Studieburo Mouton is a structural design office that has acquired a special position within the Flemish architectural landscape as well as a steadily growing international reputation. Conducting a stability study for a design goes much further than simply calculating a given situation. The office is ready to be involved in the architect’s very earliest design stage. Its main aim is to provide a stability study in which the interaction with the architect strengthens the design. The main endeavor of Studieburo Mouton, is to arrive together with the designers at an intrinsically superior design process and structure. It is the intense cooperation between the architect and the engineer in which architecture and structure both reinforce and challenge one another: this is designing together. In its design process, Studieburo Mouton’s task is to ensure that everything — ranging from the original artistic idea to architectonic detail — is correctly and optimally covered. The structure and stability of a design are not merely calculated, but designed. This method of work contrasts with the current view that the stability study is a phase that is separate from the architectural design. The Studieburo Mouton absolutely does not envisage architecture and stability as separate entities but as a powerfully expressed consolidation among partners that creates a superior final project. If the architect and the structural engineer are on the same wavelength, the stability and structure of a design form a natural whole with the architecture.
