The City of Brussels on a site visit at ZIN

The Mayor’s and the Alderwoman’s visit was not entirely coincidental. Indeed, ZIN’s crucial ambition is to ‘make the city’. In doing so, the project will be fully integrated into the existing urban ecosystem, with a window opening onto the city. The ground floor, for example, will become a ‘transparent’ attraction in the North Quarter with a large public conservatory as a meeting place. The unified, mixed-use building also ingeniously houses various functions: flats (to the east), offices (in the middle with offshoots in the towers), and a hotel (to the west). Through this mix of functions, there will always be plenty of life in the building, seven days a week, with different users at different times.

With the Befimmo’s ZIN project, we are seeking for mixed-use of the building, bringing the neighbourhood to life 7 days a week. That’s an important component to revitalise the North Quarter. – Mayor P. Close

Currently, the ZIN project is in the (re)construction phase, where both towers are being redeveloped and connected with a new, central volume. To achieve this, ZIN relies on using materials from the old buildings. On the one hand, by preserving the cores and underground floors and putting the circular philosophy into practice on a large scale. In addition, ZIN is setting the bar high in terms of sustainability in its future building by implementing innovative techniques concerning water (re)use, geothermal energy, cold heat pumps, etc. The building itself has been designed in such a way as to be adaptable to changing future needs. The basic structure will always remain the same. Other components are easily dismantled to adapt the interior spaces to future functionalities.