51N4E: How To Not Demolish a Building

In this video, the Belgian collective 51N4E (named after the coordinates of the city where they are based) presents their work transforming Brussel’s former World Trade Center into a program-neutral tower that vertically mixes residential, hospitality, office, and public spaces while remaining flexible for future use. The presentation, given by Olivier Cavens and Dieter Leyssen, includes a detailed look into the firm’s strategies for reusing as much of a building’s materials as possible, turning the building site into a marketplace to distribute the materials salvaged from its structure. 

The presentation is followed by a conversation with Elisa Iturbe, an assistant professor at The Cooper Union. Cavens, Leyssen, and Iturbe speak about dealing with the legacy of modernism, moving towards a system in which reuse is the standard, and how to deal with plumbing when converting offices into residential spaces.