A MIXED-USE COMPLEX COMPRISING A FIRE STATION AND A NEIGHBOURHOOD SPORTS FACILITY | OPEN COMPETITION ORGANISED BY THE CLIENT, 1ST PLACE
A fire station is a place of emergency. It is mainly shaped by the many flows that cross it: people, vehicles, goods, outfits, … Time constitutes here a key design parameter. But a fire station is also an inhabited place, a building where men and women live, work, eat, learn, practice, or sleep.
The design embodies these two worlds which we call the Temple and the Village. The intervention temple forms the base of the building where the garage and the technical zones are placed. They support fast departure and smooth arrival. On the upper levels however, the Village acts as a counterpole to the technicity of the ground area. Here is the living quarter of the fire station where the firemen and women can wait for the emergency in all serenity. The Village and the Temple are connected via a series of cores, the Sentinels. They ensure a fast route to the departure zone at any moment and from any place.
The project reaches from the canal area to the busy environment of the Chaussée de Mons. The intervention temple is articulated along different outdoor rooms : the departure porch, the central courtyard and the arrival zone. The village responds – by either addition or subtraction – to the heterogeneous morphology of the neighbouring buildings. Last but not least: a sports centre is integrated in the Village which is shared with the neighbourhood. With its iconic entrance from the canal side, it gives a public face to the otherwise detached world of the fire station.
Selected publications: Canal.brussels, A+, Architectura, Archi urbain, Afasia, Bouwkroniek, De Architect, BX1, BRUZZ
DEVELOPMENT OF A MIXED USE SUSTAINABLE PROJECT IN ANDERLECHT | OPEN COMPETITION ORGANISED BY THE CLIENT, 1ST PLACE
AWARDS Nominated for the Brussels Architecture Prize 2023,
in the category Major Intervention | First prize for Publica Awards 2023 in the category Urban Development, Infrastructure & Mobility | Be.exemplary Brussels 2019: laureate
NovaCity goes far beyond the juxtaposition of functions.
The built spaces are organised, and in return generate, qualitative open spaces hosting a constellation of collective places to inhabit, offering opportunities for encounter, interaction and conviviality.
On the ground floor, the workshops of the SME’s are distributed on both sides of an active street, that constitutes a backbone for daily interactions between the different users. In direct relation with the workshops, a double height of retail and offices offer a transitive interface with the neighbourhood, and share an address with the housing blocks.
Above this plinth, a skyline of various heights animates the visual sequences of a new pedestrian street, and allows natural sunlight to reach the heart of the site.
Diverse collective spaces take place on the roofs of the SME’s, in the voids between five different volumes. A small housing tower articulates the transition from the Chaussée de Mons, and four urban blocks are paired two by two around vertical patios where terraces constitutes a convivial threshold between community and privacy.
Both the housing and SME’s are designed to offer maximal flexibility and adaptability in time and use.
Selected publications: Architectura, De Architect, Architectenweb, Bouwkroniek
RECONVERSION OF AN OLD MILL INTO AN INTERPRETATION CENTRE AND AN INCUBATOR FOR SMALL AND MEDIUM ENTERPRISES | OPEN COMPETITION ORGANISED BY THE CLIENT, 1ST PLACE
AWARDS Nominated for the Archdaily 2022 Building of the year Awards | Shortlisted for the International Urban Project Award 2020 | Nominated for the Mies van der Rohe Award 2019 | Nominated for the BigMat International Architecture Award 2019 | Brussels Horta Prize 2018: first prize
The peculiar challenges of COOP are the local needs for cultural and social sustainability and an innovative reuse of a poorly integrated urban fabric. In that context, this project aims to generate an added social value. The urban renewal we aimed at goes beyond the preservation of a built heritage, it constitutes the essential challenge of the program itself. The old mill along the Canal in Anderlecht hosts today an incubator for Small & Medium Entreprises (SMEs) linked with an interpretation centre and an innovation shipyard. Next to the incubator, the shipyard associates traditional and innovative methods for the design and manufacturing of boats and barges for inland waterways, as a frame for professional training and reinsertion. The interpretation centre offers a reading of the past and future heritage of the neighbourhood through an extensive library of media and a multifaceted programming of exhibitions, workshops and other events. Therefore, we believe that the mission of the architect is to propose a qualitative and innovative architecture in order to enable the right programme, the right location and the right resources to generate a beneficial impact on a social level – to allow the building to become an engine, a driving force in the redevelopment of an underprivileged area such as the municipality of Anderlecht.
An innovative restoration approach has been used as a form of ecological recycling and cultural sustainability for the adaptive re-use of the industrial heritage:
– The elements of the program are not considered as fixed “spaces” or “buildings”, but rather as evolving “projects” in constant interaction with each other.
– Time (and therefore change) rather than space is taken as the main context of architecture. Flexibility and permanent adjustability therefore become key qualities.
– The project interacts on both local and supra-local levels and presents a low threshold towards the neighbourhood and the city.
The two existing listed buildings are stripped and used as large flexible containers. In between these two – within a “light architecture” shell – all the ancillary functions are inserted: stairs, elevators, techniques, service space, etc. On the ground floor, the open-plan reception and administration spaces link the project to the neighbourhood. A panoramic roofscape including a restaurant, a roof garden and terraces, functions as a lighthouse along the canal and a landmark that links the site with the city.
Selected publications: Architectura, Divisare, BRUZZ, HLN
TWELVE SOCIAL PASSIVE APARTMENTS AND THREE LOW-ENERGY DWELLINGS | OPEN COMPETITION ORGANISED BY THE CLIENT, 1ST PLACE
AWARDS Be.exemplary Brussels 2012: laureate
The classic 19th-century urban typology of the mansion with a ‘carriage porch’ – as we often find in this neighbourhood – is used to create a densified housing complex. The faceted volume of the apartment building in the front is generated by the clever combination of the adjacent building heights and cornice profiles. The façades and roofs of the project are developed in white zinc, perfectly matching the white natural stone of the houses in the neighbourhood. The rear building welcomes three dwellings under an extrusion of the adjacent industrial shed roofs. These units are accessible via a green inner courtyard. They also have their own garden and enjoy zenithal daylight through skylights.
Thanks to the generous flow of daylight, the spacious private outside spaces and the carefully tuned privacy settings, a housing typology is created with high spatial quality. Social housing thus becomes an integral part of the city, without any form of stigmatization or visible spatial deprivation. The project engages deliberately in an intense relationship with its context and uses the existing qualities such as sunlight and views to create a material support for social integration and cohesion.
The real ecology of this project lies in diverse aspects: high quality living in the city; high density combined with privacy; building in the inner area of an urban block.