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Social housing experienced an exceptional boom between 1921 and 1923 in Belgium, and in Brussels in particular, under the leadership of the first government including socialist ministers. The involvement of modernist architects and town planners in this development led to the creation of a belt of garden cities of great architectural value around Brussels, outside the urbanised area of the time. Some of these garden cities were built by tenants’ cooperatives, which led to the formation of very homogenous social complexes, bringing together people from the lower middle classes rather than the most disadvantaged strata. Since the regionalisation of responsibility for housing in 1989, the Brussels-Capital Region has uniformised the rules for access to social housing, which is gradually changing the social composition of these garden cities that grew out of the cooperative movement. These developments are taking place in a general context characterised by a strong dualisation and impoverishment of the Brussels population and a glaring lack of social housing., SCOPUS: ar.j, info:eu-repo/semantics/published

Cities across Europe are increasing their ambitions to embrace a Circular Economy (CE). In this context, a series of circularity-inspired (branded?) urban projects are emerging. In the Brussels Capital Region (BCR), CE policies have supported the development of pilot projects aimed at testing and developing know-how and strategies for implementing circularity-inspired ambitions in urban planning and urban designs. In this research, circularity is used as an entry point to ask relevant questions about the material intensity of current and future practices of urban development plans and projects. Through the prism of circularity, we look at the movements (consumption and waste) of materials and resources, the spaces they shape and the practices they develop. If we examine this subject through the lens of inclusivity, the focus shifts to the actors, both human agents and more-than-human ones. In the case of urban projects, we are particularly interested in the material layout of the built environment and the associated utilities and infrastructures. This research focuses on the quality of the open spaces generated, on planning processes, actors and stakeholders as well as on ecosystem issues (water cycles, soil regeneration, biodiversity). The aim is therefore to study these aspects and find ways of rethinking them in a more resource-conscious and holistic manner. To do this, we look at the relationships that humans establish with existing arrangements of materials, and the socio-technical challenges for a transition towards more just and sober/frugal (sufficiency-inspired) ways of envisioning urban futures. Building on previous research on spatial factors impacting the embedding of Urban Circularity Practices (UCPs) in the BCR, we now question how ongoing strategic urban projects spatialise circularity ambitions. This paper thus addresses the following set of questions: How are current strategic urban projects integrating circularity-inspired ambitions? Who are the ac, info:eu-repo/semantics/published

Advocates for sustainable urban planning emphasise the need for improved consideration of environmental issues, particularly greenspace provision in urban areas due to its significant benefits and role in building resilience against the hazards of climate change. Brussels, a densely urbanised region with an uneven distribution of greenspace, presents a socio-geographical divide where upper and middle classes favour the spacious and greener south-east, and poorer residents reside in the former industrial central municipalities known as the ‘poor crescent’. While much literature focuses on the struggles of the poor crescent’s inhabitants, little research has been conducted to investigate lived realities of urban planners operating within this sector. This thesis explores this through a document analysis of Brussels’ regional land-use plan (PRAS) and sustainable development plan (PRDD), and semi-structured interviews with urban planners and an NGO. Through this, it investigates the regulatory and socio-economic challenges central urban planners face when implementing sustainable urban planning and integrating greenspaces, and the opportunities for improving sustainable urban planning and greenspace provision in the poor crescent. The findings indicate a need to update current plans to better consider greenspace and sustainability, and highlight the struggles of planners due to absence of funding, inter-municipal coordination, and political indifference.

At a time of radical uncertainty, with our future under threat, a small constellation of Brussels-based associations and activists have set out to explore otherwise possible futures. Against powerlessness, against the ineluctable – but through what is at the core of their struggles for technological, environmental, and social justice – they have com- posed worlds, cultivated dissenting futures and crafted stories that they share here like a bottle to the sea, as an invitation to join this makeshift vessel of imagination., info:eu-repo/semantics/inPress, 1

This contribution examines the profiles of the players involved in the financialization of the private rental residential sector, in terms of ownership and management. It takes as a case study Brussels coliving, a real estate niche of high-standard furnished shared accommodation targetting young expatriates. This sector is run by coliving companies, which either manage properties owned by private landlords, or acquire buildings by raising capital from wealthy individuals, funds or listed companies. These two funding models give rise to different investment geographies. The contribution illustrates the variety of players involved in the financialization of real estate, confirming the plural nature of this process. It also highlights the key role of property managers as intermediaries between tenants and investors. Finally, it highlights the main contribution of local players in the financialization of an area., SCOPUS: ar.j, info:eu-repo/semantics/published

Over the past two decades, housing has once again become a matter of urgent debate in Brussels. Challenges brought about a series of crises and changes that began in the 20th century have required the development and implementation of new strategies. This is the situation that any innovative housing agenda must face as we transition into the 21st century. Recent housing projects have transformed the city of Brussels according to various strategies that respond in diverse ways to the four following axes: addressing demographic changes; creating sustainable buildings; conceiving new forms of collectivity; experimenting with space. Contemporary housing initiatives in Brussels are presented according to eight themes, ranging from those most closely resembling the dominant type to those with more innovative and experimental forms.

This book sets out to analyse and illustrate the various housing forms that exist in Brussels. This objective is undertaken from an architectural viewpoint by examining the spatial features of housing across the various phases of the city’s evolution, from its origin to its golden age at the turn of the 20th century, and on to contemporary practice. In addition to documenting the qualities of housing itself, the book investigates the mechanisms that drove housing’s evolution and the ways in which housing production has shaped the city.

Brussels housing is extremely diverse, as anyone walking around the city will readily appreciate. Its traditional urban block consists of single-family terraced houses, usually two to three storeys high and with a garden at the rear. Here, this bourgeois housing type evolved into a particularly broad range – including the well-known Art Nouveau residences – and still forms the “DNA” of the city. Today, many other housing forms have emerged in the city; thus, Brussels’ residential building types comprise narrow gabled-roofed houses standing side by side with modernist apartment buildings, 19th-century mansions, and brand new condominiums. This typical Belgian layering of housing solutions makes for a visually poetic chaos, creating at times a surreal cityscape but also providing answers for the challenges of housing design. The three chapters of this publication explore Brussels’ housing typologies from the origins of the city to the present day. More than 100 selected case studies are documented with scaled drawings and photographs. The works by photographer Maxime Delvaux trace a promenade comprising an expressive journey through the Belgian capital and its varied cityscapes. The book offers a broad panorama and a history of the architecture and urban development of Brussels.

A history of Brussels housing from the origins of the city to the traditional bourgeois row house.

The bourgeois terraced house, Brussels’ dominant housing type as documented in the preceding chapter, is not the city’s only residential form. However, its importance in terms of numbers as well as in the city’s collective unconscious has made it a benchmark against which to compare all other housing forms in the territory, including those that existed before. Comparing other residential forms with the standard form of housing allows us to understand why and how they appeared on the Brussels territory, both before and after the golden age of the Brussels terraced house at the turn of the 20th century. Hence, this chapter aims to offer a genealogy of such residential forms, organised according to spatial and typological features rather than chronologically. While some resemble the dominant – referential – type, others diverge partially or completely from it.

Este artículo ofrece un análisis crítico de las estrategias de movilidad, laborales y políticas de las migraciones desde España hacia Bruselas a partir de la crisis económica de 2008, en contraste con los flujos del pasado. Los datos que lo sustentan son resultado del trabajo de campo realizado durante 2018-2020 con migrantes de nacionalidad española, basado principalmente en entrevistas cualitativas. Los resultados permiten describir dos perfiles de movilidad específicos: por una parte, el de quienes marcharon a Bruselas interrumpiendo su trayectoria laboral en España y, por otra, el de quienes se desplazaron hasta la capital belga en el marco de un proyecto profesional transnacional. Estos dos perfiles se proyectan en estrategias diferenciadas de movilidad, inserción laboral y participación política transnacional. Nuestro análisis complementa estudios recientes sobre nuevas movilidades intraeuropeas Sur-Norte, en este caso dirigidas a Bruselas, ciudad global dual generadora de oportunidades, pero también de precariedades para los/as nuevos migrantes., This article provides a critical analysis of the mobility, labor, and political strategies of migration from Spain to Brussels following the 2008 economic crisis, comparing it with past migration flows. The data used in this study is based on fieldwork conducted from 2018 to 2020, which involved qualitative interviews with Spanish migrants. The results allow us to identify two distinct mobility profiles: first, individuals who relocated to Brussels and interrupted their labor trajectories in Spain, and second, those who migratedas part of a transnational professional project. These two profiles exhibit different strategies in terms of mobility, labor insertion, and transnational political participation. Our analysis contributes to the existing literature on new intra-European mobilities from South to North, specifically focusing on the context of Brussels as a global city with dual characteristics, which provides opportunities as well as precarious conditions for these new migrants.

Este artículo ofrece un análisis crítico de las estrategias de movilidad, laborales y políticas de las migraciones desde España hacia Bruselas a partir de la crisis económica de 2008, en contraste con los flujos del pasado. Los datos que lo sustentan son resultado del trabajo de campo realizado durante 2018-2020 con migrantes de nacionalidad española, basado principalmente en entrevistas cualitativas. Los resultados permiten describir dos perfiles de movilidad específicos: por una parte, el de quienes marcharon a Bruselas interrumpiendo su trayectoria laboral en España y, por otra, el de quienes se desplazaron hasta la capital belga en el marco de un proyecto profesional transnacional. Estos dos perfiles se proyectan en estrategias diferenciadas de movilidad, inserción laboral y participación política transnacional. Nuestro análisis complementa estudios recientes sobre nuevas movilidades intraeuropeas Sur-Norte, en este caso dirigidas a Bruselas, ciudad global dual generadora de oportunidades, pero también de precariedades para los/as nuevos migrantes., This article provides a critical analysis of the mobility, labor, and political strategies of migration from Spain to Brussels following the 2008 economic crisis, comparing it with past migration flows. The data used in this study is based on fieldwork conducted from 2018 to 2020, which involved qualitative interviews with Spanish migrants. The results allow us to identify two distinct mobility profiles: first, individuals who relocated to Brussels and interrupted their labor trajectories in Spain, and second, those who migratedas part of a transnational professional project. These two profiles exhibit different strategies in terms of mobility, labor insertion, and transnational political participation. Our analysis contributes to the existing literature on new intra-European mobilities from South to North, specifically focusing on the context of Brussels as a global city with dual characteristics, which provides opportunities as well as precarious conditions for these new migrants.

The European Union (EU) seeks to become a global maritime-security actor, yet strategic challenges influence its maritime-security strategy process. Is there a distinctive and coherent EU approach to global maritime security, and how should the EU address the growing range of maritime challenges, including the intensification of militarized competition in the Indo-Pacific?

Many western European countries have undergone the process of deindustrialisation. The has resulted in a changed economy focused on knowledge. This went hand in hand with urbanisation, resulting in explosive population growth in many cities. In combination with the rise of neoliberal planning made cities an attractive investment object. All three of these trends have caused many industrial areas to be transformed in often glamorous projects to revamp cities images. While aesthetically improving cities, it has also often started or intensified processes of gentrification. The canal zone of Brussels however seems to be very stable in this regard, and has not undergone any big transformation. My hypothesis is that this could be attributed to strong path dependencies within the area, which expresses itself in three ways: the segregated social profile, the industrial land use and its governance fragmentation. Often neoliberal planning treats these types of path dependent location as a sort of ‘tabula rasa’ that can be used to maximise profits and thus deals with these path dependencies by path breaking: demolishing urban fabric and displacing people and/or economic functions. Due to the fact that these path dependencies seem quite strong in Brussels and have not yet undergone such a transformation, makes it a unique opportunity to look at a different approach of urban development. Approaching these path dependencies from the perspective of path renewal, these could be starting points for a just, productive and place-based development. How can a just, productive and place-based development be achieved in the Canal zone of Brussels, utilizing the area’s path dependencies through path renewal? First the past, present and future for the canal zone will be analysed to see how these dependencies have and possibly will develop. After that a synthesis will be made from which values are derived. Based on these values a vision and strategic framework will be constructe, Architecture, Urbanism and Building Sciences | Complex Cities

In Belgium, several incidents and public debates have highlighted ethnocentric conceptions of the nation held by public opinion and prominent politicians where immigrants and particularly Muslims are marked as the unwilling “others”. In this framework, immigrants maintaining ethnic identities and transnational ties is classically seen as weakening their integration in the receiving countries. Based on results drawn from 16 focus group discussions and 50 individual semi-structured interviews conducted in Brussels with youth with a foreign background, we show that while a minority of our respondents still identified themselves primarily in reference to the country of origin of their (grand)parents, emphasizing ethnic boundaries and family heritage, most of them have developed a multiple-identity strategy for themselves, which acknowledges both their ethnic background and their belonging to Belgium and Brussels as a multicultural city. Those involved in upward social mobility strategies through higher education or better secondary schools also have more facilities to express the double-presence narrative., SCOPUS: ar.j, info:eu-repo/semantics/published

"Brussels was never destroyed by the wars, but rather by its own people" these words of Victor Bourgouis show the destructive vision of social and cultural spaces in Brussels. The city's vision of urban development is based on top-down politics, fed by the desire to be modern. This affection leads to the non-identification and displacement of citizens. The tendency for the tabula rasa leads to the production of scar, but when the tabula rasa cannot be evoked, terrain vague starts to exist. Terrain vague is defined by its ambiguous character. The project, which establishes the terrain vague as a walled garden, is a response to the scars that are made by the historic urban interventions. It defines itself as a space with a public character and gives it to those who require it. It gives meaning to a meaningless void in the city. It keeps the ambiguous, informal, and improvised character that is found on terrain vague, and translates it to a space of possibilities and forming a new center point in the European quarter in Brussels. for more information, please send an email to: meert.sander@gmail.com, Architecture, Urbanism and Building Sciences | Interiors Buildings Cities

This project deals with spaces for a historically neglected collective: sex workers. It aims to destigmatize the practice by representing the workers and the material conditions that determine their safety and well-being every day, of which architecture is part. Articulated from an intersectional feminist point of view, the research evaluates how the design of these spaces has been and continues to be a technology to control the workers. At the same time, it visualizes the workers and how they construct processes of emancipation within their (legally and spatially) subjugated position. The design offers a working space that houses these emancipatory practices, in the context of the recent decriminalisation of sex work in Belgium. In order to do so, it draws from feminist and queer theories to construct an understanding of space that materializes the emancipation from the scale of the neighbourhood and urban block, until the detailing and use of material., Architecture, Urbanism and Building Sciences | Explorelab

At the EU Parliament in Brussels, deliberation and decision-making processes are stuck in an ever-turning hamster wheel designed to reach unanimous compromises. The architecture of the so-called Consensusland provides spatial settings exclusively designed for the purpose of reaching compromises and not offering room where discussions and conflicts can be discussed open-endedly. What is supposed to be a building for exchange and deliberation rather nourishes an atmosphere of complete consensus. The Line of Dissent offers both, an urbanistic and architectural approach to institutionalize a citizen's assembly integrated into the existing parliament's complex. By exploring different spatial settings and sequences, a myriad of assembly and information spaces is being created. Here, the participants of the citizen’s assembly are enabled to come up with thoughts and ideas on the future of the EU where an architecture characterised by transparency and openness nourishes an atmosphere of dissent. The design seeks to blur the borders between the public and the political realm to enhance the permeability of both spheres and to eventually lower the threshold for citizens willing to engage in the decision-making processes on an European level., Architecture, Urbanism and Building Sciences | Explorelab

The European Union (EU) seeks to become a global maritime-security actor, yet strategic challenges influence its maritime-security strategy process. Is there a distinctive and coherent EU approach to global maritime security, and how should the EU address the growing range of maritime challenges, including the intensification of militarized competition in the Indo-Pacific?

Following the renewed attention for food production near cities, multiple concepts propose the creation of spaces for food production at the rural–urban fringe (RUF). The RUF is an area of multiple policy domains and, as a consequence, those new concepts are confronted with complexity when put into practice. Local planning history is part of the complexity as it casts shadows on contemporary planning debate and practice. This paper explores how past policies at the RUF impact the current and future policy work on spaces for local food production via comparative study of the post-war planning histories of the RUF’s in Copenhagen and Brussels. The paper addresses both policies within the urban realm, e.g. the planning of urban open spaces at the border of the city, and policies within the rural realm, e.g. the land-use rights in agricultural land and land consolidation projects. The comparative study identifies some key challenges with regards to the supply of space for local food production at the RUF in Copenhagen and the RUF in Brussels. Moreover, the paper stresses that a thorough understanding of the planning history is a prerequisite for effective food planning near the city to avoid repeating errors of the past.

With the possibility to enroll in courses in nineteen different languages, the free university of Brussels (ULB) has opted for a linguistic offer that reflects the city’s highly multilingual character. In the faculty of languages and literature, students interact in and with multiple languages on a daily basis. In a study which interrogated these students on their linguistic representations, representations related to prestige were shown to be an important part of the collected responses. This paper aims to provide an overview of the different manifestations and interpretations of the ‘language of prestige’ linguistic representation in this sample of participants regarding the languages taught at the faculty. It also explores various implications that this representation has for language learning, as well as questions raised by the possible interpretative bias of the researcher trying to observe and study linguistic representations. In addition, this paper written in English relating research conducted in French addresses the issue of ‘epistemological translation’ and the challenges it poses., SCOPUS: ar.j, info:eu-repo/semantics/published

It is often complicated to understand the concept of Polish studies abroad. The author presents Polish Studies in the capital of Europe. In this Article the case of the French-speaking Free University of Brussels (ULB) is discussed. The author introduces Polish Studies as a part of Slavic Studies, then develops the limitations that this issue has on the program of teaching. The writer profiles the heterogeneity of the students: showing their differences resulting from their origins, backgrounds of knowledge, and the presence of multiculturalism. Then, the study program is explained, as well as the means and solutions facilitating the simultaneous teaching of language and literature Among the solutions are propounded new technologies, stays abroad and encounters with native speakers. In conclusion, the author outlines foreign student’s learning process in Brussels and the teaching difficulties that academic teachers may encounter in European faculties. She provides remedies found to overcome these educational issues., Często trudno jest zrozumieć pojęcie studiów polonistycznych za granicą. Autorka prezentuje polonistykę w stolicy Europy. W artykule omawia przypadek francuskojęzycznego Wolnego Uniwersytetu w Brukseli (ULB). Prezentuje polonistykę jako część slawistyki. Wskazuje ograniczenia wpływające na program nauczania. Opisuje niejednorodność studentów: ich różne pochodzenie, wykształcenie i reprezentowaną wielokulturowość. Przedstawia również program studiów oraz środki i rozwiązania ułatwiające optymalizację jednoczesnego nauczania języka i literatury. Wśród wykorzystywanych rozwiązań są nowe technologie, pobyty za granicą i spotkania z osobami mówiącymi w ojczystym języku. Podsumowując, nakreśla proces uczenia się studentów zagranicznych w Brukseli i trudności w nauczaniu, jakie mogą napotkać akademiccy nauczyciele na europejskiej uczelni. Proponuje środki zaradcze pomagające w przezwyciężaniu problemów edukacyjnych.

During the 1950s and 1960s, Luxembourg underwent a major economic-political transformation that allowed the country to position itself as an internationally recognised financial hub and centre for European affairs. The degree of influence that this economic- political evolution of Luxembourg had on the architectural and urban development of Luxembourg City marks the focal point of this thesis. Two iconic projects realised during the 1960s serve as case studies: The Grande-Duchesse Charlotte Bridge that functioned as the cornerstone of the city's urban expansion, and the Alcide-de-Gasperi Tower, which represents Luxembourg's integration into European affairs. The architectural and urban transformation during the 60s in Luxembourg City, was mainly driven by the political integration into European affairs, aiming to fulfil the city’s role as European capital. Fuelled by the rivalry between the three European capitals Brussels, Luxembourg and Strasbourg, architecture served as a political national branding tool, resulting in international recognition and economic growth. With its participation in the European Union, Luxembourg needed to create a strong image and international recognition, supported by its architectural infrastructure. Today, the European project is still incessantly growing, and Luxembourg as one of its capital cities is required to grow synchronously and adapt it’s image to contemporary ideologies. At the core of Luxembourgish politics remains the ambition to modernise the city's infrastructure in order to perpetuate its strong position within the European Union., AR2A011, Architectural History Thesis, Architecture, Urbanism and Building Sciences

The 2008 economic crisis has opened the door to new strategies for managing urban resources. In fact, the interest in urban commons (UC) has (re)surfaced both within and outside academia. While literature accounting for existing experiences is growing; UC as a practice begs for further systematization concerning the needed negotiation between institutional recognition and informal self-organization. This is particularly true for temporary urbanism, a strategy for the social repurposing of temporarily unused buildings, whose precarious nature has been deemed to represent just a fixing to the neoliberal logic. In this regard, a non-institutional perspective can help shed light on citymaking as a composite practice in which both institutional and non-institutional actors not only coexist but presuppose each other. In this paper, we explore this issue by focusing on two non-profit organizations working in the Rotterdam and Brussels's housing market: Stad in de Maak and Communa. Through in-depth interviews with the founders and core members of these organizations, as well as with participants to their projects, we show how SidM and Communa operate as intermediaries in the housing sector, filling the gaps left by the market and public actors. Most importantly, our research questions the extent to which the enacting of commoning practices by these organizations can become a pillar of citymaking, configuring an iterative disclosure and (collective) reclosure of urban resources. Evidence shows that, while enacting temporary urbanism differently, both organizations strive for social cooperative ownership of spaces for consolidating their presence in the cities., Urban Data Science

The graduation thesis deals with the architectural redevelopment of the National Bank of Belgium. It examines how this refurbishment can benefit the bank, the city of Brussels, and its inhabitants. Built to its limits, the introverted character of the complex reflects the historical need to secure Belgium's financial reserves within its walls. Since its completion, however, there has been a fundamental change in the demands placed upon it. Industrial functions, such as printing and storing currency, have moved out of the city or abroad. At the same time, finance is becoming increasingly digitised. In response, the National Bank decided to redefine itself physically. The proposal examines the optimisation of space through various changes to the layout of the offices to fit the bank's desired programme, as set out in the competition brief. The project recognises that the reduced surface area required by the bank allows a large part of the site to be given over to the city. The proposal not only suggests not new uses but new spaces that become part of the urban fabric, establishing connections and refuges for urban life, both public and private., Architecture, Urbanism and Building Sciences | Interiors Buildings Cities

The Future Bank involves the transformation and adaptive reuse of the National Bank of Belgium in Brussels. A vast closed off urban block, designed to safeguard the states treasures hasn’t moved with the ever changing ambiguous role of the bank. The project introduces a new public plinth for the city of Brussels to appropriate together with a conglomerate of different office environments for the banks employees. As architect, taking on the role of bricoleur, the existing building structure has been approached as a source of pre-constrained materials. The metaphorical tools of the axe and pocket knife are used to eke out new meanings within the existing building structure. The misfit building will be healed by stitching together on different scales. In that way creating an architectural continuity which allows future adaptation and even an informality that invites to do so. The minimal interventions aim to heal the existing, minimizing our impact on the limited resources that our planet has to offer. The result is a strategy which must be considered before diminishing a building that misfits its contemporary role., Architecture, Urbanism and Building Sciences | Interiors Buildings Cities

The Graduation Studio of Interiors Buildings Cities (2021-2022) investigates the possible future of the National Bank of Belgium, located in the city of Brussels. The bank as a collective system has been recently scrutinized due to persistent climate change. As Brussels is working towards a Doughnut Economy Model, the National Bank of Belgium investing in climate destructing companies is contradictory. This Graduation Project re-grounds the institution of The National Bank of Belgium to represent the environmental responsibilities that the bank caries towards society today. The co-existence of species, human and non-human, within the social and physical context of the Future Bank is investigated in this Graduation Project., Architecture, Urbanism and Building Sciences | Interiors Buildings Cities

With the introduction of High-Speed Rail, many transportation hubs have been redeveloped to include this transport. However, these stations are often neglecting important aspects related to the quality of the public space and the connection with the surrounding. To improve the quality of the space, the station needs to be adapted in several days. To start, the areas are to monotone and need to be more diverse. Furthermore, the stations are currently not integrated with the surrounded context. Integration can be split up into functional, spatial, visual, and mental integration. However, each of these aspects is currently lacking. All these aspects need to be addressed to prepare the stations for future expansion and transformation. These aspects and other lessons learned are then applied during a redesign of the most problematic areas of Brussels-South Railway Station, Cross domain studio, City of the Future, Architecture, Urbanism and Building Sciences

The project is to transform Belgium National Bank into a working environment capable of accommodating diverse activities. Given its economic capacity and social responsibility, the bank also has a public attribute that allows it to accommodate specific public events. propose to open part of the bank's space as a financial culture center, mainly an exhibition and library related to financial themes. Since the bank is located on the border of the upper and lower town of Brussels, the financial culture center also undertakes the task of connecting the site with an 8 meters height difference. So I created a new public landscape circulation through ramps and three staircases, inviting people to enter the bank to experience the newly inserted public facilities and the existing delicate bank building. For the office space above the first floor, the existing atrium is very barren and unused. So I propose to put balconies with plants in the atrium to make them like hanging gardens. Employees can relax or chat on the balcony, providing an opportunity to relax from a busy work schedule., Architecture, Urbanism and Building Sciences | Interiors Buildings Cities

The ambition of the National Bank of Belgium's project was to make a National institution accessible to the public. By opening the bank, both ideologically and physically, the dynamic of the bank is radically modified. The confrontation between the Bank and the public provides opportunities to gather, learn and improve. The change is subtle from the outside but radically modifies the way the bank functions. The creation of a series of spaces within the bank directed towards the different publics of the bank and brings the domestic sphere into the institution itself. The Bank of Opportunities is a space fostering a new kind of Bank and community., Architecture, Urbanism and Building Sciences | Interiors Buildings Cities

Future Bank, the graduation studio of Interiors Buildings Cities 2021/2022 revolves around the transformation of the National Bank of Belgium, a 90.000 m2 triangular building block. The design proposal for this transformation is based around the adaptive re-use of the vast, complex, existing building that the National Bank of Belgium currently is. The building is filled, or rather cluttered, with materials. Ranging from building services like ducts and heating, standardized elements such as raised floors, partition walls, suspended ceilings to objects such as chairs, tables, shelves. Essentially, the function of many of the building components is to obscure building services like ducts, cables and heating. Undressing, re-configuring and displacing are the three main actions in the strategy of the design. The design proposal aims, among other things, to make building services active instruments in the interior of the office, that no longer need to be obscured. The New National Bank of Belgium reveals the illusion and theatre of the office. Attempting to make space fully available for its inhabitants and visitors. The New National Bank of Belgium merges the public of Brussels with the employees of the bank. New public entrances are to be found on the ground floor, both leading into the monumental banking hall of the building. A permanent exhibition space, where the Belgian art collection of the bank is offered to the public of Brussels., Architecture, Urbanism and Building Sciences | Interiors Buildings Cities

This year, the Interiors Buildings Cities graduation studio has revolved around the topic of the Future Bank. The project addresses the transformation of the National Bank of Belgium set in Brussels, consisting of a vast triangular urban block of 90.000 m2. The bank, designed by Van Goethem just after the Second World War, is an imposing building with a 200 meter long columnar façade rising up from the adjacent boulevard. As the city of Brussels has declared itself a doughnut economy, the city is moving away from traditional forms of economics. The city is no longer aiming for unending growth, but aiming for stability, equality and wellbeing. Therefore the bank needs to be reframed within it’s new economic and societal context. What image does the bank want to portray in the 21st century? Here the project began with the grass route movements, counteracting the heavy façade by creating more intimate spaces within the colonnade. This translated into reframing the bank into several parts with a new end stretching out towards the city. This allowed for more intimate spaces to be created within the vast urban block, creating a new public and inviting face of the bank. A new face in the city., Architecture, Urbanism and Building Sciences | Interiors Buildings Cities

A palatial building rests by Rue de Bois Sauvage of Brussels, an intimate street located at the exact point where the lower historic city ends and upper bureaucratic city starts. The Palace remains like a parasite of a larger introverted structure that fortifies an entire urban block to hide the offices of the National Bank of Belgium. The architectural brief for this graduation project requests the renovation of the headquarters concerning the vacancy of office space with the greater intention of opening up the National Bank as an institution. To the light of this brief, this architectural thesis departs from the premise that in order for the Bank to open up it must get engaged in the problems of its nearby reality, the problems of the city of Brussels. The in depth analysis of the history of urban transformation of the city of Brussels led by land speculation, revealed the problems of the Central European capital cities during the second half of the 19th century, which have been unavoidably inherited by the city of the 21st century. The process of urban gentrification of the historic town, firstly by pushing out the working classes to the periphery in favour of the wealthy bourgeois and secondly exploiting land value financially erasing any hint of residential life from the old city at the heart of Brussels’ Pentagon. The result of these consecutive processes of urban transformation can be read in space through the architectural typology of Brussels and have been explained in this research by means of the alley, the shopping arcade, the corner building and the blocks of Brusselization. Understanding them not only as architectural devices but also as urban figures has helped untangling the history of urban gentrification in Brussels which constructed through time a division between the rich bureaucratic upper eastern city and the working class neighbourhoods in lower western Brussels, articulated by a touristic uninhabited historic city where the National, Architecture, Urbanism and Building Sciences | Interiors Buildings Cities

Architecture, Urbanism and Building Sciences | Interiors Buildings Cities

The National Bank of Belgium stands as a fortified conglomerate of historic patchwork structures, within central Brussels. With its inherent role having shifted from that of a safekeeper of physical goods towards a mere office, the building can be made publicly accessible, taking on an active role in the city. By understanding the existing building through the layers of the shell (as physical infrastructure with a lifespan of about 60 years) and sets (of furniture and partitions which are constantly replaced) the bank can be manipulated and re-used. The careful clearance of the inner courtyard allows for an extension of the existing ‘shell’. A new framework, inserted within the courtyard, only revealing itself as chapters within the monumental facade. The bank's excessive storage of outdated ‘sets’ become active elements in the spatial formation of the new bank. Providing an alternative narrative to the rapid regeneration of the office interior., Architecture, Urbanism and Building Sciences | Interiors Buildings Cities

This graduation project is focusing on and looking for the function and role of the future national bank, as an outcome of its current physical and social situation. The site of the project is the National Bank of Belgium, located in Brussels. For its program, the bank has a public function and a reception hall, but mainly consist of office spaces and meeting rooms within a, with security line protected, area. The traditional program, like pressing and storing money, is already replaced to new buildings outside of the city center for better efficiency and land use. Next to that, the public and office program is losing its role due to digitalization. Organisational and programmatic changes are already made, but the architecture is still in its former state. Therefore, it is important to seek for new possibilities, and looking to the future role and image of the bank, whilst learning of the history of the Bank and its site., Architecture, Urbanism and Building Sciences | Interiors Buildings Cities

Using an analysis of apartment buildings built in Brussels by the real estate developer Etrimo between 1950 and 1970, we investigate the ability of collective housing to build and support an inhabitants’ community. After World War II, Etrimo took advantage of the poor state of existing housing stock and the return of Belgian families from Congo to intensify its production of apartment buildings for aspiring middle-class homeowners. These buildings consisted of repeated, identical three-room dwellings offering all modern comforts for the nuclear family of the thirty-year post-war boom. The portrait of this family, reflected in various commercial brochures and the 14,000 dwellings built in Brussels by the private developer, suggests a relatively homogeneous middle class. How did this imagined, abstract community materialise? First, we present how the juxtaposition of identical households may or may not have produced a homogenous community at the project’s different spatial scales. This analysis is based on primary sources at our disposal: sales brochures, Etrimo advertisement posters, writings by the company’s founder Jean-François Collin on the legal and financial set-up of his business, plans of the housing units and complexes. Second, on the basis of interviews with inhabitants and on-site observations of living practices in the collective spaces of the housing estates, we highlight the model Etrimo housing estates offers contemporary society for new ways of living together.

In Brussels, the largest owner of video surveillance cameras is the regional public transport operator: the STIB-MIVB which aims at using 15,000 cameras by 2025. The SNCB-NMBS for its part has recently announced its intention to use facial recognition and is currently facilitating its roll-out by integrating it in the design of its refurbished stations. Meanwhile, the networks of these two major players in Brussels mobility are used every day by plenty of individuals who are largely unaware of the surveillance in place. Moreover, video surveillance is not the only way to collect personal data concerning public transport (PT) users. MOBIB travel cards also allow to collect a number of personal data and have also been widely criticised for not being sufficiently secure and jeopardising individuals' privacy. In addition to these two methods of collecting personal data about users, public transport regularly works with telecom operators to model people's movements, based on their telephone data. A technology that is increasingly used to monitor people's movements, just like footfall analytics, which is becoming more and more widespread and about which very little information is broadly available until now. In order to explore how the logics of surveillance are articulated in the context of Brussels PT, we want to highlight the actual collection and use of personal data: what kind of data is collected by which actors? How is this data used and for what purposes? With whom is this data shared? How long is this data kept and where? From a methodological point of view, our presentation will be based on an exploratory work that consists in a triangulation of sources (official documents, press, and semi-structured interviews with stakeholders). We will also make requests for access to our own personal data to see what access is possible as a daily user of the PT infrastructure. Empirically, this work will therefore provide a first overview of surveillance practices within the

Context: In Brussels, the COVID-19 vaccination campaign started in February 2021 through “large centres” before shifting to small local devices spread all over the city territory This strategic change aimed to “leave no on behind”, that is to meet the needs of a socially and culturally diverse population. At the governance level, Belgium and more particularly Brussels is known for the impressive number and complexity of its institutions. Health governance does not escape to this trend with 10 ministers sharing health-related competencies and responsibilities in the country, what complexify the implementation of a strong response to an urgent thread. Methodology: In this paper, we present a case study realized in the city of Brussels, where we qualitatively analysed the implementation of the Belgian vaccination strategy through both types of instruments, that is, large vaccination centres implemented at the level of the Brussels Region and small vaccination devices implemented at the local scale. We carried out direct observation and group and individual interviews with citizens and with health professionals and social workers involved in the regional centres and in the local devices. In parallel to this field work, which enabled us to reach 104 respondents over three months, we regularly met with Brussels decision-makers responsible for the vaccination strategy, who were part of our research follow-up committee. Thus, we also examined the evolution of the vaccination strategy at the political level. Results: During the second phase of the vaccination campaign, we observed a diversification of the vaccination devices all over the regional territory. Three main types of devices can be distinguished: - The “invitation”: based on a formal invitation which give Brussels’ citizen access to a large vaccination centre, - The “proposal”: with small devices set up in the public spaces to get closer to the population, - The “relationship”: based on the trust relationship exist

The Community Land Trust (CLT) aims to create affordable housing to as many people as possible. To achieve this goal, it is based on a principle that distinguishes land and building ownership. This well-tried principle emphasizes the institution of common goods and the preservation of individual interests. On the one hand, the feeling of belonging is developed to make communities autonomous (J. Davis). On the other hand, the search for residents’ fulfilment aims at their empowerment through housing ownership. Although the model has been in place and well-tested for years in terms of governance and economic principles, it has not found an established expression in terms of space. In Brussels, for example, the first projects developed by the Community Land Trust Brussels (CLTB) mainly aim at economic viability and do not question traditional housing schemes. Nevertheless, alternative layouts are tested by architects, allowing for new ways of living. In order to understand how the common good and particular interests are played out in space, the research proposes an analysis of the competition projects submitted for the CLTB. Their spaces are analysed in terms of the commons they produce and their capacity to manage individual interests. Commons range from the scale of the public realm, community, family and, eventually, the inhabitant. At the level of personal spaces and the freedom of choice of the inhabitant, several aspects are studied: the dwelling itself, the internal fittings, or the building finishing. The first results highlight how commons can go beyond the question of land tenure. At a spatial level, commons include collective rooms, shared by the inhabitants and the neighbourhood, circulation spaces, and even the building structure. Moreover, some of the proposals question the very notion of private ownership.

Instituting poses the question of the organization of human relations in extended groups. Émile Durkheim defined an institution as a set of practices, rituals and rules of conduct that are shared and understood by these groups and that map out their daily lives and ensure the coherence of the community. The sociologist went on to include in this definition the set of representations that concern these practices, define their meaning and tend to justify their existence. This is the case for the state, the Church, the army, justice, education, family and marriage, among others. These are all institutions that guide our actions, govern our human relations and regulate our societies. The weight of an institution depends on the extent to which the social body as a whole understands its codes. Institutions are not fixed but evolve with history. Although objectified by a series of rules, inscribed in places or activated by rites inherited from the past, they are in a state of perpetual transformation and therefore make complex entities. Many human civilizations attest to the reciprocal links between the spaces, objects and thought systems of the society that produced them. Architecture is regularly called upon to establish, identify or perpetuate the codes of institutions. It is not socially neutral. It is never an empty shell devoid of intentions. On the contrary, architecture conditions, coordinates, proposes and supports relations between individuals. This means it plays a key role in the establishment of human relations and underlines the importance of built spaces and, by extension, of the city.

THE SENNE, A PRIMARY HYDROGRAPHIC NETWORK — As is the case with many cities, the history of Brussels, is linked to the history of its river. The Senne flows from south to north, reaching the Scheldt and the city of Antwerp via the Dyle and the Rupel. The Senne is an irregular river. Its basin floods frequently, resulting in vast marshlands. This marsh gave the city not only its name—bruok (marsh) and sella (house)—but also its most famous drink, lambic, whose natural fermentation is made possible by wild yeast found only in the Senne valley. The river is at the centre of a hydrographic network made up of many tributaries, some of which have given their names to districts familiar to residents of the city, from Molenbeek to Woluwe, for instance. This network gave rise to the first roads that ran parallel or perpendicularly to it, but also to the first human settlements from Roman times. Today the Senne is covered over and its course is only occasionally visible in the city. And yet this primary hydrographic network could be at the heart of the fabric of the city of tomorrow, whether locally with the uncovering of the Senne and some of its tributaries or more widely as a feature structuring the landscape , as presented in the BXL 2040 studies.

Institutions such as the state, church, army, judiciary, bank, university—or even marriage—organize our social relations. As inherently social structures, they regulate societies according to various practices, rites, and rules of conduct, and guide our actions by delimiting what is possible and thinkable. An institution’s individual scope depends on society’s understanding of it. They are in perpetual mutation and thus form complex entities. Architecture plays an essential role in the establishment, identification, and perpetuation of this social structure as it formalizes value systems in space and represents ideologies in permanent physical structures. Institutions & the City investigates how architecture establishes and reveals the way an institution functions through different strategies, taking the Tracé Royal (the royal route) in Brussels as an example of an urban figure. This succession of emblematic streets, extending from the Palace of Justice in the heart of the city to the Church of Our Lady and the Royal Domain in Laeken, is home to several of Belgium’s national political, legal, religious, financial, and cultural institutions. The book explores the strategies applied over time by the various institutions to leave a lasting inscription on the country’s social order, revealing similar spatial responses and surprisingly prevalent mutation processes. And it highlights the importance of architecture in inventing new relationships with institutional spaces in order to improve the way we live together in a time when social, political, and cultural reference points are being blurred. Gérald Ledent is a cofounder of Brussels-based architecture firm KIS studio and professor at the Faculty of Architecture, Architectural Engineering, and Urban Planning (LOCI), Catholic University of Louvain (UCLouvain). Cécile Vandernoot is an architect and architectural critic. She is pursuing her PhD and teaches at the Faculty of Architecture, Architectural Engineering, and Urba

MONUMENTAL OPENINGS — For centuries, the city of Brussels grew incrementally around the monuments within its walls. During the neoclassical period, the urban network underwent changes and the wide new streets created a series of perspectives, a novelty in the public space. The defensive works became less useful over time. When the second ramparts were razed, they gave way to the boulevards of the inner ring. Historically, two roads crossed Brussels from south to north in 977: the ‘lower’ Rue de Laeken and the ‘upper’ Rue Haute. In the mid nineteenth century, long streets were added, forming a sort of infrastructure for the Brussels Pentagon. Although relatively numerous, they did not affect the urban perception of the city’s inhabitants as much as the Royal Route (initiated in 1777) the central boulevards (1860–95) or Avenue Louise, Rue de la Loi, the route leading to the Basilica of Koekelberg, and later the boulevards of the North–South junction (1911–52). These mostly rectilinear routes each changed the way people lived in the city, combining practical concerns (journeys within the city, public health, new urban functions) and aesthetic concerns (cityscape). The desire to look at the city and its buildings has an impact on urban planning. Haussmann’s openings come to mind, the grandiose perspectives and their apotheosis. French philosopher Régis Debray sums up the effects of this act of distancing, an act that produces the monumental character of architecture, as follows: ‘Vertically, one raises (plinth, pedestal, tiers or pilotis in the style of Le Corbusier).

There is an urgent need to optimize resource use in cities and the Urban Metabolism (UM) approach is widely adopted to quantify urban flows as it allows policymakers to translate results into action plans that mitigate resource consumption and associated emissions. It has also proved relevant to the establishment of evidence-based Circular Economy (CE) policy in recent years. Economy-Wide Material Flow Analysis (EW-MFA) has become a popular UM model. While EW-MFA has developed in a robust way, it does not account for informal flows because of the difficulty to identify and quantify them. The overarching research question is how can we develop a more inclusive CE approach by integrating informal flows and their actors into CE policies? We have two goals: first we will develop an expanded EW-MFA that takes into account informal flows; second we will test this method for the city of Brussels. We use Brussels’ case study to inform Wallonia’s expanded EW-MFA. We start with a literature review on informal flows to identify the flows that are not typically accounted for in the overall economy and in national statistics. Then, we update the EW-MFA using these informal flows. To test the expanded EW-MFA for Brussels we characterize the informal flows and actors, to assess their role in the economy and their environmental footprint. We identify and map informal actors and their flows by identifying the volume of informal resources consumed/used, their economic values and environmental impacts. This allows us to identify barriers and opportunities to inform CE policy through focus groups with public/industry stakeholders. The expanded framework is presented to Wallonia stakeholder to discuss the type of informal actors and flows that could be included in an UM framework specifically for Wallonia. We develop different focus group meetings to test our theoretical model and application of the model for Brussels. The meetings are held with Brussels’s Circular Economy networks that

Through an analysis of the work of the Brussels Studies Institute-Brussels Centre Observatory (BSI-BCO), a multi-disciplinary and multi-university research platform working in close collaboration with public and associative stakeholders towards a sustainable transformation of the Brussels downtown area, this presentation aims to assess how useful is Urban Research Through Design [URtD] for the development of commons-oriented planning policies. For approximately a decade now, the concept of the commons has become central to innovative urban practices and theories. Various authors refers to the commons (or rather practices of commoning) as a way to resist social exclusions inherent to market-led developments, as an agile alternative to the rigidity of public management, or, more globally, as a claim for the care of ourselves and our environments. While mostly tacit, transdisciplinarity is nevertheless at the core of commons-oriented approaches. First, a commons is not only a shared resource, but also a collectivity and a governance system taking care of it. Technical, environmental, socio-cultural, legal, economical, etc. issues comes altogether. Second, commons are the outcomes of sharing practices bringing together various public, private, associative, innovative and academic stakeholders. Commons do not happen out of those collaborative experiments. However, practicing the commons within complex urban contexts is an ideal facing numerous difficulties. On the one hand, recent researches on urban practices of commoning point out a necessity to get support from public institutions and to “hack” existing urban regulations. Conversly, recent researches in the field of participatory planning refer to urban commoning as a mean to resist excessive subjugation to state power. In between, our hypothesis is that URtD –understood as a design-based methodology to cope with complex urban issues through collective learning process- is a useful tool to mediate commons-oriented mul

Brussels, at the crossroad of crises The opening statement for this session was prepared by Jean-Philippe De Visscher. Building on the iconic book ‘Limits to growth’,De Visscher framed Brussels as a collapsing ecosystem, facing a multitude of crises, reinforcing one another and culminating in quite disastrous combined effects. A rather gloomy picture emerged, leading to the question whether it was reasonable to believe that anything could be done to make things better still, or would all efforts come too late in any way? Is it just a matter of ‘how not to crash all too badly’? With these opening reflections, De Visscher aimed to emphasize that today is the time to ask ourselves real questions. Questions that help us find ground. Questions that lead back to the essence of things. Where to land? Today, De Visscher argued, is also the moment to draw clear boundaries. We need to stick to the ambition to keep global warming to 1,5 degrees, for example, we cannot make any compromise there.Similarly, when it comes to time frames, we know pretty good what to stick to and work with. Scientific studies teach us that real transformations take about 10 years. That's what we will need as well in order to make Brussels2030 beneficial, said Jean-Philippe De Visscher. So, there's no time to waste. We need to get ready today, starting with tying links cross institutions, communities and neighborhoods. It's through multi-stakeholders networks that genuine change can happen, according to De Visscher. This also means, did he bring forward, that the initiators of Brussels2030 should facilitate a process of coalition-building, so that the concerned actors themselves can initiate the highly needed transition processes, rather than that they should be initiated or pushed through top-down dynamics. Not planning but enabling Looking back on the establishment of the pedestrian axes running through the inner city, De Visscher stressed the importance of well-defined objectives, building on a cl

The Steenweg, an east-west axis crossing through Brussels Metropolitan Centre, has been earmarked to play a key role in the implementation of the city’s future mobility vision. Moreover, recent research [De Visscher et al., 2020] suggests that this axis presents high stakes in terms of social inclusion for Brussels. In anticipation of future refurbishments, this presentation delves deeper into this latter proposition, opening lines of thought regarding the potential for “inclusion in urbanity” along the Steenweg. Working from Remy’s suggestion for communication in distance [Remy, 2020 [1990]] and using a socio-spatial approach, the article focuses on morphologies that participate in enabling an inclusive access to the social and spatial fabric of urbanity to diverse groups. To do so, the results of an exploratory research within one type of morphology found along the Steenweg – commercial galleries - are presented. The presentation then suggests possibilities for thinking further about morphologies that enable communication in distance along the axis by mapping out all publicly accessible spaces beyond the usual limits of the Steenweg’s open air public spaces.

Green Open Access added to TU Delft Institutional Repository 'You share, we take care!' - Taverne project https://www.openaccess.nl/en/you-share-we-take-care Otherwise as indicated in the copyright section: the publisher is the copyright holder of this work and the author uses the Dutch legislation to make this work public., Situated Architecture