Open Workroom Sponge Landscapes: call for projects & objects – News – Architecture Workroom Brussels

We are calling on regional coordinators, landscape designers, farmer and nature organisations, experts, entrepreneurs and governments to submit projects or objects that demonstrate how sponge landscapes can be designed, organized, and implemented! We welcome contributions from anyone tackling water challenges with a land-based and cross-sectoral approach. Submit your project before September 15 and become part of the OPEN WORKROOM SPONGE LANDSCAPES! Read the call here and submit your project here.

The OPEN WORKROOMS SPONGE LANDSCAPES will be the second in a series of ‘open workrooms’ around the social transformations to which AWB is committed in 2023-2026: energy districts, sponge landscapes, and societal infrastructure. During an Open Workroom, we literally open the doors of our workplace with a small exhibition linked to a program of lectures, workshops and debates around a specific topic, bringing together experts, stakeholders and pioneers from various disciplines. In doing so, we create a space to pool knowledge and set up breakthroughs together. For the upcoming edition on sponge landscapes, we collaborate with The Global Commission on the Economics of Water (GCEW), the International Water Management Institute (IWMI), and UHasselt’s REWORLDING doctoral network, with the support of the Flemish Government, Department of Culture. Want to become a partner as well? Get in touch via openworkroom [at] architectureworkroom.eu.

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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.