Cross-border residence “Friches en miroir” between Belgium and Hauts-de-France

A cross-border residency on the hospitals of Denain and La Louvière

Last spring, the Maison de l’Architecture des Hauts-de-France launched a national call for applications for a cross-border residency between France and Belgium.

The winning Franco-Belgian team — led by the architect Lucas Meliani (Hyper, Paris) and including architect and anthropologist Juliette Charron (Paris), urban planners Maxime Jaume (XGDA, Brussels) and Lucile Pujol(Grue, Brussels), together with photographer and filmmaker Jonathan Ortegat (Brussels) — has been exploring since July the territories of La Louvière and Denain, two cities shaped by a shared industrial past and now facing the transformation of their hospital infrastructures.

Two territories in mirror

Located 74 kilometers apart, La Louvière and Denain share a history tied to Europe’s steel industry. Since the 1980s, deindustrialization has profoundly impacted these mid-sized cities, leaving behind strategic sites now awaiting reinvention.

The residency, entitled Hospitalities in mirror, unfolds over seven weeks between July and December 2025. It is structured into three phases: 

• scouting and exploration;
• activation and filming
• then editing and post-production

The focus of the residency is on two hospitals that will soon relocate: the Centre Hospitalier of Denain and the CHU Helora – Jolimont site in La Louvière. Their central urban locations raise critical questions about how cities host vulnerability, manage the transition of large inherited buildings, and address ecological transformation.

A research and mediation approach 

The first sessions provided an immersive entry into La Louvière and Denain, laying the groundwork for a comparative and sensitive field study.

At the core of the team’s work is the notion of care — not strictly in a medical sense, but as a form of attention given to places, practices, narratives, and the living. This transversal concept allows them to address urbanism, memory, ecology, and hospitality in parallel.

“We approach this residency as the creation of a speculative narrative, centered on two hospitals destined to become vacant in the coming years. These transitional sites are the starting point for a sensitive investigation into what their disappearance generates, and what new possibilities might emerge.”

Perspectives

Two main outcomes will conclude the residency:

• a 20-minute documentary film, conceived as a tool for transmission and projection, to be screened at the Maison de l’Architecture des Hauts-de-France, the Amiens International Film Festival 2026, as well as in La Louvière and Denain;
• a Codex, compiling the research and findings gathered across both sites.

“The film offers a sensitive journey through scarred territories, focusing on those who care for bodies, places, and environments. It explores, through everyday gestures, the forms of attention, maintenance, and repair that sustain life and make shared humanity possible.”