OFFICE 291

The project for the extension of the Design Museum Gent adds a further layer to the complex palimpsest of an eighteenth-century city block. The current museum occupies a cluster of historic buildings that form three edges of a central courtyard, and the new wing fills the missing piece of the urban plan – a vacant lot between its fourth edge and the street. The extension is a stack of four boxes, each with a different polygonal plan. While the boxes enclose the main programme of the museum – exhibition rooms, spaces for lectures, workshops and events – the open surfaces of the carrying concrete slabs make a hinge between the new building and the existing context. On each floor, these residual spaces perform as vestibules and terraces that create a lively facade towards the city. The new museum access is positioned along the inclined side of the box, connecting the street to the inner courtyard through the public foyer, which houses the café and the bookshop.