Project

Collectively renovating towards a climate-neutral Antwerp

The challenges regarding energy saving in Antwerp homes are major. As part of its Climate Plan 2030, the city aims to achieve average primary energy savings of 2.5% per year. Around 72% of the housing units in Antwerp are flats, which are often more difficult to renovate than other housing types. Focusing on collective renovation of apartment buildings will make achieving Antwerp's climate goals more realistic.

The Collective Renovation project is derived from the framework agreement ‘Climate and Environment’ with the City of Antwerp, in which the city is looking for efficiency improvements around the existing Masterplan Approach for collective renovations and ways to raise the level of ambition together with the necessary actors. Between November 2022 and December 2023, a series of Atelier Days will take place within this trajectory, part of Architecture Workroom and Rebel's role as process facilitators, towards a Masterplan Approach 2.0. 

The City of Antwerp supports owners of large apartment buildings for thorough renovations. The city's renovation coach assists the Association of Co-owners and syndics in drawing up a plan for renovation. The city additionally supports owners with a financial Master Plan grant. An investment grant is also being considered to support the most ambitious renovations.

In the coming years, the city intends to continue their existing approach and ensure the increase of renovation coaching capacity. However, to meet the energy-saving targets, the dynamics of the current Masterplan Approach will need to be further strengthened and accelerated. The challenge lies in enhancing ambitious (masterplan) renovations of apartment buildings. 

During the Atelier Days, we will unravel both generic and specific factors within the current masterplan approach as a stepping stone in the path towards the masterplan approach 2.0. A mixed group will participate in these Atelier Days, including syndicates, experts from municipalities, study and consultancy firms and renovation coaches from the city of Antwerp. In specific sessions, we focus on the different steps in the process, on the link with spatial policy and the possible additional qualitative added value that renovation can bring, and on the financing issue (the 'business case') of the renovation. The insights from these discussions will be compiled in a clear report in early 2024, which the City itself can use in its ongoing renovation processes, but from which other stakeholders involved can also draw inspiration and insights.

 

 

Period: 2022-2023

Commissioner: Stad Antwerpen

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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.