Project

Living Lab Muide Meulestede Fossil-Free

Together with the City of Ghent, we are setting up a local Living Lab that aims to accelerate the transition of the Muide Meulestede neighbourhood to a fossil-free district. How can we get every house and every neighbourhood renovated and connected to a sustainable energy system in an affordable and fast way? Over the next two years, we will work on an applied, but above all scalable development model for the energy transition at neighbourhood level.

Today, many residents cannot imagine deeply renovating their homes and providing them with sustainable heat. They cannot afford it, or they do not have the time and capacity. Despite government commitments to invest in support measures, tax breaks and subsidies, the energy transition is still taking place far too slow today, especially in the most vulnerable parts of our cities. In these same neighbourhoods, we often miss opportunities to implement decentralised, integrated energy projects, such as large-scale solar roofs or geothermal boreholes with thermal storage, because the focus is only on central heating networks or individual heat pumps. In these energy projects, the collective switch to sustainable energy production through shared energy systems is the incentive for renovating of individual houses. Together with the City of Ghent, we will explore in the coming years whether and how such integrated energy projects can make the energy transition inclusive and accelerate it. 

More specifically? For example, the local sports club wants to build a new training pitch. During the reconstruction, the City of Ghent will install geothermal probes under the pitch and build a local heating network. The sports club is not the only one that can connect to the BTES field (Borehole Thermal Energy Storage) and meet its own energy needs. In the future, the surrounding individual homes will also be able to connect to the local heating network once they have undergone the necessary renovations. This will also improve the quality of their homes. In the Living Lab, we are developing a concrete step-by-step plan to coordinate these interrelated actions. We are setting up a (joint) organisational, financing and management model to provide residents and other local stakeholders with an integrated, ready-to-go heat and renovation offer. The intention is to do this in such a way that allows not only for this pilot to be realised, but for a model to be developed that sets the ball rolling in the entire neighbourhood. 

In Muide Meulestede, we will set up three concrete pilot projects over the next two years. Each of them is a test of a new type of project. Each project with different thresholds and breakthroughs. These pilot projects are part of a neighbourhood-wide approach. They are locally multiplying stepping stones that add up to the step-by-step transformation of Muide Meulestede into a fossil-free neighbourhood. The pilot projects frame within the local dynamics of the ongoing urban renewal project, reinforced by a complementary programme with specific focus on local social objectives, local ownership and capacity building. The aim is for the further transformation of the neighbourhood to be taken up locally, even after the Living Lab ends. 

From the Living Lab, we are also contributing to an international learning environment as part of Flanders Technology & Innovation (FTI) and one of the five city festivals in Hasselt from 17 to 21 March 2024 that focuses on the future of the city, under the title 'People making places'. We will thus translate the lessons, models and methodologies from the Living Lab into a scalable approach that can be applied in other neighbourhoods in Ghent and Flanders.

The Living Lab is supported by a unique cross-sectoral and multidisciplinary consortium of public, private and civil partners t’at’s rigging together an effective and integrated chain approach to energy transition with government, energy companies, financiers and citizens. 

Architecture Workroom Brussels and partners receive financial support for the Living Lab from the City of Ghent, Porticus Foundation, Flanders Technology & Innovation / VITO and the from the Flemish Arts Decree through our operating grants. 

Period: 2023-2025

Initiator: Architecture Workroom Brussels, Stad Gent

Partners: 3E, Wattson, Energent, VITO, Flanders Technology and Innovation (FTI)

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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.