Future Bank: Transformation of the National Bank of Belgium
B.J.H. Leemans (TU Delft - Architecture and the Built Environment)
D.J. Rosbottom – Mentor (TU Delft - Situated Architecture)
M. Parravicini – Graduation committee member
A.R. Thomas – Graduation committee member (TU Delft - Situated Architecture)
S. Pietsch – Coach (TU Delft - Situated Architecture)
S. De Vocht – Coach (TU Delft - Situated Architecture)
M. Pimlott – Coach (TU Delft - Situated Architecture)
More Info
expand_more
Other than for strictly personal use, it is not permitted to download, forward or distribute the text or part of it, without the consent of the author(s) and/or copyright holder(s), unless the work is under an open content license such as Creative Commons.
Abstract
The graduation studio of Interiors Buildings Cities 2021/2022 revolves around the transformation of the National Bank of Belgium, a 90.000 m2 triangular building block which contains the offices of a public institution that controls and regulates a capitalist economy, independent from the government, between the lower and higher part of the central city. The transformation of the city block offers an opportunity to rethink the National Bank as the Future Bank. A transformation which critiques the existing building, whilst reconfiguring the bank into a more permeable place in both physical and organisational form. The project aims to rethink the relation of the bank’s employees to each other and to the building they physically inhabit whilst rethinking the buildings relation to the city. As the bank is a place of intelligence work, with a public responsibility that regulates, directs, monitors and guides the local and global economies, the project Future Bank recreates the role of the Bank in society as an agent for change. Putting the building central, it is used as physical tool to be able to transform as an organisation. The design proposal for this transformation is based around the adaptive re-use of the vast existing complex.