The Université libre de Bruxelles (ULB) and the Vrije Universiteit Brussel (VUB) have received 37 high-quality applications in response to the call for project designers that they launched on 8 December 2017 for the renovation and conversion of seven buildings on the site of the former gendarmerie school, at the corner of Avenue de la Couronne and Boulevard Général Jacques in Ixelles.
This operation will be one of the first steps in the physical implementation of the Usquare.brussels project. Specifically, it will involve converting these historic and architecturally distinctive buildings to house various university facilities and local public amenities. Part of the operation is supported by the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) and the Brussels-Capital Region.
The 37 applications include 26 Belgian teams and 11 international teams with at least one non-Belgian component, from Germany, France, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands and Switzerland.
ULB and VUB will now short-list five teams over the next few weeks which will be asked to submit an architectural and budgetary outline of the project, on the basis of which the final winner will be chosen by the summer.
