Yves Paquay

Mensen Nesten

Human Nest
What if we learn to nest again? 
 

In an alienated era where building has become an industrial machine—concrete suffocating the earth, comfort mortgaging the future—this project returns to the essence. Mensen Nesten explores how we can build like birds, beavers, and ovenbirds do: with what the place itself provides, with our own hands, without waste. 

Ecodorp Wilde Nesten rises in the Mechelse Heide, a landscape scarred by extraction but healing through time. Eight radical nests emerge here—each an experiment in minimal living, maximum connection. De Riethoeve of straw bales and reeds forms the warm heart. De Dennenappel grows from living trees that fuse into an organic framework. De Kloof van Zoden burrows into the hillside, built from earth and roots. De Rietvanger floats above the marsh—a woven cocoon that sways with the wind. Het Zandbastion rises from compressed sand from the slope itself, heavy and enduring as the ages. 

Some nests have no windows, doors, or heating. Some are seasonal. They demand that you forage, build, maintain. That you accept comfort can come from mass, from community, from a well-placed sleeping spot beneath thick blankets. 

This is no romantic ideal but a necessary exploration. The construction sector causes 37% of global CO₂ emissions. We must do differently. Mensen Nesten shows that building differently means: returning to craft, to patience, to materials that breathe and decay. To architecture that doesn't possess but shares. That doesn't seek to be eternal, but may return to the ground. 

Do you dare to nest?


Graduation date: 29 October 2025
Graduation committee: Maartje Lammers (mentor), Maike van Stiphout, Pierre Jennen
Additional members for the exam: Marlies Boterman, Peter van Assche