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2025 Load


What is the weight of a brick?

Not its grams or its load-bearing capacity. But its real mass. The echo of its extraction, the dust of its transport, the ledger of emissions, the strain in a builder’s arm, the digital residue of drawings, simulations, spreadsheets. We ask: what is it we really carry when we build?

The 2025 edition of Paraply turns to the theme of Load. In architecture, to load is to carry the forces of the structure. Defying the rules of gravity where stacked stone became symbols of endurance. Cast iron and ornament flirting with the air in the sky. As well as heavy concrete cantilevering over glass seeking to levitate. And now, matter is no longer enough. We find ourselves scrutinising the very need to build. Architecture itself begins to evaporate, replaced by its paper footprints.

Beyond the elegance of structure lies a thickness we rarely measure. What is the psychic load of endless PDFs? The infrastructural weight of late-stage capitalism? In the 2025 edition of Paraply we will explore the physical reality of architecture along with its metaphysical becoming. Inviting participants to think through the emotional, logistical, material and historical load we design with. To treat weight as more than gravitational pull, but to see it as memory, debt, fatigue and responsibility. Will we carry the weight of the profession or will we carve out new paths?

This summer, we handle discarded matter, not as surplus but as a symptom. We work with what has already been shaped and handled. We remember that no object is without lineage, no structure without innocence, and no architecture without change.



Oana Stănescu“People spend most of their time in artificially created environments that are defined as much by laws, standards, economic pressures, and socio-cultural norms, materials, and media as they are by desires and dreams. Through my work I got to explore how space plays a key role in people's lives, not as the main actor but through the way it reflects and shapes culture. Few disciplines share such a privilege and responsibility.”

Oana Stănescu interview about Paraply with SCHNITT Magazine in January 2026.

Assistant: Rebecca Stenz
Sima Bučar Fiškin
Rin Kawamoto
Louis Garden
Vanja Edevåg Hellström
Katrina Marta Peizuma
Maite Santos Alcocer
Anneke Sandow
Louis Emil Baurmann
Koralia Stergiou
Paula Heucke
Malte Peters
Beck Flore
Rita Rui Ting Wang
Katinka Pi Madsen
Oana Stănescu is a Romanian-born architect and designer whose work encompasses architecture, public space, and cultural initiatives. She runs an international design studio based between Berlin and New York, with projects ranging from public infrastructure and urban transformation to retail and exhibition spaces. In 2024, she curated the Beta Biennial in Timișoara. Stănescu is also a dedicated educator, having taught at Harvard, MIT, Columbia, and UCLA. Her practice emphasizes thoughtful, context-sensitive design, and she actively contributes to architectural discourse through teaching, writing, and public speaking engagements around the world.




Olivier Goethals
“Each student group was asked to explore the city of Copenhagen and find a place with a layered history, sites where different layers of design, age, and traces of use are visible. They would take a photograph of this place and then insert themselves into the image together with an object they had made in order to rebalance the composition. Through this addition, a new composition emerges from the original photograph.”

Olivier Goethals interview about Paraply with SCHNITT Magazine in January 2026.

Assistant: Jakob Ravn Abildgaard
Gabriel Higgins
Vinzent Hadschieff
Philipp Kitzberger
Breanne Taylor
Santiago Madueño
Mike Sullivan
Johanna Tapper
Charlotte Audifax Gauthier
Margaret Gallagher
Lukas Raabe
Maria do Mar Cavaleiro
Beyzanur Barut
Marion De Bie
Maya Ghosh
Anastasia Sougioultzoglou Olivier Goethals studied Architecture and Urban Development. He is working simultaneously as architect and artist. In his wide practice he researches the connection between space and consciousness.

Olivier made spatial interventions and artistic installations for venues such as: Het Nieuwe Instituut Rotterdam, Hamburger Bahnhof Berlin, Ruhrtriennial Bochum, Biennial Lyon, Extra City Antwerp, BNKR Munich, Triennale Milano & Palais De Tokyo Paris.

His drawings and paintings have been shown in Palais De Tokyo Paris, Kunstverein Arnsberg, Kristof De Clerck Ghent, Fred & Ferry Antwerp, kunsthal Kade Amersfoort, 019 Ghent & Biennial of Lyon.

Previously he worked as a freelance architect for De Vylder Vinck Taillieu (2008-2016). Since 2010, he has been teaching at the KULeuven Architecture Department. He was a guest critic at RU Ghent faculty of Architecture, LUCA School of Arts and Architecture Academie Maastricht. Olivier is actively part of the art collective 019-ghent.





Stand van Zaken“What we take away personally is learning how to guide a process with many minds involved without over-controlling. With Stand van Zaken we contributed to the Horst Festival, designing a bar and a stage and collaborating with many people — sound engineers, students, performers. The question is always: how do you create a framework in which everyone feels free, yet not lost?”

Stand van Zaken interview about Paraply with SCHNITT Magazine in January 2026.


Assistant: Tobias Rasmussen
Finn Gredel
Mats Hanekopf
Hatice Elma
Bella Thomas
Maya Eddegdougui 
Amelie Kotte 
Annika Brammer
Ollie Sachs
Marina Jolliffe
Ellen Van den Eeckhaut
Lea Notsch
Pauline Jahnke
Maaike De Groote
Bianca Chiara Blair
Johann Weber
Emily Brodszki
May Florine Rehse
Emily Nausner
Stand van Zaken— translated as State of Play — is a modular organism that that brings together specialists across various fields. It thrives on fluidity and adaptability, continuously reshaping itself in response to the contexts and encounters that inspire its projects. Founded by Belgian architects Theo De Meyer and Stefanie Everaert (co-founder of doorzon interieur architecten) it serves as a dynamic framework for capturing these moments in time. Stand van Zaken is centered around the creation of processes, spaces, and objects. It develops innovative works that merge diverse knowledge and skills, opening up creative possibilities. These collaborations are driven by a desire to craft new contexts and experiences, reinterpreting spaces and materials to uncover new meanings within familiar environments. 




Guest lectures by Johansen Skovsted, A Part of Sum, and A  Kassen.


LocationThe workshop took place in an old naval workshop where machinery and equipment was manufactured, repaired and maintained for the shipyard. The building is currently being used by the Danish Design School as an educational space.



Bibliography

1. Charles Jencks & Nathan Silver, Adhocism - The Case for Improvisation, 2013
   
2. Nelo Magalhães, How much does your road weigh?, 2025
3. Charlotte Malterre-Barthes, A Moratorium on New Construction, 2025
   
4. Charlotte Malterre-Barthes, Architecture of Extraction: Space and the Political Economy of Construction Materials, 2020 Ongoing
   
5. Viktor Kossakovsky, Architecton, 2024
   
6. The Architectural Review, Repair, 2024
7. Simone Weil, Gravity and Grace, 1947
   
8. Hannah Arendt, The Human Condition, 1958
   
9. Jane Bennett, Vibrant Matter: A Political Ecology of Things, 2010
   
10. Tim Ingold, Making: Anthropology, Archaeology, Art and Architecture, 2013
    
11. Philippe Simay, Bâtir avec ce qui reste, 2023
    
12. Christophe Bonneuil & Jean-Baptiste Fressoz, The Shock of the Anthropocene, 2016
    
13. Byung-Chul Han, The Burnout Society, 2010
    

Paraply, www.paraplyschool.com, paraplyschool(at)gmail.com, @paraply. © 2026, Paraply School. All rights reserved. Photography by Samuel Causse.