ONLINE BRUSSELS HERITAGE - ONE-DAY SEMINAR - 11/12/2014

THE LISTED HOUSES OF THE LE LOGIS AND FLORÉAL GARDEN CITIES ADAPTATIONS TO CURRENT ENERGY AND COMFORT NEEDS

GUIDOSTEGEN
ARCHITECT, ARCHITECTURAL FIRM ARSIS BVBA

LE LOGIS AND FLORÉAL ISA GARDEN CITY THAT SHOWS US AN INTERESTING INSTRUMENT FOR COMBINING CULTURAL VALUES AND ENERGY NEEDS. TWO ASPECTS WILL BE ADDRESSED HERE: THE MANAGEMENT PL AN AND THE FINANCIAL ASPECT OF THE ENERGY SAVING MEASURES EMPLOYED.

OPTIMISING THE ENERGY PERFORMANCE OF LISTED HERITAGE: AN EXERCISE WITH IMPACT

The title of this contribution is: “Adaptations to current energy and comfort needs”. The word “needs” instead of “standards” has been chosen deliberately. Through energy measures that conform with heritage, the Beheersplan voor Erfgoed (Heritage Management Plan) of the Le Logis and Floréal garden city is striving to fulfil the need for efficient energy consumption in the most optimal manner. “Optimising” is the keyword here: it is an exercise in balancing the potentially conflicting interests of the heritage, cost price and performance. The investment to energy performance ratio is key to ensuring maximum energy savings within a limited time frame (20 to 25 years). Within a limited amount of time, the financial means must be found and invested in order to improve the energy performance in the majority of houses. Only then can the largest global energy savings be realised within this time frame.

The Le Logis and Floréal garden city is large. It is a complex of two garden cities, situated in section of the Brussels periphery built up in the 20th century, approximately six to seven kilometres from the city centre. There are currently approximately 540,000 residences in the Brussels-Capital Region, of which (only) ± 8% are social housing residences (fig. 1). Between 1920 and 1940, approximately 125,000 houses were built in the Brussels municipalities, 9,000 of which were social housing residences. 4,000 of these have fewer than three floors, including the Le Logis and Floréal listed houses. With these figures, I am trying to give an idea of the impact the conclusions of the management plan can have. About 4,000 social housing residences in the Brussels-Capital Region are structurally and technically comparable to the Le Logis and Floréal listed houses, not to mention the non-social housing residences of the same type (approximately 40,000).

Figure 2 shows the houses that, in the government decisions of

36 | The listed houses of the Le Logis and Floréal garden cities