Moving day rue de namur

Brussels’ Planning Authorities have moved into their new headquarters RUE DE NAMUR, making themselves at home. The open see-through ground floor is already colonized by diverse activities and models galore … exhibitions, meeting areas, coffee-corners and picnic-tables creating a steady flow of animation. All of that is visible to passer-by’s … transforming what was once a dark, dreary, opaque inside into an engaging light-filled extension of outside street-space. Upstairs offices are organized in both open-plan and partitioned mode, designed in order to highlight the existing building’s best features such as generous floor to ceiling heights and fluid space. Techniques are concentrated in a made-to-measure ceiling fixture slipped carefully between the original and particularly esthetic concrete structure, hooked up to apparent circuits in corridors. Finally, timber facades add a touch of warmth to the ensemble, punctuated by intimate bow-windows echoing the Rue de Namur’s neo-classical past.