The Brussels Market: “Monument for an Open Society”

expanding design practices, Middle Density, ORG Permanent Modernity, Politics and economics, Project

Active Building, Belgium, Brussels, Community Facilities, Concrete blocks, Contemporary society, Developing policies, Empowering society, Experimental buildings, Food production, Functionality, Housing market, malleability, Market, Marketplace, Mixed-use buildings, Monument, Multifunctional building, Multifunctional space, Network society, Open systems, Political & Economic Approach, Project, Semi-prefab concrete slabs, Social culture, Society, Space-time relationship, Timeless Model, Urban culture, Urban food accessibility

The Brussels Market is located in an immigrant neighborhood, less than 2.5km (1.5mi) from Brussels Central train station. The project (226,000 sq ft) includes industrial meat production facilities, various market stall types, logistics and parking spaces, and a large commercial roof farm (43,000 sq ft) with related retail programs including a farm-to-table restaurant. The market building, opened in June 2015, is the first architectural step towards implementing the Meat Market District plan, which outlines the gradual conversion of an industrial slaughterhouse into a mixed-urban environment. A full-scale mock-up of the project’s wall system (‘platonic panels’), as well as a scale model of the district master plan was featured as part of the Main Pavilion exhibition at the Venice Biennale (2016), expressing the project’s contribution as a “Monument for an Open Society.”