Reuse is the clash between programme and space, which always conflicts, never fits. Ceilings turn out to be too high or too low, the façades unusable, the windows are in the wrong place and the access doesn’t work. Reuse is microsurgery on a large scale, in which, paradoxically, an excess of volume brings with it the greatest complexity. For what do you do, in terms of energy, programme and space, with emptiness and excess? Three firms share their experiences of projects in their development phase. 

Baumans-Deffet architectes seem to have made XXL-scale regeneration projects their trademark. Together with Agence Ter, they drew up a masterplan for four gigantic sites of the former steel industry around Liège (see pp. 42–46) and last year work also began there on the regeneration of the Finance Tower. In Seraing, work is currently underway on Les Ateliers Centraux, former industrial workshops being repurposed into a car park with a public square and a large covered hall capable of hosting all manner of activities – from a market hall to a sports club. However, thanks to the future Agwa footbridge, which will link the workshops with the Meuse, Ougrée station and the new bus stop, this site is first and foremost a transport hub, a transfer point between car, train, bus and even boat.