Guide to accelerate the energy transition in existing urban neighbourhoods and village centres – News – Architecture Workroom Brussels

Photo: Bob Van Mol

Is a collective approach to the energy transition of the built environment needed, in addition to the traditional house-by-house approach? That’s what many local governments, civil society organizations, and private partners all over Flanders, Brussels and the Netherlands confirm! Last week’s conference during the FTI festival in Hasselt set the stage for a conversation about five prototypical breakthrough projects that could kick-start a district energy transformation: from the renovation of an apartment building and how to involve all residents, to collective solutions in the fragmented space of allotment areas, to shared heat projects in typical urban blocks.

The publication we produced as a conversation starter can be found here (NL). Guest speakers fuelled the discussion with inspiring examples. The final debate underlined the need for multidisciplinary ‘living lab’ environments to test in real time how technical, social, financial, legal and policy levers can be interlinked. The Flemish, Brussels, and European innovation policies should create space for additional capacity, dedicated budgets and knowledge platforms for local experiments and collective projects to help shape the societal innovations needed for our neighbourhoods of the future.

‘Cities Making Places: De energietransitie in bestaande stadswijken en dorpskernen versnellen’ taking place on March 18, 2024 was programmed by Architecture Workroom Brussels and VITO NEXUS, as partners of The Great Transformation 2020-2030.

More News

Want to join our team?

WORKROOM is looking for a new employee to join its committed and dynamic team. → more

Who heats the city?

Workroom and the City of Ghent are joining forces for a working exhibition on a fossil-free Ghent. → more

Host the Sponge Landscapes exhibition

A travelling version of the open workroom SPONGE LANDSCAPES exhibition at your venue? → more

This autumn: open workroom Houses for the Common Good

A third open workroom in the series will take place this from October 2026. → more

Summer internship at WORKROOM?

We are looking for enthusiastic interns to support our team during the summer. → more

We are changing names!

Architecture Workroom Brussels becomes WORKROOM, House for Transformation → more

Since 2010, Architecture Workroom Brussels has focused on the future of our living environment. The organisation began as a safe haven to address the link between space and societal transitions, aimed at fostering a futureproof design practice, commissioning and building culture.

It has now become evident that the transformation of our streets, neighbourhoods, and landscapes is both a prerequisite and a lever for achieving societal goals in synergy. Yet we observe that these transformations remain difficult to imagine and implement. They span so many sectors and involve so many actors that responsibility falls on everyone, and therefore, ultimately, on no one.

That is why we make it our mission to create the space that connects them. And with this refined mission comes a new name: WORKROOM, House for transformation. WORKROOM is the shared space where the future of our living environment is not only imagined but also organised.

We are currently taking the lead on three mission-driven transformations:

SOCIETAL INCUBATORS - By 2030, stakeholders from the youth, culture, sports, care and education sectors will join forces to create renewed societal spaces that tackle loneliness and counteract the fragmentation and pressure on public infrastructure.
FOSSIL-FREE NEIGHBOURHOODS - By 2030, at least ten neighbourhoods will be underway with the transition to fossil-free energy in an inclusive and affordable way, with a view to completely phase-out fossil fuels by 2040.
SPONGE LANDSCAPES - By 2030, we will have achieved our water, agriculture and nature goals through a single, coherent approach at catchment area level, in which strong regional coalitions collectively enhance the landscape's sponge capacity.

To make these transformations a reality, WORKROOM works shoulder to shoulder with pioneering designers, local authorities, organisations and businesses, governments, knowledge institutions and impact investors.

Through co-creative design, we imagine shared pathways to the future in exhibitions, publications, innovation programmes and public programmes. These are the workrooms where we connect the actors capable of realising these transformations. From there, we design shared ownership and the organisational, funding and policy models that lead to real change.

The name is simpler. The stakes are higher. WORKROOM is the shared space where we tackle the social and spatial transformations that no one can achieve alone. In an era of polarisation, compartmentalisation and instability, that is perhaps the most radical thing we can do.