What is it about?
Located on Rue Ransbeek, the project site comprises two buildings dating from the 1980s, providing 40 homes for the elderly, a caretaker's lodge and a multi-purpose hall. Full renovation is required to bring these buildings up to current safety and functional standards.
The Property Management Agency of the City of Brussels plans to transform this area into an architectural and landscaped complex comprising:
- Housing adapted for the elderly
- An adapted community centre for 24 people
- A community restaurant
- A day care centre
The 20 housing units will be located in the building inside the block, while the community centre will occupy the building on the street. A new construction will link the two buildings, creating a common entrance. This connection enables the two entities to operate together or independently. The front garden, accessible to the public, will face the street. To the rear, a shared garden and a private 'Zen' garden for the elderly will be laid out.
The project features a compact layout, freeing up high-quality open spaces. The surrounding urban environment, characterised by blocks with openings and porosity, influenced the decision not to enclose the block with a built front, making the interior spaces accessible to visitors and local residents.
The project aims to achieve exemplary renovation in terms of sustainability and the circular economy, making the most of the existing building structures. It also provides for the development of an extensive landscaped area that promotes biodiversity, by incorporating carefully considered rainwater management and combatting urban heat islands.
These homes will meet the need for people with loss of or reduced mobility to remain in their own homes.
What purpose?
This project meets the following ambitions and objectives:
- Boosting the supply of housing, facilities and services around the public transport network and a network combining cycle and pedestrian mobility, while preserving the existing landscape and biological attributes of Neder-Over-Heembeek
- Guaranteeing affordable housing for everyone
- Addressing a lack of public facilities
- Developing a strategy to reduce soil sealing in the city of Brussels and make its public spaces greener
- Implementing a policy of activating roofs to prevent overheating in municipal public buildings
- Enhancing and preserving biodiversity reserves
- Disconnecting as many large-scale sites as possible from the sewerage system and increasing infiltration, storage, recovery and soil permeability systems
