Whenever I walk along the Westervoortsedijk in Arnhem, I still peek inside the Kuiper Groep office. In 2008, they commissioned my very first permanent art installation. A work you can still spot through the window.

During the design phase, I visited several of their construction sites. The most remarkable one at the time was the relocation of a historic post office: cut into large sections, moved across the city, and rebuilt in Klarendal. It now stands there as if it had always belonged.

My own design grew out of imagining what could go wrong in such a delicate relocation. I often work with scale models, in which fantasies like this come naturally. But executing it for real is another story. I asked the construction team to saw an entire wall, door included, into pieces and then reassemble it incorrectly. The result is a fragmented, slightly disorienting wall they still look at every day in their canteen.

For me, the work is about the importance of playfulness in architecture — something essential, yet often hard-won. It’s also about how a building, once moved, is like a living being: even when reconstructed perfectly, it will never be exactly the same again.

Fusion (2008) Permanent installation commissioned and produced by Kuiper Groep , Arnhem