The metamorphosis of a former industrial area in Brussels, where three Vertical Forests are the centrepiece of a vision for a greener city. Vincent Callebaut's project.
Tour&Taxis, built between 1902 and 1907, was a customs clearance and goods storage complex in Brussels, the capital of Belgium, and lay abandoned for nearly fifty years. It could now become a new eco-sustainable neighbourhood par excellence. The project, submitted at the end of 2016 and awaiting approval, was conceived by Vincent Callebaut architectures and envisages, alongside the regeneration of the district, the construction of three "vertical forest" buildings, or Vertical forest.
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Architect Vincent Callebaut, born in 1977 and originally from Brussels, has more than fifty green projects to his name around the world. Time Magazine, referring to Callebaut as the best eco-utopian architect in 2011, described his works as "fantastical projects aimed at the world's environmental and social ills". In 2015 he published Paris 2050, his sixth monograph, in which he sets out his vision of sustainability for the French capital and establishes the goal of reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 75 per cent by 2050, in line with the Paris energy-climate plan.
European cities must face the challenge of transforming their architectural heritage so that it aligns with an economic and social transition towards a fossil-fuel-free era. The challenge is therefore to apply the principles of technological progress and sustainable architecture to a former industrial area, integrating renewable energies and limiting carbon dioxide emissions as enshrined in the Paris Agreement.
The project focuses on the metamorphosis of the Art Nouveau-decorated Gare Maritime, one of the largest port stations in Europe, which is currently empty and unused. The idea is to extend the nearby new park and bring it inside this structure, so as to create the ecological campus open to the public known as Biocampus, built in laminated timber to reduce construction emissions and to create within it the microclimate suited to the growth of the exotic and local plant varieties that will be planted there. It will serve to promote innovation and cross-disciplinary thinking — qualities that are indispensable for transforming it into a coworking space whose characteristics will be based on the principle of the three Rs: reduce, reuse and recycle. The project also includes a rainwater harvesting system, gardens based on the principles of evapotranspiration, and geothermal stations.
The eco-architect has also conceived a residential area that produces energy using solar panels installed on the rooftops, made up of three "vertical forests" — architectural complexes whose distinguishing feature will be the presence of private vegetable gardens, shared orchards and plant-filled balconies covering the structures. This vertical village will also aim to reintegrate the concept of a pedestrian city focused on non-motorised transport, challenging the "car-centric" culture that typified twentieth-century urban design. As Callebaut puts it, metamorphosis does not mean uprooting the past but rather integrating the best of the past into our future. The architect's task is therefore to give shape to a hybrid story.