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Arts 2026
Horst’s 2026 architecture commissions continue to explore how built structures can function as social infrastructure. In collaboration with VAi (Flanders Architecture Institute) Belgian landscape architect Bureau Bas Smets brings Building Biospheres, previously showcased at the Belgian pavilion at the Venice Architecture Biennale, to Asiat Park.
Together with students from Horteco, the horticultural school in Vilvoorde, the plants are being carefully tended and overwintered ahead of their reinstallation in our celebrated Rain Room in April. Students will also be actively involved in the reassembly of the installation, continuing a meaningful hands-on partnership that connects education with large-scale ecological design.
Building Biospheres
How will architecture evolve with an influence of plant intelligence? With their exhibition concept Building Biospheres, landscape architect Bas Smets and climate scientist biologist Stefano Mancuso explore a new relationship between nature and architecture. Building Biospheres proposes to think of buildings as artificial microclimates in which plants play a crucial role in purifying air and cooling space. Using the latest insights into plant intelligence, the project aims to make urban environments more liveable and sustainable.
Bas Smets
Bas Smets received his master’s degree in Architecture and Civil Engineering from the University of Leuven and a master’s degree in Landscape Architecture from the University of Geneva. In 2023, he was appointed Professor in Practice at the Harvard University Graduate School of Design.
Through his design studio, he explores new ways of transforming the city into an urban ecology capable of producing cooling microclimates to respond to climate change. A first monographic exhibition of his work was presented in 2013 at deSingel International Arts Centre in Antwerp, and the Arc-en-Rêve Centre d’Architecture in Bordeaux. In 2025, a second exhibition, Climates of Landscape, was presented at LUMA Arles, offering an immersive experience into his practice and research. Bas Smets has received numerous honours and awards, including the Award for Urbanism and Public Space from the French Royal Academy of Architecture, the Aga Khan Award for Architecture, and the Ultima for General Cultural Merit in Flanders. In November 2025, he was named Officer of the Order of Arts and Letters by the French Minister of Culture.
1, 2 & 3. Building Biospheres by Bureau Bas Smets with Stefano Mancuso, Flanders Architecture Institute 2025 © Michiel De Cleene.
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