WET89 is located on the Rue de la Loi, Brussels’ busiest boulevard, in the heart of the European Quarter. The site is situated in between Brussels’ two most important public parks: the Cinquantenaire and the Royal Park. Currently the boulevard is a high speed canyon for cars, formed by mute office facades, gutted of any kind of street life or representation. WET89 aims at a double impact: offering high end office space for the CD&V headquarters combined with a new public facility: a unique ground floor café-restaurant.

We believe that political headquarters, such as CD&V, hold a responsibility activating their European context and neighborhood. This is why we proposed to inject a seemingly foreign public facility into the office program. The café as a high-quality independent entity injected in the context could be the very first step to revive and re-empower this CBD, also at street level.

• Location

  Brussels, Belgium

• Client

  Unitas vzw

• Design

  2005

• Completion

  2008

• 51N4E project team

  Johan Anrys, Freek Persyn, Peter Swinnen, Tine Cooreman, Joram Van den Brande, Joost Körver, Sotiria Kornaropoulou, Karol Wawrzyniak, Jan Das, Bob De Wispelaere

• 51N4E involvement

  Full process

• Consultant

  MDA Consult

• Structural engineer

  Babel Ingenieurscollectief

• Technical engineer

  Studiebureau Boydens

• Acoustics

  Daidalos-Peutz

• Artist

  Paul Casaer (sculptures)

• Safety management

  IVW-Consult

• Construction costs

  € 2.900.000

• Programme

  café & renovation headquarters

• Site surface

  840 m²

• Built surface

  2,390 m²

• Photography

  Stijn Bollaert