THE ENERGY FUTURE OF EXISTING BUILDINGS IN BRUSSELS: BETWEEN PRESERVATION AND PERFORMANCE
other tenants on the housing waiting list, forcing them to have to wait even Longer. She felt that the building ought to be renovated while the site was still occupied.
This initial phase of the study therefore enabled the Molenbeek Housing Company as well as the Municipal Council to adopt a position definitively in favour of renovation rather than demolition.
The second phase consisted of using common sense to examine what could be optimised in the existing structure. The underlying logic was that of improvement and not compliance with standards. This approach was not favoured by the Brussels Region Housing Company (SLRB), which had no choice but to comply with standards - no exceptions. However, Anne Lacaton didn't give up: it was first necessary to determine how the existing structure could be improved, otherwise any renovation operation would have been pointless. Her firm also worked on the human element: the teams visited the families in each apartment in order to study situations of overcrowding or under-occupation. This enabled them to discover, for instance, that a bedroom intended for one child was actually used for three even though, in other apartments, certain rooms were unoccupied as the children had grown up and no longer lived there. This method showed that by simply optimising the distribution of residents within the tower, via internal movements, much could already be achieved.
Significant technical considerations were also involved. The firm proposed fireproofing and protecting the structure, making the cores fireproof, adding sprinklers to areas where fire resistance
SOME FIGURES:
Footprint | 381 m2 |
Total surface area | 6482 m2 |
Number of apartments | 97 |
Number of residents | 242 |
Consumption | 179 kWh/m2/year |
Average heating cost | 456 euros/year; 38 euros/month |
Base rents | From 175 to 324 euros/month |
Actual rents | 122 to 227 euros/month |
Fig. 6 to 12
The apartments are bright with a window in each room. The flat roof offers a panoramic view over the city (© Lacaton & Vassal).
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