The Future Bank: Designing the intermediary space

Abstract

The Future Bank, the design project for the graduation studio of Interiors Buildings Cities, questions the current role of the National Bank of Belgium withing the city of Brussels, as the institution has distanced itself from the city by the digitalization and outsourcing of former location-bound banking activities. This graduation project, ‘The Future Bank: Designing the Intermediary Space’ addresses the issue by reconnecting the bank building and the city through adopting a more public character. The building is partially transformed into an educational cluster, to house study facilities for students, a library and public archive and the banking museum. Two central courts are created within the building: the auditorium court and a public courtyard. Both of which respond to the direct urban context by bridging the height difference between the banking hall, the main entrance of the building, and the Governor’s Hotel, the most historical building part. The banking hall is transformed into a public interior square which functions as the main entrance for all users and as a foyer and lobby space for the auditorium court and the courtyard. A public route is constructed from the banking hall to the entrance of the Governor’s Hotel, which redraws the boundary between the public and private functions in the building. The design of the intermediary space, the space between the public and private functions, responds to the reconfiguration of the publicly accessible space within the building. By incorporating workspaces and social facilities within the design of the intermediary space, the relation between public and private functions is emphasized. This way, the appropriation of the building and the interrelation of its different users is manifested architecturally on the user-level.