Call for living lab design teams

In the context of the Willy Van Der Meeren Living Lab, Vrije Universiteit Brussel is looking for multidisciplinary design consortia. In this Living Lab they will develop sustainable renovation strategies together with the researchers at VUB Architectural Engineering and test those strategies in practice. An innovative tendering procedure has therefore been launched.

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With the student housing modules as subject, the Willy Van Der Meeren Living Lab offers a challenging test environment. After all, the necessary energy renovation of the student flats on the VUB campus must be balanced with the heritage value, sustainability and affordability of the project. Although these challenges sometimes seem contradictory, that does not have to be the case. For example, the reuse of many building materials could valorize the heritage value and at the same time reduce the environmental impact of the renovation.

This practical test environment, or living lab, offers multidisciplinary consortia and researchers the opportunity to develop, test and implement technological or organizational innovations that are not only relevant to student housing, but also provide answers to the challenges that come with the energy renovation of homes in the Brussels-Capital Region: material innovations from the 70s, concrete structures running from the inside to the outside and new residential typologies are not only characteristic of the student modules designed by Willy Van Der Meeren, but also for many apartment buildings in the region. The renovation techniques and processes that are tested and improved through this Living Lab project can therefore also be applied on a larger scale.

As an examplary project, the Willy Van Der Meeren Living Lab must accelerate the Brussels renovation sector. The concrete implementation of the innovative renovation strategies combines the strengths of the construction sector with knowledge of the university. A strong interaction in which the researchers can quickly respond to the questions of the multidisciplinary design consortia, whereas testing and evaluating new renovation strategies on a small scale, makes it possible to collect targeted insights and give them back to practice.

 

Call

The specifications for the call for design consortia were published on Wednesday May 22, 2019 in the Bulletin of the Tender under the reference BDA 2019-515499 (in Dutch).

Requests to participate must be submitted electronically thourgh the online platform eten.publicprocurement.be, before 20/08/2019, 14:00.

 

Mandatory site visit and information session

Registrations for the mandatory site visit on Tuesday, June 18, 2019 at 1:00 pm can be done until Monday, June 17, 2019, 12:00 at the latest via directeur.infra@vub.be and Tania.De.Schepper@vub.be.

If there are still questions about the assignment after the information session and the site visit, these can be asked according to the provisions in the specifications.

 

More

The Region has entrusted Innoviris, the Institute for the Promotion of Scientific Research and the Innovation of Brussels with the task of ensuring and controlling the application and implementation of the project. She does this as part of the FEDER project "Living Labs Brussels Retrofit".

www.livinglabs-brusselsretrofit.be | www.vub.be/arch/project/livinglab