Lennik

Project: Lennik
Architect: Pierre Blondel Architectes

Momentary association

Arcadis

Programme

The Lennik project is part of an assertive urban and social ambition, finely articulating the issues of housing, community facilities and urban continuity. Spread over two plots between the Route de Lennik and a residential complex in the inner part of the block, it combines compactness and openness, density and porosity. A public passageway reorganizes pedestrian continuity, linking the project to the 200 housing units in the background, while restoring urban legibility to the Route de Lennik.

The project calls for the construction of 18 passive housing units, with cross-planning typologies that promote sunlight and natural ventilation. The architectural style of these housing units respects the existing context, taking up the rhythms and templates of the surrounding fabric and its materiality, while asserting a contemporary identity.

The complex is enriched by a social restaurant, designed as a place to meet and exchange ideas, where social diversity and dynamics take shape through architecture. Its ground-floor location, in direct relation to the public space, favors a fluid transition between interior and exterior.

A nursery for 49 children completes the program, responding to the growing need for childcare in Brussels. Its layout around an interior garden contributes to the definition of a calm and luminous development environment.

About: Rooted in the dense fabric of Anderlecht, the Lennik project is located at 237-243 and 248-256 route de Lennik, an area marked by urban ruptures and residential pockets with few to no connections to each other.
The project's ambition goes far beyond the simple addition of housing and facilities: it's an urban intervention that redefines the living environment by reconciling the different scales of habitat and use. The creation of a structuring public space activates the first floors, clarifies the urban grid and affirms the neighborhood's identity.
The project is based on a sober, clear architectural approach, in which materiality and massing play a key role in the continuity of the urban landscape. Sloping roofs and visual gaps ensure a harmonious dialogue with the existing buildings. Vegetation and built-up gaps accompany the transitions between communal and private spaces.