In 1978, Hendrik Vermoortel founded BURO II. BURO II has been focused on teamwork from the start and developed this through a wide variety of projects and investigations.

Architects and architecture cannot exist without a client. BURO II regards every client as the motive for a dialogue and improvement. A project thus only becomes viable once the balance between the collective dream, the social perspective, the structural quality and the economic feasibility can be translated into spatial quality.

In this book, many diverse and complex projects will be reviewed: housing, office premises, health centres, museums, cultural institutions and spatial plans. Also, the publication shows a sample of society’s activities and changes. In presenting these projects the main question is how to understand the given commission and which approach is fitting best. Or in the words of Guy Gypen, director of the Kaaitheater in Brussels: ‘Architecture (culture) participates in three ways or within three “spaces”, which cannot be separated from each other. There is the public space in which the encounter takes place between and around the disciplines; the experiential space stretching beyond the physical knowledge of the ecological crisis; and finally space for imagination. To bring about change, imagination, inspiration and creativity are indispensible.’