XDGA

Close to the other EU Institutional buildings, the LOI130 project is to become the Administrative Headquarters of the EU. The sheer vastness of this venue begs for the question: how to integrate such an XXL premise in a neighbourhood that wants to be urban, mixed and lively throughout the day, while creating an Institution that is less hermetic towards its surroundings?

In order to achieve this ambition, the central element of the project is a large, glazed, collective Void that crosses the entire site. It reveals the internal life of the Headquarter, connects all the elements of the project and lends itself to open programming.

The complex is essentially articulated in four parts: a base, low and mid raises, four high-rises and the Void. All parts and programmes (offices, visitor centre, the Day Nurseries and the Catering) are connected to and articulated around the Void.

A series of public spaces furthermore animate the project and favour the relation with the context:
- a pedestrian and bicycle Passage cutting the midrise building volumes, intervalled by the retails and the main entrances to the EU Commission.
- a large, column free gallery space mediates between Rue de la Loi and the building volume.
- a garden on the level of the Chaussée d’Etterbeek, that hosts the metro entrance, forms a spatial unity with the Jardin de Maelbeek, as well as a forecourt to the Visitor Center inside.

In continuity with the developments of the "Plan Canal", the project supports the formidable opportunities that come with a rapidly changing district, where the desired programmatic mix transforms the industrial character of the place while preserving part of its memory.

Here, industrial and infrastructural activities come together in the footsteps of an ancient alluvial plain to form a "small island", that is part of a wider constellation of activities.
Our proposal supports the urban and programmatic ambition envisioned by the plan, by enhancing the specific size of the plot and by promoting the encounter of different activities. The urban intervention, as well as the architectures associated with it, place at the centre of concerns the production of spaces offering great comfort of habitability combined with a strong flexibility of occupations.

The design of the project refers to the intermediate scale present on the site, between large commercial warehouses and neighbouring urban blocks. It is based on this scale in order to respond to the community of activities present on the site, while maintaining various ways of living according to current standards. While its different parts offer possibilities for simple and economical habitats, the project postulates on the exceptional character of the encounters between the different practices rather than the originality of its built forms.

The streets and public squares of the centre of Bruges retain a remarkable harmony with their buildings. However, the square ‘t Zand’, situated on the border of the inner city, is an exception to this rule and presents itself as a large empty space with no real relation to the surrounding buildings. Only the concert hall at the southern edge of the space is somewhat related to the scale of the square. The square is intensely used by a variety of large scale activities that create a lively, functional and essential part of the city. In order to keep this functional quality to its maximum, one should provide the space with a focus point, a ‘place-mark’, instead of strengthening the spatial definition of it borders. This place-mark creates a counterpoint to the spatial emptiness of the square and locates a meeting for when the square is used.

At the north side of the square we propose a circular, translucent canopy, the same width as the square. This object; a round bowl with a circular oculus in the middle, functions as both a sheltering roof and as a waterfall. The reflection of the water, the play of light and shadow, defines an everchanging atmosphere and experience. The object itself is as immaterial as possible; a translucent fabric suspended below a series of concentric rings which catch the rainwater into a cascade that flows gently towards the central waterfall opening. At the level of the square additional fountains are foreseen, their change in flow and ebb providing a constant varying play of water. The new fountain canopy becomes a point of attraction which allows the inhabitation of the empty vastness of the square and creates opportunities for different activities and appropriations.

The goal of the multidisciplinary study ‘Metropolitan Coastal Landscape 2100’ is to develop the building blocks for and from the ongoing processes and developments through research by design. By aiming –ambitiously- at 2100 as a frame of mind we approach the Belgian coast and it’s hinterland as a whole on a long term perspective, in its international context. Both the urban landscape as the interwoven anthropomorphic ‘green’ landscape are the intrinsic canvas for the coastal development study.

There is an urgent need for a larger frameset in which the urgencies emerging from very different sectors can be unified; a frame where ambitious visions and concrete projects can be set in a larger, qualitative context, looking past the current ‘business-as-usual’ approach. Rather than claiming absolute truths via a single masterplan, this study aims at provoking, stimulating and exploring relevant questions, opportunities and challenges through explorative scenarii.

The structurally differentiated scenarii for the Belgian coast elaborate specific –but not always apparent- existing qualities from the current natural or anthropomorphic coastal landscape. The extrapolation of these characteristics leads to four divergent, ambitious but plausible spatial principles for the organisation of a metropolitan landscape that is able to cope with the unpredictable dynamics of natural and sociological processes. Based on the qualities of these four perspectives for an alternate future the policies between stakeholders, governance and sectors can be guided towards an ambitious shared program of development strategies and concrete transformations.

In 2008, an International competition was announced aiming at the urban transformation of Brussel’s notorious Wetstraat, the doubling of the existing office space and the addition of residential surfaces. In a wider context, there is the contentious issue concerning the urban integration of the European institutions within the city. Since the sixties, this collection of European buildings form a foreign body with rejection symptoms inside the city.

Our proposal takes on issues of density, urban mix, infrastructure and public space and does so by grouping them in a concentrated square of activity precisely at the moment where the well-defined section of the Wetstraat gives way to the more loose and campus-like condition which characterizes the European quarter and its collection of varied, large scale volumes. It is this crosshair location which is key; it offers an integrated presence in the well-defined urban structure of the former and takes advantage of the larger scale of the latter to accommodate the huge programmatic surfaces required. The result is a compact and efficient urban form, which intimately engages the roads and metro lines running underground and uses them to enliven and offer a metropolitan character to the block. Unapologetically imposing and yet deeply rooted in the urban fabric and logic of the situation, the complex of towers seems to have been hewn from far larger original volumes evident at the base where conference, shopping, lobbies and a lively public plaza give a rich sense of urbanity for all.

The Flagey square finds its identity in the way it defines a place, an ‘atmosphere’, rather than by circumscribing a clear space like a classical plaza does. The Flagey square flows over into adjacent smaller squares and thus literally penetrate the neighbourhood. Flagey is like a knot, a ‘hot spot’, where deferent worlds meet.

Our project proposes to use this specific characteristic by creating a new delimitation of the square that would fluently integrate the adjacent spaces with the main square and thus define the new square as a ‘platform’, what we called an ‘espace’ Flagey.

The Flagey Square is situated at the end of a green area that starts with the Forest of ‘Soignes’, continues into the woods of ‘La Cambre’ and then flows over into the ‘Ixelles’ ponds who are neighbouring the square. Consequently the south side of the square opens towards the greenery of the ponds whereas the other sides even when opening onto other squares are defined by build volumes. Those buildings seem to have a unity in the yellow brink used in their facades.

The first act in our project is to create a disk of yellow bricks which would comprise ‘place Flagey’ and al the adjacent spaces. Within this circle, streets, sidewalks, and even bus stops are realised in the same yellow bricks By doing this we soften the visual impact of the already deplaned infrastructure on the square like the bus stops and the main roads. The yellow bricks also induce a unity with the facades of the surrounding buildings. The second act was to define five specific arrears with an own programme. The idea is to concentrate the functions requested by the competition brief so that the rest of the square can be left free for whatever activity the neighbourhood can imagine or generate. We were thinking of for example of a market, a circus, a fair, but also the spontaneous games of children or simply banality of the daily passing by.

The defined areas are worked out in detail, three of them contain the stairs and elevators towards the underground parking. The first area is covering the roof of the over the bus and tram stops, this area can be used as a tribune for events on the square. The second area is a ceremonial place in black marble situated in front of the church. The third area is a aluminium square situated in the middle of one of the adjacent ponds. The fourth area is a garden with a patio that opens onto the underground parking. The fifth area is sunken sports field surrounded with stands.

As elsewhere in Flanders, Leuven (Louvain) is surrounded by a proliferating haze of construction with no clear structure. This chaotic landscape is the result of a complex interplay of often contradictory forces, such as ribbon development, subdivision and fragmentation, infrastructural incisions, centrifugal forces and repolarization.

Within this amalgam, it is remarkable how straightforward topographical features like the Arenberg estate manage to create a certain order and coherence. A green valley – the confluence of the Dijle and Voer rivers – with a sequence of woods and open fields and a network of paths are all it takes to link a variety of university facilities and to turn them into a striking unity within the overall sprawl.

Our proposal uses these ‘bare’ ingredients to fix the essence of the science park – an elongated strip of open field, used as biotech test plots, is kept free of buildings, wooded ‘fronts’ are extended here and there, a few smaller walled gardens are laid out and paths are continued. Parking is a crucial feature of the programme. Its mass character – the area given over to parking accounts for about 40% of the total site – has the capacity seriously to disrupt the balance between the constructed elements and the estate. To keep all the cars in a multi-storey car park would increase the constructed volume by 50%, while ground-level parking would leave little room for the estate. We addressed this problem by laying parking slopes across the buildings. This maximizes the green areas, while minimizing the construction volume. The gently rising and falling roads (5%) determine the overall skyline and hence the collective identity, below which individual architectural freedom can flourish once again.

Three building complexes – S, M and L – are folded along and between the open spaces, confronting the existing topography with a new, artificial landscape. The interplay between estate, buildings, enclosed gardens and infrastructure also forms the defining image of the science park as viewed from Boudewijnlaan. The three buildings can be commenced separately or at once. They form a sequence of smaller constructions of constantly varying height and width, which can be built individually or linked together. Larger customized buildings of specific companies can also be incorporated in this pattern. Linkage is achieved via the parking street and a semipublic internal route below them, to which all the collective functions can be linked.

The first building in this complex is conceived like a piece of Meccano and consists of prefabricated elements with large spans and a lot of freedom in terms of internal layout and use. The exterior walls are made of a set of interchangeable prefab panels, ranging from totally transparent to totally opaque, and with accessories to match. This will allow the buildings to be adjusted over time and in response to shifting functions.