formidable

causing fear or dread 
/
tending to inspire awe or wonder













formidable is a practice in the making, working within states of simultaneity – where wonder and fear, attraction and discomfort, exist at the same time.

Initiated by architect, urban designer, researcher, and curator Alexandra Sonnemans, previously co-founder of rotative studio.

formidable is a practice in the making.

It does not begin from a fixed agenda or predefined direction, but from situations that register as felt rather than solved – situations that linger, unsettle, or remain unresolved. The practice takes shape through attention, presence, and repeated encounters, forming itself in relation to place, time, and collaboration.

formidable names a condition in which awe and unease coexist. 
A simultaneous pull of wonder and fear – attraction and discomfort held at once. These are spatial and societal situations that resist clarity, where no neutral or comfortable position is available. The practice does not attempt to stabilise this condition, but works from within it.

formidable operates across architecture, curatorial practice, and research, without settling into a single disciplinary frame. Projects emerge through being on site, through exploration, observation, and other forms of attentiveness. Outcomes are not predetermined and may appear as spatial propositions, temporary interventions, conversations, exhibitions, or texts – depending on how a situation unfolds.

The practice draws on earlier experiments and modes of working, while refusing to fix them as method. Space is approached not as a problem to be solved, but as a medium for sensing, imagining, and questioning – a way of staying with uncertainty rather than resolving it.

The formation of the practice itself is part of the work. formidable remains deliberately unfinished: an ongoing attempt to hold open a space for tension, discomfort, and shared attentiveness, precisely where resolution is neither possible nor desired.