Article
When productive city meets ring culture
Gideon Boie
12/2023, A+
Image: Laurian Ghinițoiu
A new skyline is taking shape along Bergensesteenweg at the level of the Brussels Ring. NovaCity I is a compact live-work complex with affordable housing on a double-height plinth with workshops and businesses. The regional development authority citydev.brussels awarded the commission to Kairos nv in collaboration with architects &bogdan and DDS+. The combination of housing with a business zone symbolizes the future of the productive city.
With cladding of greenish sheets of corrugated metal on a concrete structure, NovaCity I sets the tone for an innovative building programme in a post-industrial context. The plinth of the building forms an SME zone with sixteen workshops and five businesses with accompanying rental housing. On the plinth are four residential blocks (A to D) of alternately four and three storeys plus a small six-storey residential tower (block E). Altogether, there are sixty-three residential units. The large span needed for the businesses and workshops determined the dimensions for the residential blocks above, i.e. six by six metres.
The striking galleries on the roof terrace form the circulation space of the residential blocks. The generous dimensions of the galleries mean that they are useful as both a communal space and a terrace for the flats on the second floor. The roof terraces are divided into private gardens enclosed by metal fencing. Similarly, the roofs of residential blocks B and D function as private gardens for the top floors of blocks A and C. The communal garden is limited to a vegetable garden with glass conservatory in the central section and a playground under the residential tower. Bicycle racks are provided under the galleries.
The triangular site is filled by the rectangular complex with residential and commercial units and, in parallel, a low building with workshops. A logistics street in the form of a loop provides supplies to businesses and shops. The shop windows and entrance halls for the residences are served by a pedestrian street on the north side, functioning as the front façade of the complex. Sunlight enters the pedestrian street through the residential blocks, placed at an angle. The pedestrian street borders a vacant lot where NovaCity II is planned, a development by Eiffage and POLO Architects that will have 112 homes with some shops and a neighbourhood antenna.
NovaCity I is located right next to the new Anderlecht station on the Brussels-Ghent railway line. The vertical stacking of living and working is convenient in view of the train embankment, a metre-high concrete wall that cleaves right through the urban landscape. The leap in scale makes the housing look out over the tracks and urban environment. The location of the SME zone is also a convenient solution to the dead retaining wall. Proximity to the railway station is practical for NovaCity’s accessibility, although the station offers little urban quality, being more an accessible platform.
The introduction of productive activities within a residential environment fits the dual core mission of the regional development authority citydev.brussels, which involves urban renewal and economic development. As a result, NovaCity I is a world away from the adjacent Anderlechtse Haard complex built barely ten years ago by SDRB-GOMB, the predecessor of citydev.brussels. The social housing complex is characterized by monofunctionality. The lack of transport in the area and of amenities means the building blocks are surrounded by a sea of parked cars.
Image: Laurian Ghinițoiu. Published in the thematic issue on the ‘Brussels Architecture Prize’: Gideon Boie, ‘When productive city meets ring culture’, A+ Architecture in Belgium, 305 (December 2023 – January 2024), 28-32.
Categories: Architecture
Type: Article
