THE ENERGY FUTURE OF EXISTING BUILDINGS IN BRUSSELS: BETWEEN PRESERVATION AND PERFORMANCE

The question of obsolescence also arises: we're living in an age where toasters are no longer repaired! Let's face it, people no longer want to repair things. It's our culture. It's not an inevitability, of course, it's simply a way of boosting the economy and creating growth, but Look at what is thrown out! Why not include the costs of embodied energy in the overall calculation of energy balances and returns on investment? Where is the credibility in a study that says a double flow system, after twenty years, pays for itself if we're following the toaster model, i.e. if it's been replaced three times over the same period of time? I am not saying that it should not be done. We have a collective responsibility with regard to global warming and therefore have an obligation to research and innovate. However, I think that the issues of embodied energy and obsolescence urgently need to be considered and seriously included in the calculations.

It is also important to consider the question of balance between the three pillars of sustainable development and to include a fourth: culture, as proposed by the French urban planner, Philippe Madec (among others). Culture doesn't belong to the social, the economy or to ecology. There can be no social project without culture. Culture is the basis of every society. As part of this seminar, I believe that considering this fourth pillar as being completely inseparable from the three others would help to address these issues of history, heritage and context that are so important. I think that there is, currently, an overemphasis on the environmental pillar and, through it, even more so on the energy pillar and the striving for energy performance (fig. 13).

THE RESULT OF THE COMPETITION

The architectural competition was finally held with the inclusion in the specifications - to the great displeasure of Anne Lacaton - of a requirement that the renovated building comply with low energy standards of 60 kWh/m²/year. The Molenbeek Housing Company received five proposals. To our great surprise, all proposed passive projects! However, all of the project authors confirmed to us that without double flow ventilation it would not be possible to get below the bar of 70 kWh/m²/year: “If you require us to achieve 60, double flow has to be installed. If it is necessary to use a double flow system, the additional cost involved to achieve the passive standard is negligible. We are therefore proposing a passive project to have a greater chance of winning the competition!”.

The five projects are therefore of the passive type, most of them based on increasing the thickness of the envelope, with the obligation of adding extra space in each apartment. The winner (the Dethier Architectures-Atelier 229 firm) was announced after

Fig. 14 and 15

Sketches of the winning project in the competition (© A229 architects/Dethier Architecture).

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