M.I.F WIELS

avril, 2021

M.I.F WIELS

Transformation of M.I.F – Maison des Initatives de Forest

Description: Competition
Type of project: Competition
Type of customer: Public
Department: Competition
Location: Forest, Brussels
Surface area: 1200 m²
Year: 2021

The project, innovative, exemplary and sustainable in its materialisation, presents a flexible and modular structure to allow for great resilience and to adapt the programming according to changing needs. The preservation of the built context, the dialogue with the Wiels surroundings as well as the integration in the morphology of the existing templates promote coherence with regard to the lace formed by the division of solids and voids of the façade templates of the block concerned.

The location and visibility of the Maison des Initiatives is of paramount importance and is a challenge for the revitalisation of the Wiels district. It is a question of making this crossroads a place of passage but also a place of destination, inserting the project into a coherent public space, favouring soft mobility and qualifying the public spaces, making the direct surroundings of the crossroads permeable and green.

The project provides for a real forecourt that participates in the appropriation of the public space, its greening and thus offers welcoming outdoor spaces.

The conservation of part of the endemic vegetation will be the starting point for the composition of the garden.

The valorization of various elements of demolition that can be recovered is done by a preliminary inventory, which translates one of our central desires which is to preserve a maximum of the structures and elements of decoration and to emphasize the existing heritage.

LIMITE

juillet, 2019

LIMITE

Library FR- NL of Sint Josse Ten Noode

Description: municipal library, conference area and exhibition
Type of project: Library
Type of customer: Public
Department: public procurement
Location: Saint-Josse-ten-Noode, Brussels (BE)
Surface area: 1320 m²
Year: 2017-2022

The Limite project aims to create a rich cultural programme in the dense municipality of Saint-Josse-ten-Noode: a French-speaking and Dutch-speaking library sharing multipurpose spaces, conference space, exhibition space and cafeteria, with the aim of bringing the two communities together.

ASTRONOMIE

juillet, 2019

ASTRONOMIE

Interactive totem

Description: Colomn stairs in a « totem » for the municipality
Type of project: Office
Type of customer: Public
Department: Construction
Location: Saint-Josse-ten-Noode, Brussels (BE)
Surface area:
Year: 2017-2019

To alleviate the problem of existing non-conforming emergency roads in the municipal house of Saint-Josse-ten-Noode located on the Avenue de l’Astronomie in Saint-Josse-ten-Noode. This project proposes a « totem » staircase which adds a playful and plastic dimension is offered and allows the promotion of the image of the communal services. It would become a signage element on a city-wide scale by creating an urban landmark on the inner ring around Brussels like the other objects that punctuate the route.

BIP

août, 2017

BIP

Description: renovation and transformation of the reception area of the BIP building

Partner of collaboration: Jean Paul Hermant Architects
Type of project: Cultural
Type of customer: Public
Department: Transformation and renovation
Location: Brussels (BE)
Year: 2000

BIP is located in a highly symbolic area of Brussels. The site features a superimposition of historical layers; one of the most impressive is the underground path from the Palais du Coudenberg to the Place Royale, which crosses numerous medieval remains.

The project consists mainly of reconfiguring the BIP’s reception area.

The architectural intervention highlights the historical traces and gives the visitors the opportunity to experience a little less than a thousand years of our city’s history by directing the flow of visitors.

The new entrance gives all visitors, including groups and PRMs, access to the three different museums.

(Coudenberg, Brussels. Experience and the Cat Museum).

The new reception area involves lowering the existing floor slab by +/- 1.4 m. The idea is to provide level even access from the sidewalk of the Place Royale. Through a thermal sluice, visitors are directed to a large reception desk, which manages and organizes the various flows to the museums.

Multiples visual links are created throughout the building by creating a large atrium behind the counter.

A new opening in the slab creates visual links to the early Coudenberg excavations. The different historical layers can be read on the walls. A staircase is built through this opening, and after several stair landings, it joins the steps of the old staircase linking Rue Isabelle and the inner courtyard of the former palace. The design of this new staircase is based on a floating aesthetic thanks to a system of hangers, ensuring that the existing remains untouched.

Around the main entrance area, the existing floor levels are maintained, and various staircases and elevators ensure easy access to the various spaces and floors where, among the new circulation areas and sanitary facilities, a generous bar-cafeteria is created.