A former industrial building converted into residential accommodation, the development features 47 loft-type apartments plus an additional six accommodation units in a new building. Despite the extensive renovation involved, a deliberate choice was made to draw on existing values expressed by the former Bata shoes factory, evoking a past that is, to many, a living memory. Historic features are made to echo in an architecture that pays homage to man’s labour and his industrial heritage, finding a contemporary expression through dialogue between new and existing fabric.
On the site of former woodworking factory overlooking the Parisian Saint Ouen cemetery, this new housing project was commissioned by a private developer. Some 61 apartments face onto the quiet streets while 10 family houses are nestled to the rear of the site, each giving onto a landscaped garden. The perimeter building is conceived as a rational, mineral form upon which a ‘village’ of duplex apartments spreads out across the roof terrace in an organic fashion.
The project is in close proximity to Zaha Hadid’s Cité du Savoir et du Sport, and the design aims to express the spatial and environmental guidelines as laid out by Art & Build for the neighbourhood. The block includes 29 apartments and retail space to the ground floor. The building will respond to the BBC-Effinergie label which calls for very efficient energy consumption.
Art&Build’s +H³ project sets out to explore and integrate environmental issues in an entirely new architectural territory. The aim is market a reasonably priced, flexible housing unit with a positive ecological footprint, using prefabricated wooden structures stacked to form a collective building. The project sets out to create a fully “recyclable” unit according to the Cradle to Cradle paradigm.
On a site occupied by faculty buildings, the Université Libre de Bruxelles is implementing a re-urbanisation project formed of a mix of housing and offices, intended to bring continuous activity to the university campus. The five-storey apartment buildings of average size reinterpret the traditional Brussels plot by providing openings that constitute windows onto the development’s public spaces that consequently become an inherent part of the overall environment.
On a derelict industrial site on the outskirts of Milan, architects are creating a new neighbourhood and defining the principal geographical features and the various urban environments: avenues, squares, public gardens, landmarks, etc. The mission is to optimise the number of m² to be developed in 19 buildings containing almost 600 apartments of varied layouts while guaranteeing the quality of the internal and external spaces. The balconies with their hanging gardens serve as a thermal regulator, favouring the use of natural ventilation and lighting at the heart of the buildings.
The building will be exclusively for housing. Three split-level apartments will basically occupy the first two floors. These apartments will benefit from a garden. The two-bedroom split-level and single-storey apartments are distributed over the upper floors and under the roof.
In the 1970s the construction of the Brussels metro required the destruction of part of Molenbeek Saint Jean: a 600m ship stretching from the Canal to Wauters-Koeckx square was demolished.
A complete reconstruction of the demolished urban fabric was designed in order to remove this 'scar'.
In terms of program, the project is structured by a horizontal mix of constructions.
The lower levels are given over to workshops and small businesses, the middle levels to offices, and the upper floors to housing.
