Architecture, the use of materials, and the urban context all play an important role in the commercial centres of Belgian cities. Interventions on all manner of scales have an impact on the shopping experience, and therefore on sales figures. Bart Lens, together with Studio lens̊ass architects, won the competition to design the canopy over Nieuwstraat. Here, he explains how he approached this controversial project and why he did not want to turn a street into a shopping centre.

Lisa De Visscher – As early as 1997, Kristiaan Borret wrote: ‘Brussels’ Nieuwstraat is a shopping centre, with the classic structure of a dumbbell: at both ends of a walkway there is a large, well-known department store, the anchor. The ultimate dream of the shopping centre developer is for shoppers to wander endlessly back and forth between the two magnetic endpoints, visiting all the smaller shops in between along the way. (…) The only thing this shopping centre lacks to be complete is a glass roof.’ Meanwhile, this ultimate developer’s dream has almost been realised. You won the competition for the canopy over Nieuwstraat. What project did you propose?