Ode to Joy explores how to preserve, adapt and transform a building not only in its materiality but also its ownership model and by doing so its accessibility and role for the quarter.

In the summer of 2023, the European Commission announced the biggest single real estate operation in the history of Brussels. In order to achieve climate neutrality by 2030, the European Commission is abandoning their “underperforming” building stock. This portfolio comprises 21 buildings in the European Quarter in Brussels.

Ode to Joy confronts the contradictions of climate goals pursued through a neoliberal market logic resulting in green speculation and proposes an alternative to the real-life development. Focusing on the biggest conglomerate of the portfolio, îlot 130, at the intersection of institutional and residential space, Ode to Joy designed a mixed-use programme of EU offices, affordable housing, and a public research centre for Europeanness. Office space is halved, over 30% of the building becomes housing with most of it far below market rate and 30 times more public space is created compared to current redevelopment plans. A leasehold system reconfigures ownership: the Belgian state owns the land, dwellers own their homes, and the Commission owns its offices.

Rather than repeating the cycle of privatization in the name of sustainability, Ode to Joy advocates for a collective urban transformation where proximity to power enables public value, and where the European project can finally take place in Brussels.

Three days before the final presentation of the project, the first open call for the transformation of the buildings was announced. Ode to Joy advocated for a more radical approach with a public discussion in Brussels in October 2024. Since then, Ode to Joy has won the SIA Master Prize and the Flemish Arts Decree. Developing as a transdisciplinary project, it will follow the ongoing real estate operation until 2027.