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

not made up of residents of the apartments. The underlying theme of this work is “that one must never demolish, take away or replace, but protect, add, transform and use”. It is therefore heritage writ large, consisting of working on what's already there, adding value to it and developing its qualities.

The architectural firm led us to look at the tower in a different way, appreciating that while it was relatively unremarkable architecturally, it possessed a great number of qualities and its faults could be significantly reduced by carrying out work on the envelope. Their work drew our attention to the fact that even though the appearance of the building fell out of favour over time, it nevertheless possessed values worth conserving.

THE COURSE OF THE FEASIBILITY STUDY

The first phase of the study therefore involved listing the qualities of the building. Anne Lacaton firstly showed us that the tower was similar to many others visible in Chicago, Detroit, Copenhagen and other cities, built by renowned architects such as Mies Van der Rohe or Arne Jacobsen, and that those towers were clearly not lacking in elegance.

She next drew our attention to questions of common sense and to the incredible efficiency evident in the Brunfaut tower, such as, for example: the layouts reduced to their most basic form; a central concrete core with a spiral staircase at each end; incredibly sparing use of materials and a lot of subtlety (fig. 4 and 5). Efficiency is in evidence again with regard to the building's footprint: 380 m² for 242 inhabitants. This building therefore provided great service to numerous families over fifty years. Actual energy consumption figures (provided by the Foyer Molenbeekois) are quite surprising: 179 kWh/m²/year, which corresponds to around 38 euros/month/apartment of heating costs for rent that varies between 175 and 324 euros/month. These figures are very reasonable when compared with other buildings of the same period, due, in particular, to the extreme compactness of the building. However, there must certainly be a lack of comfort linked to the total absence of any insulation in the external walls. The same efficiency can be found in the design which displays obvious architectural qualities: the apartments are bright, with a window in each room (including the kitchen and bathroom) and wide views over the city (fig. 6 to 12).

At the same time, the municipality of Molenbeek -Saint-Jean was faced with the problem of a rapidly growing population which had to be urgently tackled. The conclusion was as follows: a lot of new residents were going to have to find housing within the municipality's territory and the public housing waiting lists were already swamped (this is still the case today). Anne Lacaton asked us how we planned to manage the situation with the residents if the demolition/reconstruction option was chosen. The solution envisaged at the time by the public authorities was the usual “temporary relocation” operation which consists of housing people elsewhere and bringing them back once the building has been renovated. She queried this practice since the residents of the tower were going to take the place of

Fig. 4 and 5

Plans of the Brunfaut tower. A simple efficient layout combined with optimal use of materials (© Lacaton & Vassal).

88 | The Brunfaut tower. Presentation of the conceptual design challenges of a renovation