Kumu Documentary: Life, Assembled / La vie en kit
Dir Élodie Degavre
Belgium 2022, 70 min
In French, with English subtitles
The director of the film Élodie Degavre is interviewed by architect Aet Ader
Experimental housing communities 50 years ago in Belgium.
In the 1970s, community housing became a vision that responded to the housing crisis and austere modernist architecture. Three architects and a group of courageous residents were willing to turn the then-utopia of self-housing into reality in several Belgian cities. Houses constructed as modular units became a cheap, sustainable, and above all accessible option for all, while effectively creating the conditions for local communities to function.
The architect and film-maker Élodie Degavre revisits these projects 50 years after their completion, using archival material and contemporary interviews with their creators to outline how these housing ideals have stood the test of time and how they are relevant again today.
Élodie Degavre, based in Brussels, is a passionate architect, lecturer, researcher and film director. She has worked for various Brussels firms on public projects and teaches architectural design at UCLouvain. With a growing interest in “narrating” architecture, she regularly writes for A+ Architecture and is committed to making architecture more accessible to non-professionals.
The introduction to the theme was made by the director of the film, Élodie Degavre.
Life, assembled has been shown at a number of renowned festivals, including Architecture Film Festival Rotterdam, FIFA Montreal, Architecture and Design Film Festival New York and Chicago. It won the Audience Award at the Brussels Art Film Festival, the Best Screenwriting Award at Rijeka History Film Festival and has received the Architectural Heritage Intervention Award in the Dissemination category in Barcelona in 2023.
The film will be screened in cooperation with the Estonian Association of Architects.
