The new building in Hasselt, Belgium, is an expansion to Z33 House for Contemporary Art, Design & Architecture, designed by the Italian architect Francesca Torzo. Z33 derives its name from the address Zuivelmarkt 33 in the centre of Hasselt, which housed a Beguine community in the 18th century. The historical complex of Hasselt beguinage resembles an island in the urban fabric of the city: the garden is enclosed by a wall of heterogeneous brick buildings, to which Z33 belongs. It is a place of rest, with a different sound from the bustling city center.

The design preserves the identity of the beguinage, its cultural permanence, proposing the extension building as another brick building in continuity with others. Z33 is one building made of two: the existing museum from 1958 and the extension.The new building form responds to the context: towards the city, it folds to accompany the street walkway; towards the garden it folds to welcome the garden in a niche, echoing the facade of the XIX century neighbouring Gin factory.The new building reinterprets the expression of the XVIII century buildings, disposing an almost blind wall towards the street and displaying a score of windows towards the garden. Towards the street the façade is a long jointless solid brick wall with few openings: 34.494 handmade bricks to be placed one by one on a facade of 60 meters long and 12 meters high.The extension building is an ensemble of rooms that vary in size, proportion and light atmosphere responding to the will of offering a different scene of work for curators and artists, different from the classical layout of the existing wing Vleugel’58, reinterpreted as an ideal “white cube”.