WET89 is located on the Rue de la Loi, Brussels’ busiest boulevard, in the heart of the European Quarter. The site is situated in between Brussels’ two most important public parks: the Cinquantenaire and the Royal Park. Currently the boulevard is a high speed canyon for cars, formed by mute office facades, gutted of any kind of street life or representation. WET89 aims at a double impact: offering high end office space for the CD&V headquarters combined with a new public facility: a unique ground floor café-restaurant.
We believe that political headquarters, such as CD&V, hold a responsibility activating their European context and neighborhood. This is why we proposed to inject a seemingly foreign public facility into the office program. The café as a high-quality independent entity injected in the context could be the very first step to revive and re-empower this CBD, also at street level.