JAM Hotel Ghent opened inside the former Leopold Barracks at the edge of Citadel Park. For us this project grew the same way most of our projects do, not in a straight line but through encounters, materials and instinct. Nothing was overdesigned or polished. We approached the building the way we approach a workshop. You listen first. You respond second. The place itself became our material quarry. We reused what we found during demolition for staircases, bars and counters. Rotor shelving came in and took on new roles. OpenStructures helped us build beds that act more like evolving frameworks than finished objects. With Pierre Emmanuel Vandeputte we pushed the attitude of old school chairs. And we let the scars of the building stay visible because they are part of the timeline. Very little paint. Very little disguise. Honesty first. JAM has always had a certain rhythm. It carries improvisation, noise, freedom, the joy of not controlling everything. In Lisbon we played with this idea and Ghent continues that energy. The hotel is porous. It is open to the city and to everyone who shaped it. There is no separation between the work and the building and the people. The project is not perfect by design. It is alive by design. The Realistic Circle sits at the center of everything. Use what is already there. Work closely with people around you. Stay within your radius. Keep materials in circulation. Let the process show. Real collaboration creates a kind of snowball effect where each meeting leads to the next, and every contribution influences the rest. That is exactly how JAM Ghent was built. More than forty designers, makers and artists within fifty kilometers of the site shaped this project. Their work is not decoration. It is the architecture of the hotel. The power of the place comes from the collection of voices, skills and materials that cross each other inside the building. The project was guided with clarity by Juliette Geeraert, Louise Michiels & Lionel Jadot.