According to the World Migration Report 2015, published by the International Organisation for Migration, 62% of the people of Brussels are foreign-born or of foreign descent. That makes Brussels the second most diverse city in the world. The heterogeneity of the city of Brussels can be witnessed on the different levels such as class, culture, income, voluntary and enforced migrations. This diversity defines the nature of the city and it is often a reason for the tensions between authorities and identities. The city of Brussels, one of 19 municipalities that together form the Brussel Hoofdstedelijk Gewest, sponsored a developer-led competition for a city administrative building. The winning proposal was taken by the studio as a provocation, the beginning of the discussion about the place where the citizens can contact administration and governance, a place which represents the citizens and their concerns, a political space.
A starting point of the idea for the graduation project was the complexity and the heterogeneity of the city of Brussels, demonstrated on its streets and the communal life. The main objective of the proposal was to create a building which contributes to the public realm of Brussels, to extend the existing public space instead of creating a new one, to connect the new building with an existing dynamic of the surroundings.