FEDERICA SOFIA ZAMBELETTI / KOOZThank you all for joining us today; would you kindly introduce yourselves and the roles you play?

AN FONTEYNEMy name is An Fonteyne. I am an architect and partner at noAarchitecten in Brussels; I am also professor of Affective Architectures at ETH Zurich.

VALÉRIE VERMANDELI'm Valérie Vermandel; I'm a partner and Managing Director of Whitewood Belgium. I was an architect, but not anymore. I worked at a company called Origin, which specialised in monuments and historic sites for a few years, and then I went to the dark side… Whitewood is actually a fund and investment management company in the first instance, and it has development branches as well as a commercial branch, a property management branch, and an asset branch. So we were a bit of a one-stop shop for international and institutional funds to invest in real estate in Belgium.

KOOZSuper interesting, thank you. Next, we have Ruth —

RUTH SCHAGEMANNYes, my name is Ruth Schagemann. Currently, I'm the managing director of the Federal Chamber of German Architects. I'm an architect myself, but I don't create architecture anymore; I studied it, and founded an office together with my husband many years ago. In my case, I shifted to the capacity of policy making. I had the privilege of serving as President for the Architects’ Council of Europe, and I see my role within the intersection between policy, practice and advocacy, bridging these different elements. So I've been working on these topics at a European level in former times, and on a federal level; now I’m working on the European level again. What I’m really inspired by is the knowledge that we can make a difference. I did not believe in that at the beginning, but now I know that we can change things.

KOOZI hope we'll talk about the different levels of action later on, but let’s hear from Josiane —

JOSIANE SCHMIDTI'm Josiane Schmidt, and actually I just spent the last two days with Ruth, in the European Parliament; we sat next to each other over the last couple of days in Brussels. Now I'm back in Zurich, where I am an architect; I would call myself an architect, though I haven't actually built anything as of yet. I teach at ETH Zurich with Olaf Grawert and Arno Brandlhuber at station.plus, the Chair of Architecture and Storytelling, and I also do some research with An Fonteyne at the Chair of Affective Architectures. I'm very interested in the storytelling, narrative aspect of architecture and how it can influence frameworks that either allow us to build certain things or not.

Together with my colleagues Olaf and Arno, we have organised the Holcim Foundation Fellowship as academic leads, which was generously funded by the Holcim Foundation for Sustainable Construction. Back in September we completed a two-week summer school in Brussels together with An, Valérie, Ruth and many others. What we really tried to address — both during the Fellowship and in HouseEurope!, a non-profit policy lab co-initiated by station+ — is how we can make transformation the new norm in architecture, shifting away from demolition and reconstruction. So I'm an architect thinking about how we can make architecture differently, though I’m not really putting bricks together at the moment.

KOOZAs all of you work around adaptive reuse, I’d like to hear your thoughts as to whether such practices have been effective in transforming practice, or policy or changing the nature of investments, and your take on exactly what enables these projects to happen. An, let’s start with you as an architect who's still building buildings —

AFFor me, it's a bit of a strange question because we have been doing this for so long now. I fully understand and support the idea of HouseEurope! — it's just that suddenly, adaptive reuse seems to be discussed as something very novel and urgent, while in our practice, it has been the default. When we started, 25 years ago, his approach wasn't something we were necessarily looking for. At that time very few Belgian municipalities or cities launched competitions or open calls, but there was one such call for the town hall in Kortrijk. The city of Kortrijk had bought a bank headquarters located next to their historic town hall, but they had paid so much to acquire this building that there was hardly any budget left to make fundamental changes to it. As young architects we saw it as an opportunity to make a project of our own. Although in education there was no attention for designing with existing buildings (restoration was treated as an expertise outside design), we had been working at international practices that did pay attention to reuse. It made us feel quite relaxed about minimum interventions, or better: about an attitude of minimum effort with maximum effect. Indeed, the project made it to the Flemish architecture yearbook, which was a big surprise!

Through that project, we rolled into many others — in both listed and non-listed buildings — to transform them not only architecturally, but very often in their use, too. What enables it is simply the fact that these buildings are already there. Very often they've been built with techniques or an abundance of space that today, with new buildings, is no longer feasible. It's not even thinkable. In the building in Kortrijk, all the concrete was executed in situ with a wooden formwork; it was a very rich and beautiful structure, with lots of handcraft. In that sense, for me, the approach is so evident: because the buildings are there, you look at what their potential is. I always find existing buildings very stimulating in rethinking how we work or live together, because they’re often not designed for the purpose that we eventually intend.

In 2008, we entered a competition and then won a project for the transformation of an old prison, for the University of Hasselt. It was a 19th century star-shaped walled prison in the centre of the city. Of course the University — our client — did not want to be related with a prison at all. This is a small scale, low-threshold University; they almost begged the architects in the competition to demolish the building, as it was not listed. But it was the smoothest design process we've ever had in the office; it was as if this prison was begging to become a university campus. Even typologies that have been so strongly designed — as the shape of these prisons — even these buildings have the volatility to become something else. For me, this project made clear that any building can become anything, and that there's nothing more beautiful than rereading space as material, building situations into a neighbourhood… We’ve talked a lot about storytelling, but to give space another narrative through transformation — it such a wonderful way of practicing architecture.

KOOZAn; you've been working like this for the past 25 years, yet this approach is clearly not evident for everyone. Why has adaptive reuse not become the norm already? How come we still demolish and rebuild when, as you say, certain typologies are just begging to have a second life?

AFLooking at the situation in Switzerland, gives me the impression that there is too much money. Working with something existing is seen as being of an inferior quality compared to the new; new is always better. If we have to save the world and address climate change, let's start with something new, using the latest technologies and new materials we can produce. A colleague recently ended their lecture with the hope that the demolition of an existing swimming pool in Zurich would be permitted, in order to — with all the sustainable techniques embedded in the proposal for a new swimming pool, double the size of the old one — make probably one of the biggest, most ambitious and expensive swimming pools in Switzerland. This contradiction is something that I fundamentally struggle with: a call for sustainability ending with hope for the demolition of a beautiful swimming pool, which incidentally is only fifty years old. This narrative is not something that I can bring together, and yet it is very much alive now, whether it's about using rammed earth or recycled concrete.

These arguments seem to give us the comfort that we can just continue as we used to, because now we will all do it properly. I find this belief in the idea that “new is better” to be a huge mistake. It is the desire of architects and clients to build; our school is an example where there is prestige involved with new buildings. The notion that working with an existing building can be prestigious, acting as a role model for the future: this is something that still has to land in the minds of many people in charge of construction. That needs to change: that’s why we need to make reuse attractive and position it as the innovation of the moment, with the hope that then people will be seduced to invest money in it, putting their logos and names on it at the same time.

Sometimes which discourages people — maybe more for those involved in construction — is the risk involved with working with existing buildings. Of course, we come across a lot of dilemmas involving things that have been built in the past — whether it's structures or window frames; if you want to keep them, it requires a bit of research and experimentation in how to do that. It often also requires us to question current norms and regulations around comfort and heritage, which is very often where contradictions arise. Very often, there are strong correlations between new products and new regulations related to comfort; if I develop a product that performs very well on a thermal level, then I might well convince everyone that policy should be changed to ensure that regulations require precisely this thermal level.

We try to see what the building offers, and how we can respond to its performance; we look for ways in which programme, performance and comfort can work together. However, architects are often obliged to give ten-year guarantees on everything they do — which can be risky at some points, and that's where the contractors step in. I'm thinking of the KANAL Centre Pompidou in Brussels that we're working on, which is a very large project: it’s a former factory of 45,000 square metres that will become a new art and architecture museum, housing fragile artworks. The embedded contradiction between these purposes brings a lot of tension to the table. Although all tender documents are clear on which elements need to be reused, the contractor is still interested in proposing ‘better’ options with replacing as much as possible. They are used to look at strategies to get rid of as much of the existing material as possible and replace it with new products— which seems more efficient in terms of attestation, guarantees, time and labour. Starting on complex projects together, with shared goals and common interests, would make a great difference.

KOOZBesides regulations, you also mentioned the economic aspect. I'm really interested to get Valerie and Ruth’s perspective on both those factors.

VVOur first acquisition in Brussels was made in 2015 — just ten years ago. Compared to a lot of giants on the market, we're rather new. As I said in the beginning, Whitewood is primarily about investment and fund management. This means that we have a portfolio of buildings; we don't acquire land. That's one thing. So we acquire buildings, and within the buildings that we have, there are four stages in which they can be categorised. Pre renovation, the question is how to manage a building that will have to work for the coming years, and how to adapt as comfortably as possible for my tenants before renovation?

We generally encounter two types of renovation. Firstly, there’s what we call the energetic renovation, often applied to recent buildings. It’s like nearly new cars; these are nearly new buildings, completed between 2005 to 2010, coming up on the market but not good enough to be commercially viable — again, this is a unique problem of the North of Brussels, where you can acquire buildings but they’re still too good to redevelop fully. So what do you do with this early 2000s architecture? We have a really specific team doing what we call energetic renovation. This looks at how to improve the energy performance without touching anything of the facade, or even keeping most of the interiors. For example, the Engie Towers in Brussels: this is a construction project that almost no one knows about. Soon they will, because the second phase will begin — but here’s a project that cost about 80 million euros without anyone having seen it. The facade is kept, the structure is kept — this is one type of invisible, energetic renovation.

Then you have the real renovation projects. When we acquire buildings, what is really important for us, as investors, is risk. If we decide to renovate and transform the building, we're going to analyse what we call the ‘situation zero’. If you acquire empty land, you can send in the architect; the analysis says it's possible, you have a blank canvas here. Before acquiring a building for transformation, we analyse things like the urban and legal possibilities that we have on that site. What’s the state of the concrete? What is the average floor-to-ceiling height? What are the fire safety regulations? If they’re not safe enough, how are you going to treat them to get them to a certain stage?

We're currently launching the IT tower on the Avenue Louise, due for completion in 2030. Sometimes there is a discrepancy between what your client wants for the future of the project, and how you're going to handle the building. Certainly one of the problems revolves around ventilation in historic buildings. Or, for instance, my client might request an EPBA, because regulation suggests that you need to have an EPBA. But that's very complicated on historic towers, because of their compact footprint and the limited number of solar panels one can place on them.

With the OXY project, we did a lot in terms of embodied carbon on the level of operation, and we just about reached an A. It’s not a new building that runs below 30 kilowatt hours and has a Super A+++ rating: this is often not possible. But if you have a client that wants to tick their checkbox, who wants to reach a very low rate consumption and full water recuperation, often some of these buildings cannot respond. The type of transformation and the way we look at buildings is very different when we acquire them and know that they will be transformed.

The fourth stage for buildings acquired by Whitewood is post-construction, and it has to do with how we deal with the building by improving its use through time. Fundamentally, we're going to continue to do adaptive reuse, partly due to the limitation of risk when it comes to permits from the administration, plus the positive ESG [Environmental, Social and Governance] impact it can have. Also, we only work in city centres, which means that often the buildings have no historic value. For example, OXY was considered a scar in the city at the time. So how do you deal with that? What is the value of a building that is located in a UNESCO area, even if it’s not classified?

We want to look at the value of the building before we touch it — even if it's not classified as a monument — and see what is important to keep. Then, indeed, planning is good; storytelling around the history of the asset is something we try to put in place, and never to underestimate the impact on the neighbourhood. For instance, if you had demolished the OXY building, that would amount to 16% of the total demolition waste of Brussels. Considering the added costs of the trucks and the impact on the neighbourhood, it means that again by doing adaptive reuse, you can also lower your risk when it comes to permits.

KOOZWhat is that legislation, and how does that work? I think things like permits and regulations vary quite a lot from place to place, so could you expand on that condition in Brussels?

VVWell, Brussels does not have a lot of laws, though it has a lot of vision statements. Officially — and this is slightly crazy — there is nothing about embodied carbon in our law. There are very few case studies; for instance, we need to do a much bigger project on the issue of waste management. However, there are different visions written by the city — for instance, for the European Quarter — in which the city indicates the direction that it wants to head towards. As it is too complicated to pass a law, they produce vision statements. But they sometimes use these vision statements as if it was already law. So if you want your permit to pass quickly, it's better to colour within the line of the vision that is defined. It's Belgium.

What is notable is that when we put forward our permit requests for our first building in 2016 — which was MULTI, an office tower in Brussels — we actually had to explain why we wanted to keep the structure. It was the opposite concern. There is really a shift that has happened in Brussels between 2015 and 2025: once, we had to explain why we wanted to keep the existing building, whereas now when you apply for a permit — even to demolish even a few floors or a part of a building — you have to explain why. So the mentality within the administration has really changed, even if it has not yet translated into law.

That's sometimes the weakness of the system, because as an owner if you're willing to keep the structure, that's fine. But if you're not willing to do so, you can always argue why you want to demolish or ignore certain factors — like embodied carbon, because it is not yet in legislation. People play on that, and that's often the power that we have as investors: how much do we want to defend the idea of keeping a structure?

AF I think it's really interesting to learn about a vision; there’s also a lot more communication around the overall vision, while decisions are made for each case. There is no longer that person in the administration that just follows whatever is written in black and white, to the letter. At least within our administration, I think everyone is trying to work together to make better decisions and to look at things case by case. In Brussels, we have to say the whole tool of BMA and the Bouwmeester has contributed enormously. You can see their reflections in the book Soft Power (König Books, 2014), which also goes in that direction — ‘Embracing Complexity’ is one of the chapter titles. That is really interesting: to see the potential of complex situations and take the time to unpack them, rather than avoiding them and thinking in the same direction.

RS And makes a very interesting point. I can directly relate to the fact that in the architecture offices, adaptive reuse and sustainability has been addressed for a long time, indeed it’s nothing new. But from a perspective of legislation, it is new. I’ll take the particular example of the Energy Performance Building Directive. Until 2019, the EPBD only addressed energy efficiency; within this, one aspect of concern was smart buildings — high technology in buildings, plus energy performance, that was the path. In 2019, alongside initiatives like the Green New Deal and the New European Bauhaus, the narrative really changed on the part of policymakers in Europe. Consequently the EPBD had to be revised, also because of the Renovation Wave; suddenly the topic had shifted, and what architecture offices have always tried to do became a narrative on the level of policymaking.

Obviously, the political environment always has an impact on legislation and the EPBD initiative started super strong; at the end of four years, it became a bit watered down. There are great examples of projects, but at the level of legislature — especially on the European level — it's always a bit behind, maybe five to ten years behind activities at the national, regional and local level. Nevertheless, I must say (happily) that the embodied carbon remains in the Energy Building Performance directive. That's really a big challenge, because now life cycle assessment is part of European legislation. From the experience I have on the ground, change is already happening. What we really have to consider now is that obviously, the political realm has changed, and that has implications for our future.

If you listen to what Ursula von der Leyen stated in her last State of the Union speech, she really emphasises security, defense, productivity and competitiveness. Here, we must be really careful that our aims, the impact and the momentum that was created in 2019, are not lost — meaning that we have to highlight those concerns. Speaking about defense and security, we might wonder what architecture or urban planning have to do with it. I would say that it's really fundamental, because we are really talking about energy independence; we are talking about resource efficiency in terms of space. This is a cornerstone, in my opinion, for European competitiveness in the face of other markets. This is something that we really ought to keep in mind. Another concern that von der Leyen highlighted in her speech is housing. For her, housing and public procurement are hot topics and she connects, especially also the housing with the New European Bauhaus. We should not forget these values. Formerly, Ruth Reichstein was a very public advocate for it, but housing is enshrined in the different European discussions, and we have to keep pulling it up. It really is something we have to bring forward.

In terms of what enables change, I would say it is political priorities. The Green New Deal, the Renovation Wave, Circular Economy Action Plans, the New European Bauhaus — these initiatives really enabled the discussion and the changes on European level. Another enabler, and one that we don’t often mention is cultural heritage policies — not only looking at the monuments, but rather at the culture values that are enshrined in our daily lives, in everyday places: buildings, cities, towns, villages. If we are talking about transformation, these buildings — with cultural values that are not classified as protected — are at risk. This is where we really lose our European identity, because such places form part of our identity. Another topic that I consider really important is the funding instruments, connected to quality parameters — not only on European level, but also on national level, and then on local levels.

Where do I see obstacles? This was also alluded to by Valérie and An: the regulatory rigidity is prohibitive, so building codes and fire safety requirements should be rethought. In Germany, we have the Gebäudeklasse E where we’re really trying to declutter building codes. So it’s really nice to hear that in Brussels, you have these vision statements. Maybe these visions are not so precise, so that everyone has to follow a checklist; they can also provide opportunities. But you do have to have something — whether rules or a vision — so that everyone who is participating in the value chain knows which direction to head for. There’s nothing worse than uncertainty, including legal uncertainty for the architects; our projects take a long time, so we consider things like security. I believe that economic models have to change as well. We also briefly mentioned the topic of perception, in that adaptive reuse is still often seen as second best. People want new things. Then too, it's about changing the narrative.

So to bring this together, I really see adaptive reuse succeeding, especially in the European policy framework, but it really still has to be aligned with market incentives, professional creativity and the framework of regulations. That's what we are working on at the moment, and I'm a very optimistic person. As An and also Valérie mentioned, we are all working in the same direction. There are already good examples, and the ‘recipe’ is always different depending on the project — but there are certain recipes that lead to success, and I think we have to showcase these projects more enthusiastically.

We had a discussion yesterday with important partners, who say they have access to good data, but they are lacking good examples in architecture in what is presented at the European Parliament. I believe that is a lost opportunity: if you share research data from the field of architecture and urban planning, you also have to show the outcome and describe how the people involved got there. That's not just the architect; it includes the engineers, the planners, the landscape architects, the builders, developers — it should be one big family working together.

KOOZIt’s about enabling cross-silo dialogue, right? Josiane, can you share what you absorbed during the two weeks of your Fellowship. Especially in the terms that Ruth described so eloquently — between the national, regional and local scales — where does the biggest opportunity lie, in your opinion?

JS Thank you; maybe this goes back to the question that An raised at the beginning. In Brussels, they have done adaptive reuse and transformation for years; it's a bit weird that people come and talk about it now. But it was one of the reasons that station.plus at ETHZ really wanted to run this Fellowship together with the Holcim Foundation for Sustainable Construction in Brussels itself — because here, built arguments are discussed not only at a local level; we have a convergence of all the different levels. In two weeks, we were able to visit architecture offices — from noA to &bodgan to 51N4E — working on different scales of the city in terms of design, to people like Valérie at Whitewood, working on aspects of investment and development, through to Ruth to learn about her advocacy work, as well as European Commission cabinet members like Ruth Reichstein.

So we were in the European Commission on the 13th floor, bringing together everything that the Fellows had seen in the two weeks on a local level to the European level. This is one of the most important things about the location of Brussels: not only does the city have a very particular internal dialogue, it is simultaneously the de facto capital of the European Union. Being in a location intended for shared conversations is a very strong presence, and as with our Fellows we tried to set-up a shared discussion. We held a public event at CIVA, the architecture center, but not only for architects we really brought together a very diverse group of stakeholders — material suppliers, developers, contractors, policy makers and architects — to debate potential incentives for systemic change.

The Fellows could directly bring forward their ideas on how to make adaptive reuse the default option for the people involved. For example, they would propose a form of Fast Track permit, for adaptive reuse to Valérie as a developer, and take the same question to a contractor or another stakeholder. Would such a permit enable or encourage investment for reusing buildings, avoiding the use of new material? In a shared room, we could test and debate these ideas, trying to find ways to move forward by creating systems together.

Another thing that Ruth mentioned: we must take the responsibility of informing the lawmakers of what we need. If we don't tell them, we can’t complain. In that sense, it's really important to get on the same page; on the other hand, we can demonstrate and show the built arguments that exist already.

RS Another idea would be to try to get what’s called a “walk and talk” — to invite politicians, MEPs, or members of the Commission directly inside the projects, as built arguments. This would get them out of their offices, touring urban development quarters to see the architecture; they could speak with participating developers and also to residents or those who use the area. These people are often stuck behind piles of paper and regulations; the 13th floor might be a nice place but mostly it’s not much fun. Perhaps in this group, we could think about how to arrange that; I’m sure that some members would be glad to know more about what's happening around them.

JS Actually: in a few weeks, as part of the project ‘21 buildings’ — enacted between my practice, noAarchitecten and the theatre maker Thomas Bellinck, and supported by An’s chair at ETH Zurich and the Flemish Arts Decree — we will actually run our first public walking tour with people from the European Commission, to talk about the transformation of the European quarter in Brussels. We got a great response to our invitation; everyone responded saying yes, we never get out.

RS Exactly. Farmers do it; they take the politicians to their farms, and introduce them to the cows, they show their barns, and then share their problems. Please let me know when you do it, I’d be very happy to be part of it.

KOOZ That raises an interesting point around where these discussions happen. What is the benefit of discussing the future of buildings in an office, or on paper, or on a spreadsheet? So often, we're asked to quantify, but the moment that you're on site, you can speak to the community. Moving forward — and maybe this is something for the network of HouseEurope! — it could be about developing these moments of physical exchange around the city, bringing in the various partners and stakeholders around.

VV As an investor, I think it's very interesting that you’re running things like the tour. Our point of contact does not include the people who debate these subjects; it’s the OIB (Office for Infrastructure and Logistics in Brussels) which is actually the company that acquires and transforms buildings for the European Commission itself. I think they’re evolving too, but not to the point that we’re discussing right now. What I mean to say is that yes, there is the New European Bauhaus and global ideas, but there is still the very strict bureaucratic framework of the OIB — we speak about the number of millimeters of the carpet. If I have a new, fully reusable carpet, but it differs to the standard by a fraction of a millimeter, that carpet is out — and they change these standards all the time.

We did one building for the European Commission in which we were able to retain the walls, which was quite amazing. Working on a second building with the same type of wall, we were not allowed to reuse them because now the framework has changed: walls within the permitted structure must have a slightly higher acoustic performance, by three or four dB. Here, questions arise between the policy making and how it comes down to the people who actually have to apply them.

JS Indeed, OIB is one of the main departments of the European Commission we invited to this tour. We've been working on ‘21buildings’ for almost two years now: it's been a long run, but we’ve had much the same interactions and discussions. Somehow this way of thinking is not in their conception, they seem to manage buildings the same way as an office might manage printers. What we came to understand, of course, is that it's just people: people you can speak to, who have a past and they have a future. Now there are people from the New European Bauhaus and from policy joining the OIB. People are changing, so that in the end it's very interesting to see what you can get from a simple conversation.

AF I relate to this so much in terms of the school where I teach, where it also occurred to me some years ago that all the discussions that take place at our Department of Architecture were not shared with ETH Real Estate — which runs a portfolio of 5 billion Swiss francs, and cares for more than 200 university buildings. There was hardly any correlation between the development of their vision and the current urgent discussions in architecture and urban planning, and I hear this is the case at other universities as well. Two years ago, our chair reached out to ETH Real Estate and we’ve since collaborated in looking at potential futures for many of the buildings, which has been very interesting, also for us, in understanding the complexity of running such a huge number of buildings.

I recognise there's an openness and an interest in adaptive reuse — but when it comes to decision-making, the setting up of competition briefs and so on, the system is still very much rooted in another way of thinking. For example, making a master plan has since the beginning been a strong guiding tool at ETH; the last master plan was made in 2016 — called Master Plan 2040 — and though the world has fundamentally changed since 2016, Master Plan 2040 is still leading. So if that master plan says we will build four new towers for the estimated growth of staff and students, we will most likely build four new towers — this seems still attractive.

I mentioned prestige and representation; everyone is very happy to invest money and time, as long as we don't fundamentally question the way forward. As we are talking about places with a lot of power, changing the attitude there would have a huge impact, as they are perceived as pilot institutions. There's a big opportunity there, but radical change on this scale is very difficult to install.

RS I think it's also about considering default; it should be possible. We make mistakes, and one also makes mistakes in planning. We had a long period where we were educated that the city has to be fit for cars, or that living and working zones should be divided. Obviously those approaches no longer work — but at that time, it was the belief; the people who developed it really believed in this vision. Times change, and that doesn't mean that we neglect everything that they thought. Today we might say that we should do things differently; the next generation will judge what we are doing today and say, Oh, they had great ideas, but some were not so good. We should be able to speak about the things that didn't go well, because it's part of the process; it's not to be judged. It's really more valuable to learn from it; to say if you do a project of this kind, please don't do A-B-C, because it did not work out. We believed in it, but it didn't work. That's also something that we should read; in the tech world, they say, “I fucked up today.” It can happen, yeah.

VV To follow up, that's a point that we try to introduce within our portfolio. We cannot reinvent the whole world with one project, but we give a set of guidelines to every project manager, for every project: we want to see three innovations, and you're allowed to fail. For example, it could be the reuse of toilets; currently, one of projects is considering the use of a certain type of straw as insulation material. Whatever it is, you can test it, see if it works — but if it does not work, tell the team why it did not work and how we can learn from it for the next project. From a risk perspective, it’s not something we can do for every material, but we try to have three innovations per building, as a minimum. If we can produce and have time for more innovation, that’s even better but indeed, communication between us and between other developers and architects, is really crucial — even about the failures.

KOOZ Before we wrap up, can we talk about the ways in which architects can participate in the project value chain — such as taking an equity stake or a share of project value — instead of acting purely as service providers? How might practitioners and designers be incentivised to carry out assessments, calculations, and investigations that are often overlooked or unrewarded under traditional fee structures? What opportunities can arise by thinking of the discipline in this manner?

RS I find this very interesting. On a European level, the service provider is a legal definition in the Service Provision Directive, and it is also part of the Public Procurement Directive. This is something that we have to change, because the architect — or the spatial planner, or urban designer — is not only a service provider; we create value. This is also a shift in terms of appraising the work that we do. The revision of the Public Procurement Directive is of utmost importance, as we are trying to implement a means for intellectual services to be valued differently. Our work differs from, for instance, the procurement of tables and chairs; it's really about creating value for society. I really wanted to mention this; it’s important to keep in mind, and it's connected to the quality created in our cities as well as in rural areas — it goes across society.

VV It's not only to do with regulatory frameworks; it's also in the way that we contract work with architects. I have reflected a lot on this since working with the Holcim Foundation; indeed, the way we compose teams for the moment — where the architects join a larger team with sustainability advisors — is where we see what we can do when it comes to sustainability and adaptive reuse. An is one of the front-runners in thinking about adaptive reuse, but we're also working with architects that might not have a similar convention or set of principles as yet — so having a method to also incentivise on that level during contracting would be really interesting. So it’s not only making a budget and planning what parts of a building should be kept — but also what could incentivise architects to promote certain transformations. We already do something similar with contractors, with a bonus value if they are on time and on point with quality; it needs more thought but a parallel system could be considered in order to optimise the way architects are involved in projects, for sure.

AF It’s also about education, for the next generation. When I studied architecture — of course, some time ago — working on existing buildings was not on the agenda either, unless you specialised in heritage protection and restoration. It was not considered architecture: that was really a service, deploying historical knowledge and conservation techniques — while all the rest had to be new, original and groundbreaking. Since then, a lot has changed, and I'm really very hopeful — looking at our students, but also students across Europe — that they come with a fundamentally different position.

Something that caught my attention, Valerie, was something you said about taking risks. So I find it really interesting that when it comes to keeping buildings or selling buildings — for example, in the European Quarter of Brussels — this comes at a certain cost that precludes or even predetermines future users, largely because of economic risk.

I would have thought — perhaps naively — that working with existing buildings, as they are already there, should be desirable in some senses, whether on aesthetic or energetic grounds. Also, such buildings could be ready to use sooner, and so allow more precarious groups of people to also move in. Of course, renovating to the highest standards everywhere at high costs, taking economic and other risks during the construction process suddenly makes the renovation of a building something that comes with exclusivity.

Speaking of risk, in terms of representation; companies now use historic renovation projects as their high-end offers; a lot of terms come out of it, like “industrial chic”. The agenda driving sustainability forward — in social, cultural and economic and energetic terms — leads to pushing people out. It's the opposite of bringing people in. The European quarter would be fundamental for a change on urban level. That's something we cannot discuss right now, but in long term, it may be worth it.

KOOZ Taking 2050 as a timeframe and objective, what steps would need to happen, both at a European level but maybe also national and local level? Which scale offers more opportunities and spaces for action so that adaptive reuse becomes the new norm?

VV With the Cityforward approach, we have the advantage of having, as one of our main investors, the FBM — that is, the federal Belgian state — as well as Brussels Finance, the regional state: they are both substantial stakeholders. This means that we're not only guided by private investments, but also by public money. In that sense, the city-forward approach is very interesting because you can make high-end buildings, and high-end, expensive construction allows us to do a lot of experimentation in terms of material reuse — which we can’t test in more budget project. The fact that we simultaneously deal with developments as a portfolio makes it possible to shuffle and to redirect prices, allowing us to offset land prices, costs and benefits. Let’s say we have a project of 300 units; 25% will be residential, and by residential we mean provided at cost. 25% of this proportion will be provided as affordable housing. So we’re not making any profit on that part; the return comes from the office part of the project. By placing the valuation of the residential development lower, and estimating the valuation of the office area as higher within the portfolio, it made it possible to plan for a 25% residential development.

It is worth noting that legislation always addresses work at a project level — certainly in Brussels. What if we begin to think on an urban level? There are cities where you can enforce air rights. My neighbour may not construct ten additional floors but if I can build 20, I can compensate my neighbour. It seems silly that we don’t reflect more at the scale of urban planning, because I think that would enable a lot — that's the idea of city forward group. thinking about new systems of urban design together with developers, an investor, it can open boundaries. I think that would be amazing.

RS I would like to underline that it's enormously important that we get away from singular buildings and project-scale perspectives, because we will not be able to convince people of the need for systemic change. The role of the cities and communities really are crucial; they can really lead the forward thinking development of their region.

AF That's where large portfolio managers like ETH Real Estate or the EU — and now, the Cityforward project — can prepare the way forward for smaller initiatives that could start thinking on a different level. So after HouseEurope — CityEurope!

KOOZ That's an exciting idea to close out. Thank you to all.

About

The Holcim Foundation Fellowship aims to create unique moments for Masters students and practices in all regions of the world to learn together from recently built projects and to challenge existing modes of practice. This in-person intensive two-week course seeks to foster a curiosity and solutions driven mindset through a series of actions - open dialogue, consultation, exploration, and reflection - and to create a dynamic feedback loop that leads to transferable and scalable outcomes. This Fellowship in Brussels is the fourth Fellowship launched and co-designed by the Holcim Foundation for Sustainable Construction. Specifically this intensive two-week course was hosted by station.plus, the Chair of Architecture and Storytelling at ETH Zurich. Held in Brussels, it gathered 15 Fellows from 15 different European universities with professional backgrounds ranging from architecture, to engineering, to product design and policy making, inviting participants to work together to produce a single proposal on ‘Incentives for Change Towards Adaptive Reuse.’

Bios

An Fonteyne is an architect and Professor of Architectural Design at ETH Zurich. She co-founded noAarchitecten in 2000 with Jitse van den Berg and Philippe Viérin, a practice grounded in dialogue across disciplines and a belief in the future of urban society. With a team of about twenty, the office has built a diverse portfolio of public institutions, housing projects, and transformations of historic buildings, combining sensitivity to architectural heritage with a contemporary understanding of collective life. Fonteyne is also a partner at Atelier Kanal, the collaboration behind the transformation of Brussels’ former Citroën garage into KANAL – Centre Pompidou. An elected member of the Royal Flemish Academy of Belgium for Science and the Arts since 2019, she previously taught at TU Delft and Hasselt University, and lives between Brussels and Zurich.

Ruth Schagemann is an architect and the co-founder of VICEVERSA Architektur + Medien with her husband. She served on the Executive Board of the Architects’ Council of Europe (ACE) from 2016 to 2021 and as Coordinator of the European Network of Architects’ Competent Authorities (ENACA). Schagemann also heads the Department for National and International Professional Policy at the Chamber of Baden-Württemberg and is a member of the Coordination Group Europe of the Federal Chamber of German Architects. Elected President of ACE for 2022–2023, she became Managing Director of the Brussels Office of the Federal Chamber of German Architects (BAK) in 2023. She represents ACE in the Davos Baukultur Alliance Steering Committee and the Committee of Honour of the EUmies Awards. On 23 November 2023, she was unanimously re-elected ACE President for the 2024–2025 term.

Josiane Schmidt studied architecture at TU München, TU Delft, and ETH Zürich, and has collaborated with practices including noAarchitecten in Brussels. She teaches at ETH Zürich through station+, where she hosted the fourth cohort of the Holcim Foundation Fellowship “Designing Incentives for Change” in Brussels in September 2025. Josiane is also active in the non-profit policy lab HouseEurope! and conducts research with the Chair of Affective Architectures at ETH Zürich. In 2025, she co-founded optimist office, a practice dedicated to transformation-focused designs, studies, and workshops across Europe. Advocating for a transformation beyond materiality, the office currently co-leads the research project “21 buildings” under the Flemish Arts Decree, exploring alternative futures for obsolete European Commission buildings in Brussels.

Valérie Vermandel is Chief Development Officer and Partner at Whitewood, leading sustainable building transformations since 2015. An architect by training, she focuses on circular design and ESG-driven development.

Federica Sofia Zambeletti is the founder and managing director of KoozArch. She is an architect, researcher and digital curator whose interests lie at the intersection between art, architecture and regenerative practices. In 2015 Federica founded KoozArch with the ambition of creating a space where to research, explore and discuss architecture beyond the limits of its built form. Parallel to her work at KoozArch, Federica is Architect at the architecture studio UNA and researcher at the non-profit agency for change UNLESS where she is project manager of the research "Antarctic Resolution". Federica is an Architectural Association School of Architecture in London alumni.