‘A Good City has Industry.’ With this somewhat bold statement, Architecture Workroom Brussels (AWB) argued at the International Architecture Biennale Rotterdam (IABR) in 2016 for bringing manufacturing back to the city. In the late 20th century, most productive activities were banished to industrial estates outside the city ring, where they caused no nuisance. However, this move to the periphery proved to be such a space-consuming strategy – resulting in a lot of paving, pollution and unnecessary traffic jams – that around 2010, planners, designers and governments began to argue for bringing these activities back into the city, mixed with housing and other urban functions.

Brussels was a frontrunner in this regard. In 2013, the zoning plan was expanded to include a new area category, ‘business area in the urban environment’ (OGSO), a compromise to meet the need for both housing and economic activities in the city. But interweaving production activities and other functions is still, and always will be, a balancing act. The productive use often ends up being a single coffee bar, supermarket or bicycle repair shop. In the developer’s revenue model, housing often takes precedence. Only ground floors are given space for other functions, but these remain vacant for a long time, and in reality, often only the underground car park is shared.

‘A Good Industrial Park is City-Like.’ This is not – as yet – the title of a study, exhibition or book. But the reverse movement – making remote industrial estates more urban – with an equally healthy mix or stacking of functions, appears to be no less necessary. However, according to the location criteria of the Regional Spatial Implementation Plan, industrial estates and industrial zones are only intended for research, development, production and logistics. Other, more urban functions that could bring some life to these soulless zones, such as a crèche, café or local shop, are only tolerated here.

Nevertheless, it is well worth the effort to turn these often remote sites with outdated infrastructure, green spaces in poor condition and unnecessary paving into a new piece of – ecological – city. This is what they are now doing, for example, with Hi! Site in Grimbergen on the old grounds of the Douwe Egberts factory and on the Van Marcke site in Kortrijk. The spontaneous encounters between the various creative and cultural manufacturing companies are proving to be absolutely inspiring and crucial for an innovative, future working environment.

‘How do working and living relate to each other? Does mixing living and working always make sense? When does it, and when doesn’t it? Is mixing a utopia, a fixation or reality?’ In its publication Anders Werken aan Wonen (Working Differently on Living), which appeared at the end of March, Endeavour (endeavours.eu) examines the transformation of industrial areas into mixed living and working environments. Because living and working have completely different market logics and project developers are gradually failing to meet the proposed integration with manufacturing industry, even stricter vigilance will be required in the future to ensure sufficient space for productivity, both inside and outside the city. After all, a circular economy needs sufficient and affordable space to collect, process and redistribute goods. Endeavour therefore does not consider organising housing in production zones to be a good idea. “But we can combine housing and productivity in densification projects in the city on the one hand, and production and recreation in production zones outside the densified city on the other,” explains Brussels Chief Architect Kristiaan Borret. ‘However, these are images with which we are not yet entirely familiar. We need to come up with new images that fit this mix.’ The first building blocks of this new design task have now been laid. You can discover them on the following pages.