Uploaded May 2023 | Updated September 2026, 1 week ago
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, including turning the building site into a marketplace to distribute the goods mined from the structure.
The presentation was followed by a conversation with Elisa Iturbe, an assistant professor at The Cooper Union. Cavens, Leyssen, and Iturbe spoke 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.
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, including turning the building site into a marketplace to distribute the goods mined from the structure.
The presentation was followed by a conversation with Elisa Iturbe, an assistant professor at The Cooper Union. Cavens, Leyssen, and Iturbe spoke 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.
