, it will undoubtedly act as a catalyst, as the first major meeting point in the sector. The whole team is looking forward to having face-to-face contact again, it was and is desperately needed!”
[email protected] Brussels: 1 and 2 June 2022
Also to be noted in the agenda: the Kortrijk edition will not be the only appointment on the calendar in Belgium in the near future. After several postponements, the very first edition of [email protected] Brussels will take place on 1 and 2 June 2022 on the prestigious site of ‘Tour & Taxis’.
