The project is situated in the neighbourhood of Bressoux in the post-industrial city Liege in Belgium. Bressoux felt at first as a deserted place. It gave the impression that only people live here because of financial necessity. The people with better jobs move away, the ones left behind seem forgotten and neglected. “The winner takes it all!” is the attitude of our economy (Brugmans, 2016, p.6). What is left for the ‘others’? Are they the ones hidden behind the facades of Bressoux? What will their future perspective be?
In order to explore the lives of the people in multicultural neighbourhoods like Bressoux, a common ground had to be found. I believe it is food. And to be more specific: bread. Bread is used in almost every cuisine of every culture. Therefore the research follows the journey of bread trough time, space and the everyday life: Daily bread. The historical and social-cultural research of the production and consumption of bread, also led to an extended research on milling and (communal) wood-fire ovens. The research gave awareness of the importance of how we deal with our primary needs of food, warmth and community. They should be more visible and more directly involved in our daily lives.
The conclusion of the research is translated into the design. The design contains a communal oven within a living room for the neighbourhood, connected with a mill factory using the traditional stone-milling. This is situated in an existing building and surrounded by seven new-built apartment blocks. The apartment blocks consists of three or five apartments, all connected with the chimney of a tile-stove which provides most of the warmth and is located on the ground floor in a shared space.
The mill gives the neighbourhood the opportunity to buy local produces and healthy flour and the communal wood-fire oven a place to make their own bread or other food and share it with their neighbours in a warm space. The housing is based on the principle of sharing the responsibility of their warmth, which creates communities within the building block. So this project tries to give people an alternative future perspective in the winner-takes it all society by reconsidering the way we handle our primary needs. In order to hopefully improve the lives of ‘those others’, simply by giving back the control of their food, warmth and community.