NS Architects rethink the traditional workspace with Tribu Offices, with a nod to a familiar and minimal Belgian residential style. The brief outlined the desire for an architectural build that reflected the high-end furniture brand, whilst sitting healthily alongside adored residential heroes of the region. The combination of selected materiality, placement of openings, and controlled volumes, creates a sense of timelessness and endurance, echoing the stability of the company and its lineage.

Completed in 2017, and situated in Bilzen, Belgium, the offices are designed to purposefully counteract the feel of an expected workplace environment. The exercise has proven a successful one, ensuring the work itself can still be done, but the softness of the interiors and material selection, allows for a more desirable setting. Designed in collaboration with Marc Merckx (previously of Vincent Van Duysen), Nicolas Schuybroek’s placement of openings and circulation spaces allow for optimised natural light and a unique celebration of the spaces.

The bold stability of the concrete structural elements, together with the timber, steel, and glass, a two-level geometric series of spaces, spreads out over two levels. The combination of teak timber, with the raw and textured concrete elements act as a contrast to one another. But it is the dance of proportion, balance, and seamless integration of the new and the industrial (linking to the production house) that set this beautifully minimal project from other offerings. The convivial nature of each of the spaces, and how they interplay is rare for a place of work, and its incredible execution is a welcomed addition to raising the bar, and setting a new standard.