The house of Luc Deleu, the founder of T.O.P. office, in the city of Antwerp (Belgium), is not only a design studio and home for the architect. Above all, it is a space of accumulated knowledge: a kaleidoscope of collected references and an archive of drawings and models produced over more than fifty years.

In 2020-2021 this ‘orbanist’ universe – the term ‘orbanism’ was coined by Deleu as a vision for a global urbanism – became the basis for an interuniversity educational project, when the Flanders Architecture Institute digitised the archive of T.O.P. office. Five groups of architecture students were invited to develop a project based on the office’s immaterial knowledge by producing a storyline following objects found in the archive. As a result, a virtual studio space emerged that cumulated different sets of tacit knowledge.

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Sofie De Caigny is director of the Flanders Architecture Institute and visiting professor at the Faculty of Design Sciences, University of Antwerp. Tine Poot is consultant design at the Flanders Architecture Institute and project leader of Future Plans which celebrated 50 years practice by Luc Deleu & T.O.P. office.