Breakfast at K51
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Breakfast at K51

By 3 May 2022 June 2nd, 2022 No Comments

A Living Future for our Past. Rehabilitation workshop of the abandoned building in Keyenveld Street, 51, Brussels.

Within the framework of the New European Bauhaus Festival (9-12 June 2022), this event is a workshop with university students, professionals, trainers and tutors, whose end goal is to develop creative ideas to regenerate a decaying building in a historical site of Brussels, through a participatory model. We will introduce and adopt in the workshop the Living Building Challenge, a philosophy, advocacy tool and certification program developed by the International Living Future Institute, the US partner of Living Future Europe.

Keyenveld street, in Ixelles, is a historical site, included in the Inventory of the Architectural Heritage of the Region Bruxelles-Capitale. Just a short walk away from the two of Brussels’s most expensive boulevards (Av. Louise and Av. de la Toison d’Or) and the popular Chaussée d’Ixelles, silently, Keyenveld Street is bearing with grace and elegance the variety of the historical traces that made Brussels the multicultural city that we love today.

The XXth century building at no. 51, which will be the subject of our workshop, is of particular interest as it is an abandoned building. Just across the street, at no. 48, one can find Audrey Hepburn’s birthplace, and at no. 57-59 is the birthplace of Auguste Perret, a pioneer in the application of reinforced concrete.

In recent years, the local community, through structures such as Le comité de quartier XL-Nord, made significant efforts in the rehabilitation of the street, a considerable number of buildings being renovated in close proximity.

The Living Building Challenge is the world’s most rigorous standard for green buildings. Living Buildings strive for net-zero or net-positive energy, are free of toxic chemicals, and lower their energy footprint many times below the generic commercial structure.

Brussels is well known across Europe for the outstanding bottom-up urban development projects, one specific example being Les contrats de quartiers durables that have already proved for almost 30 years to be efficient in reactivating vulnerable spaces in Brussels by supporting PPP and local engagement.

This is why, for this event, we are partnering with Universite Catholique de Louvain Research Institute for Landscape, Architecture, Built environment (LAB) that is going to connect us with the local community of young professionals and academics, and Communa, an NGO from Brussels with experience and expertise in urban acupuncture, connecting empty buildings with marginalized communities of people. Other partners are VIBE vzw, a Flanders based network promoting a regenerative approach in the construction sector (they just completed  the first LBC historic building renovation project, UR.zone, Ghent), and the Faculty of Architecture at KU Leuven.

One of our main objectives during the NEB Fest is to explore how, both us as LBC experts and the community in Brussels can benefit from such an interdisciplinary and intercultural exchange of knowledge, in the perspective of a greener, more beautiful and closer to people future. The event program will also include the annual Living Future Europe Meet-up.

The workshop

The workshop is free of charge and reserved to 15 participants (university students, practitioners, researchers and academics) that will be selected upon application using this online form (applications are closed), who will work divided in groups, between Thursday 9th and Friday 10th, June to develop regenerative ideas to revitalize the building at Keyenveld street 51. Qualified tutors from the LFE network and event partners will facilitate the process. All the activities will be run between the UCLouvain campus at St. Gilles and Keyenveld Street.

Deadline to apply is Friday 13th, May 2022 (applications are closed).

Trainers & tutors

Agenda

  • Thursday 9 June 2022
    • 09:00-12:00 opening, workshop introduction and talks
    • 12:00-13:00 lunch break
    • 13:00-14:00 site visit
    • 14:00-18:00 team work (I)
    • 19:00-22:00 LFE Meet-up & dinner (by invitation) 
  • Friday 10 June 2022
    • 09:00-13:00 team work (II)
    • 13:00-14:00 lunch break
    • 14:00-15:00 teams results presentations and closing
    • 15:00-17:00 LFE Meet-up (by invitation)

We are looking forward to your applications, places are limited! 🙂 (applications are closed)

Are you interested in attending the final results presentations? Come join us on Friday 10th June at 2-3 pm (always at UCLouvain, Saint Gilles). Participation is free, upon registration. Places are limited.

Breakfast at K51 is a SIDE event of the New European Bauhaus Festival. Organised by Living Future Europe, Université catholique de Louvain, VIBE, and other partners. LFE is partner of the New European Bauhaus initiative.