In Ghent, the architects Beel and Achtergael designed the new Palace of Justice on the site of an old freight station. The building, with its sober and minimalist configuration, seems to have maintained the memory of a certain excessiveness. The absence of any ornamentation, the choice of materials that create numerous plays of transparency, introduce a relative abstraction on top of the aesthetic requirements laid out by its designers. Two large patios allow natural light to penetrate into the interior of the building.

The patios are conceived as a landscape of water, with a scale difficult to perceive in its entirety, extending and multiplying the mirror effects and the reflections of the glass facades. These open-air spaces are composed of basins bordered by metal footbridges. The flow of water takes place through the overflowing of the thin black sheet metal tanks. The waves of water blur the reading of the introduced system. Aquatic plants are arranged randomly throughout the architectural layout. These punctuations of vegetation evoke a miniaturized landscape, with no apparent formal composition or intelligible dimensions.