The Brussels Northern Quarter is the product of two generations of government-guaranteed property speculation in the 1970s and 1990s (see A+295). Today, several important tenants have reached the end of their contracts and the vacancy rate is peaking. In the absence of any long-term vision for the area, eight major real estate owners founded Up4North in 2016 already, with the aim of forcing a transformation of the area through a co-creation process with local actors. In the meantime, the government of the Brussels-Capital Region sold its share in the central CCN building (a major transit hub next to the Brussels North Station), thus carelessly giving away a key element in the area’s regeneration. As a result, the Brussels Government Architect (BMA) had to work hard to safeguard the urban qualities precisely of the future project, leading to one more a posteriori compromise between private and public interests.

By contrast, the transformation of the former neighbouring WTC Towers showed that the BMA can play a more productive role (see A+295). Although initially tasked with advising public clients, the BMA assisted the private developer in his search for an architect able to transform the planned monofunctional office tower into a multifunctional complex by means of an open competition. In the meantime, one tower was leased by Lab North (a partnership between Up4North and a number of local cultural actors) to a wide range of tenants from the creative and educational sectors, thus attracting a critical mass that helped to draw attention to the problems and the potential of the area – a combination of thinking and doing in situ that led to a lively public debate that planning studies do not normally engender. The BMA played a part in this bottom-up dynamic by organizing, with Perspective (the planning agency of the Brussels-Capital Region) and Lab North, a two-day symposium with foreign experts and a series of workshops with the three municipal administrations involved.