A new skyline is taking shape along Bergensesteenweg at the level of the Brussels Ring. NovaCity I is a compact live-work complex with affordable housing on a double-height plinth with workshops and businesses. The regional development authority citydev.brussels awarded the commission to Kairos nv in collaboration with architects &bogdan and DDS+. The combination of housing with a business zone symbolizes the future of the productive city. 

With cladding of greenish sheets of corrugated metal on a concrete structure, NovaCity I sets the tone for an innovative building programme in a post-industrial context. The plinth of the building forms an SME zone with sixteen workshops and five businesses with accompanying rental housing. On the plinth are four residential blocks (A to D) of alternately four and three storeys plus a small six-storey residential tower (block E). Altogether, there are sixty-three residential units. The large span needed for the businesses and workshops determined the dimensions for the residential blocks above, i.e. six by six metres.