Belgian Stories | Laboratoire: another approach to architecture

Laboratoire is the result of a meeting between four postgraduate students at the University of Liège: Florence Jacques, Morgan Delvaux, Maxime Faniel, and Arnaud De Francesco.

Founded in 2021, this architecture practice promotes a collective and collaborative approach, bringing together diverse, multidisciplinary, and complementary profiles.

Combining art, technology, and humanism, Laboratoire uses architecture as a medium to address environmental, urban, and social issues. This is why its members place the principles of reversibility and flexibility at the core of their research and designs: reversibility of materials and flexibility of buildings.

Laboratoire is also a promise: to give pride of place to ongoing experimentation, at the heart of an ideas laboratory that puts the team’s hands-on experience into practice, both in Belgium and abroad. This synergy has given rise to low-tech, intelligent projects that are adapted to their environment.

In 2023, Laboratoire won the Grand Prix of Architecture of Wallonia in the “Innovative Architecture” category with their shelters: the guest rooms of chef Marie Trignon’s estate (La Roseraie, in Modave).

In 2025, the collective contributed to the exhibition Time Space Existence, organized by the European Cultural Centre at the Venice Biennale, which explored the themes “Repair, Regenerate, and Reuse.”

Belgian stories

The production of “Belgian Stories: the talents of Wallonia–Brussels” is an initiative of Wallonia-Brussels International, an audiovisual format that highlights the exceptional talents of our region. It is broadcast on WBI’s digital platforms, on RTBF, and on TV5MONDE.