Covent Garden, Brussels, Belgium

The Covent Garden project comprises a high-rise building and low-rise building and is intended to become an urban signal announcing the north district. It is the only purpose-built high-rise in the business district of Brussels.

From an urban point of view, the project blends in as much with the historic low-rise buildings it faces on one side as it copes with the tall buildings it faces on two other sides. At ground level, a pedestrian link is created between an existing park and a major public square via a landscaped garden-atrium which is also an 'eco machine' meant to organise wastewater recovery.

Covent Garden provides its users with an extraordinary variety of different surfaces available throughout the various buildings and levels, while it also provides some of the largest floor plates built in recent years in Brussels.

Covent Garden development

The development includes mixed-use office and retail space on the ground floor, mixed-mode climate control and radiant ceilings, maximum use of natural light, biological wastewater treatment in the atrium, a prefabricated concrete structure, urban integration, the eco machine and places to live.

In a permanent concern for sustainable development and energy savings, the concept of wastewater recovery was developed. Covent Garden has an installation which in its specific application is a first in Belgium. The garden in the atrium is a major area to meet within the complex while it is also the place where the eco machine process takes place.

The wastewater treatment process uses advanced biological and bacteriological purification techniques. This water includes grey water, water from washing and black water containing faeces.

The objective is to treat this water so that it can be recycled into the building's own consumption cycle.