City Hall Brussels

Abstract

The city of Brussels wishes to realise a new administrative building centrally located within the city’s pentagon. Brussels, being the capital city of both Belgium and the European Union, is considered a heterogeneous city, consisting of 183 nationalities. This heterogeneity becomes a defining characteristic of the metropolis, however a variety of other inhabitants of the city are commonly left unnoticed. Urban sprawl causes natural land to disappear, affecting biodiversity; not only of the countryside but also that of cities. Of which the latter is increasing. Some species have been in the city for years, a growing amount is migrating only recently. However, urbanisation and global warming i.a., is putting the flora and fauna of Brussels under pressure. While exploring the studio theme ‘the palace’ and ‘political space’ with its inherent representational function, ‘rights of nature’ became a defining topic for this project. Related to this topic, the project explores the use of lime-hemp, a circular building material, manifested in an economically feasible manner in such a large-scale building through prefabricated construction techniques, in order to rethink ways of building to reduce our carbon footprint by the construction industry. Whilst achieving a pleasant indoor climate for the 1700 employees working for the City of Brussels as well as the animals inhabiting the building envelope, realised through the material’s breathing capacities. The proposed design aims to take part of a developing ecological network of Brussels Capital Region as well as to revitalize the relationship between humans and the natural environment. In order to restore ecosystems and biodiversity whilst serving as an exemplary to its surrounding as well as a responsibility to the environment.