Master Class 120% Brussels

120% Brussels
International Master Class
Mihaela Meslec (RO)
Paolo Oliva (IT)
Proposal 2D
Without falling into the pitfall of
dogmatic reconstruction, this
proposal attempts the paradox of
staying in phase with the urban
system of the surroundings while
at the same time drastically
rethinking it.
Two urban blocks are recreated,
divided by a new local street that
crosses the site, extending the
existing street pattern toward the
canal. The blocks are then composed
using a wide variety of buildings.
What might seem at first glance as a
random collection of unrelated buildings,
reveals its internal com plex ity
when looked at on architectural
scale: the irregular shapes are carefully
positioned in order to create a
coherent form, trying to reinterpret
the local mixed character with
irregular typologies.
The densification of the Brussels
urban block not only goes through
a choice of denser typologies. The
new scale of the block and its components
implies a wider logic for the
urban block as coherent whole.
From opposite corners, the heights
of the buildings are decreasing
and create a spatial tension, giving
meaning to both blocks as intertwined
entities: while the sharp
angle of the small block becomes
a strong high frontage for the project
toward the canal, the larger, almost
square block decreases in height
to allow optimal views toward the
canal from deep within the block to
a maximal amount of dwellings.
These multiple coherent
interventions on the urban entity
of the site automatically shape the
same multiplicity in the situation
of the dwellings. Different relations
between the dwelling and the street,
the dwelling and the courtyard as
well as the dwellings among themselves
allow great diversity in
forms of living to exist within the
same entity.
Two dense urban blocks slowly reveal the
subtle coherence of carefully positioned
irregular shapes.
Density: 271.7 dwellings/ha
Building Height: 4–9 floors
Ground floor: housing/shops