Sum Project and B2Ai converted a former tobacco warehouse in Sint-Jans-Molenbeek into a new school building, which has been home to two different secondary schools since 2020. The architects drew on the building’s scale and architectural language, translating these elements into the new programme. The collaboration between the two firms, as well as with the enthusiastic teachers and pupils themselves, led to a successful outcome.

The story of the new secondary school building on the corner of Picardstraat begins with the ‘Green Michel’. This heavy, filterless cigarette originated beneath the tower of the town hall and is named after the patron saint and crowning glory of the city of Brussels. In the 1950s, the company had a tobacco warehouse built near Thurn and Taxis. It was a heavy brick building with small ventilation openings. Centrally, a functionless portico adorned with a bas-relief of Saint Michael and his dragon, and on the corner a distinctive vertical advertisement. The building’s interior was rational and unadorned: a grid of rough-cast columns measuring 7 m x 7 m.