Form Follows Insulation

The architectural fields of exploration in the coming decades will be linked to heritage renovation, thermics and natural materials. This study presents a new perspective on insulation, combining prospective and experimental visions. The need to insulate existing buildings is an architectural opportunity. "Form follows insulation". This study explores the architectural languages emerging from the act of insulating, and questions the position and thickness of natural materials in heritage renovation. The research is being carried out in the Brussels-Capital Region, using the hemp-lime mix as a subject for reflection. The project is organized around two complementary strands. The first concerns practice. It includes a survey to establish the state of the art in the use of hemp-lime insulation in Belgium, and to identify locally available channels and resources. The second part is theoretical and experimental. Three Brussels archetypes of different period, type and scale are put to the test: through a series of formal experiments, the three residential buildings are transformed in the light of new thermal and material considerations. For each of them, insulation becomes one of the determinants of the shape of the floor plan and the uses to which it is put. Barrault Pressacco is an architecture and urban planning practice based in Paris, founded in 2009 by Thibault Barrault and Cyril Pressacco, which develops a method attentive to actors and materials in their cultural and constructive dimensions. In 2023, Barrault Pressacco founded the New Moon editorial structure.