The design studio ran in collaboration with the 1^st Master in Architecture at the University of Wuppertal (DE). The students of both universities took part in several workshops during the first semester.

The principles laid down in Vatican II or the aggiornamento formed the basis for the reform of the liturgical space in existing churches and initiated the freedom for new architectural design in modern churches. As an introduction to the studio, the students analysed spatial and liturgical characteristics of various modernist churches in Belgium. Studying and applying the contemporary potential of these principles served as an inspiration for spatial interventions, they worked on the case study of the church of St. Alena in St. Gillis in the south of Brussels.

The project was formative in the architectural careers of Roger Bastin and Jacques Dupuis, since its construction spanned the years from 1940 to 1972, thus living through both WWII and Vatican II, during which period the design evolved from a decorated and more classic stylistic approach to become the modernist church at odds with the 19th-century bourgeois environment. The students investigated the reuse of the surrounding spaces and the larger site of the church. The aim of the assignment was to (re-)integrate the church, and the migrant community that uses it, into the now hipster neighborhood of St. Gillis.