Making a hut in the middle of nature is a child’s dream. Who in summer hasn’t wanted to carefully build a bric-a-brac shelter at the end of the garden, a place to seek refuge, play and dream? The GRRIZ studio (a collaboration between Luigi Greco and Mattia Paco Rizzi) has focused on architecture and town planning for several years, taking these disciplines as a diving board for an artistic approach that is highly sensitive to questions of space, place and function as human needs and desires. It was a natural choice for them to build a hut in Thuin’s hanging gardens. It straddles two terraces at the cultural centre gardens, which is already a social hub thanks to its allotment and beehives. The GRRIZ hut aims to be a space for relaxation and meditation. The collective used techniques that respect the environment and recycled materials to construct it. Wood and local slate were combined with salvaged materials from the now-destroyed old Thuin casino. Its shape is reminiscent of an insulating, protective Carapace and is angled towards the surrounding landscape. Although the hut has electricity, natural light floods in through the large opening at the front and this encourages both solitude and meditation thanks to its unobstructed views over the Jardins suspendus and the Biesmelle valley.
