A good city has industry. Working with designers and policy-makers AAD Cities has been at the heart of an effort to retain and densify industry in Belgium and beyond.
Since 2013, AAD Cities research has explored strategies for retention and densification of industrial activities within the fabric of 21st-century European cities. Much of this work has been about industrial areas of Brussels, which has a number of industrial localities threatened by redevelopment for other, higher-value uses, including Buda, Vilvoorde, Molenbeek, Vorst, Laeken, Bordet, and Drodenbos. The work has been a collaboration with public agencies including the Flemish planning authority Departement Omgeving and the Brussels Bouwmeester (chief architect’s office), as well as architects and urban planners like Architecture Workroom and the Atelier Productive Metropolis team, for which Professor Mark Brearley was the Ateliermeester. Our activities in Belgium have included surveying and mapping these areas to reveal the geography of the industrial economy, exposing remarkable diversity. There has also been a process of envisioning future scenarios through research by design involving architects, designers and planners; demonstrating that intensification of industrial areas is achievable.
