115 Citygate II / Petite Île

A l’île
Biestebroeck was, is, and will be a place of production, initiative and activity. A place where working, learning, living coexist side by side. A place for everyone, a neighborhood for all.

Working in the city
Biestebroeck, an assemblage of industrial typologies and heterogeneous social environments, presents us with a generous and identity-based complexity that is important to study, preserve and strengthen. The establishment of new industries in conjunction with the existing local context, their integration through a mix of typologies and scales, the creation of a porosity between programs, provides us with the answers that will enable us to initiate a neighborhood with a strong sense of identity and richness in a varied and resilient economy.

Living in the city
We are equally interested in the ‘space between’ the buildings as in the buildings themselves, as both contribute to the ambiance of a positively charged urban environment. Contrary to the intentions of the 1960s urban planning, which adopted a strategy of setting up buildings in an undefined public space, or favoring a culture of mono-functional use, we think that the city must be defined as much by its public domain as by its buildings, and that these buildings must be open to adaptation and multiple uses.

Learning in the city
Like its neighborhood, the new school is a place where you can live, work, produce and play side by side. With the different buildings, pre-existing and new ones, and its exterior spaces, the school is a social and spatial microcosm, a didactic model and a functional machine. Being one of the ‘Ecole de Tous’ models, the school takes on an innovative role as well as didactic responsibilities. By inviting the neighborhood into its various courtyards and gardens, by sharing its facilities, it is a ‘school for all’ in the most possible fundamental and inclusive way.

Continuity in the city
We are being asked to build a new neighborhood on a site whose industrial identity has been established for a long time. Three old industrial buildings are still present on the site, in which a new creative and productive community has developed in a way that perfectly illustrates the relaxed and extraordinary character of the place. A new neighborhood rooted both in what already exists and what flourishes from there will be all the richer, complex and multi-dimensional, and even more suitable to become a place where it is good to work, to learn and to blossom, to live.