About
Management Team

Lene De Vrieze

Lene De Vrieze (she/her) sees the power of a design-driven approach in a world full of specialisations and increasing mutual misunderstanding, using it to build connections that move everyone forward. Sometimes exploratory, sometimes challenging, but always supportive.

Since 2017, she has made space for this at Workroom, often literally. She started with large-scale exhibitions such as 'You Are Here' and gradually expanded her focus to strategic projects around open space, land, and water. In recent years, she has also focused on the organisation as a whole. With this expertise, she is now a key figure within the landscape team and is deeply engaged in grant and acquisition dossiers.

Lene grew up in Mons and studied civil engineering/architecture at KU Leuven. During her student years, she was already involved in initiatives at the intersection of culture and architecture, within the framework of Existenz, Artefact Festival (STUK Leuven), and Mons European Capital of Culture 2015.


Selected projects, publications and presentations: 

IABR-2018 / You Are Here 2018 (2017-2018)

Towards and agroecological urbanism (2018-2022)

• To a resilient wetland (2022)

• Exhibition Stadsvernieuwing is Mensenwerk (2022-2023)

Open Space Platform (2013-2023), Grond+Zaken (2018-2023), Open Space Coalitions (2024)

Land of Neerpede (2022-2024)

Operation Energy Neighbourhoods (2024-2025)

• open workroom SPONGE LANDSCAPES (2025-2026)

 

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WORKROOM

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.