The Boathouse 1 and The Boathouse 2

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RESEARCH BACKGROUND: The Boathouse 1 and The Boathouse 2 is a family dwelling in an estate along the river Eems in Holland.

RESEARCH CONTRIBUTION: As a built research case, the project signifies a milestone in Van Den Berghe's research, enabling him to investigate, test and apply assumptions that previously had been investigated through speculative (unbuilt) designs. Through a series of research cases, he perfomed a comparative study of the impact of materialisation in and on architecture. It had also been a test case and an observation of conversation as a design tool in design processes. An intense conversational process between the architect, his client, the engineer, contractors and subcontractors have structured and guided the transitional and iterative design process from stage to stage (as research), which means from one material version to another. This investigation has enabled Van Den Berghe to refine conversation as a design tool.

RESEARCH SIGNIFICANCE: The Boathouse project was selected for The Procuring Innovative Architecture exhibition curated by Professor Leon Van Schaik. The exhibition was commissioned by the Maribor European City of Culture 2012 (curated by Tom Kovac and Fleur Watson) and auspiced by Andrej Hrausky, Director of DESSA. It demonstrated how the pursuit of innovative architecture by cities around the world had played a pivotal role in the capturing of the local culture of those cities. Van Den Berghe's project was exhibited twice: as a virtual model of this exhibition at the 13th Venice Architecture Biennale (the most significant presentation of architecture to an international audience) and as a real time exhibition in the DESSA Gallery in Ljubljana. It was further critically reviewed in the book 'Practical Poetics in Architecture' by Leon Van Schaik, published by Wiley.