With Zin, developers, designers and authorities smuggled quality into the Noordwijk district. The bar was set high: the complex would reuse what was already there and breathe new life into the monofunctional office district.

Zin in A has sometimes been described as a Trojan horse: a project designed to smuggle urban quality into the Noordwijk, with the government in the belly of the horse. This had happened before. In the 1960s, governments hoped to usher in modernity in the capital with the WTC project. In the 1990s, the Flemish government clustered its offices on Albert II-laan, hoping to finally revive the Noordwijk district. Those projects did not deliver much quality, so it was once again up to the government to take action. The starting point for the Zin project was a tender in which the Flemish government sought new office space, with an 18-year lease. In preparation for the tender, Befimmo had organised a competition to renovate the WTC I and II complexes. A team comprising Jaspers-Eyers, l’AUC and 51N4E won Befimmo’s competition, which in turn, with the WTC project in its pocket, won the Flemish government’s tender.