The new wing: the final piece that connects everything

The new wing, designed by Carmody Groarke (UK) and ATAMA (BE), forms the final piece of the museum site, alongside the restoration of the historic buildings by RE-ST (BE). It ensures that the museum connects with the 21st century—both in terms of visitor experience and its social role. Visitors can do more than just view collection items; they can engage with them, debate, reflect, and enjoy. By adding generous spaces for lectures, workshops, exhibitions, events, and nature, the museum opens its doors to the city and the world.

But the new wing does even more. It removes barriers and serves as a freely accessible space featuring a ‘Stadskamer’ (city room) where you can unwind, and where local communities and neighbourhoods can find their place and showcase their creations. It is a place for celebration, creation, and discovery—a space where real connections are made.

The historic Hotel de Coninck has always been organized around its inner courtyard. Behind its impressive façade, however, there was a neglected southern passage and an unused plot at the centre of the site. With the addition of the new wing, the courtyard can now fully function as a garden—the heart of the museum and a clear point of orientation.

Views towards the courtyard run through the building, guiding movement through the museum and seamlessly connecting its various parts. The new wing links the existing museum buildings into a coherent whole, completing the visitor loop. The new wing introduces six zones, organised around three core principles: welcoming, open, and adaptable. At basement level, the art-handling area offers a glimpse into the museum’s daily behind-the-scenes work. From there, visitors move through the Stadskamer (reception and shop), the Forum (lecture space), the Atelier (workshops), and the Vitrine (temporary exhibitions), before arriving at the Loft on the fourth floor—a generous event space with panoramic views over the city of Ghent.

The new wing is built in timber and white brick, drawing on Ghent’s rich building traditions in a contemporary way. The façade is crafted from Gent Waste Brick—a lime-cured brick produced from locally sourced municipal waste. Instead of being fired in kilns, the bricks harden through a low-energy lime-curing process, significantly reducing their environmental footprint. More than 82,000 bricks were produced locally at Het Arsenaal in Ghent, a process the people of Ghent could follow live. The façade reflects the city’s material history while looking boldly towards its future.

Execution-wise, the brick dimensions match those of the 18th-century Hotel de Coninck, helping old and new sit comfortably side by side. Their light tone relates to the historic houses along Drabstraat, while the overall composition draws on the scale and rhythm of Ghent’s traditional guild houses and merchant homes. Deep window reveals, pronounced copings, and precise detailing give the building a distinct civic presence and a clear architectural identity.

The overall masterplan respects the past while clearly looking ahead. Historic interiors have been carefully restored, while later additions have been optimized to create more space and improved climatic conditions. Wherever possible, materials have been reused and sustainable solutions adopted. The result is a museum capable of hosting internationally significant collections under optimal conservation conditions while dramatically reducing its ecological impact.

The renewed museum is conceived as a 'third space' in the public realm: an open, welcoming environment where people can meet, learn, create, and discover. From the very start of the design process, one central question guided the project: “Is this a museum for me?”

In 2025, forty Ghent residents came together in the citizens’ panel DE40 to address this question head-on: How can Design Museum Gent make design accessible and relevant to a broad audience, regardless of background or prior knowledge? Their insights served as a guiding framework in the transformation from a physical building into a living museum.

A design museum does not only display design—it uses, tests, and embodies design. Special Design Projects are integrated throughout the building, ranging from furniture by Casimir and Bram Vanderbeke & Wendy Andreu, and a pocket garden by Bureau Bas Smets, to acoustic curtains by Chevalier-Masson and the 3D-printed aluminium entrance gate Freeze Frame 82.2 by Unfold. The museum thus becomes not only a place where design is exhibited, but an inspiring space where design is lived, experienced, and shared.

The new wing is not conceived as a neutral container, but as a vibrant, clearly articulated framework that can evolve flexibly alongside the museum and its community.

Building a new wing and starting a new chapter is never something you do alone. Design Museum Gent is exceptionally grateful to all the partners who have helped—and continue to help—bring this project to life. The grand reopening is organized with the support of Event Flanders.

Sogent oversaw the construction works as project developer, and the design team consists of Carmody Groarke (UK), ATAMA (BE), and RE-ST architectenvennootschap (BE). The project receives financial support from Flanders – Department of Culture, Youth and Media, ERDF Flanders, the Flanders Heritage Agency, and Circular Flanders.