Among architects, there is growing agreement: the most sustainable building is the one that doesn’t need to be demolished. This idea is a core principle in the work of the Paris-based architecture and urbanism studio l’AUC.

One of its founders, Djamel Klouche, together with architect-curator Mike Fritsch, will present the transformation stories of two high-rise buildings in Paris and Brussels in their lecture “How Not to Demolish a Building?”. These projects have garnered attention across Europe as exemplary cases of architectural approaches rooted in sustainability and circularity.

One of them is the ZIN project, developed in collaboration with the architecture office 51N4E, which transformed the iconic World Trade Center towers I and II in Brussels’ Gare du Nord district. In this transformation, a former administrative office complex was reimagined as a hybrid structure that seamlessly integrates spaces for working, living, hospitality, sports, leisure, retail, and generous green areas accessible to the city’s residents.

The ZIN project is fundamentally based on an architectural concept of reuse — the building is understood not only as a material bank but also as a catalyst for multiple future spatial scenarios. By creatively adapting existing structures and complementing them with strategic interventions, the project delivers a robust, long-lasting building capable of flexibly responding to changing needs. New volumes with varied heights, multiple circulation routes, and numerous access points activate the surrounding urban fabric — transforming the building from a static object into a dynamic urban interface, open to adaptation, exchange, and collective use over time.

The speakers will also share insights into the ongoing transformation of the Tour des Poissonniers in Paris — an ambitious initiative to retrofit a 15-storey social housing tower built in 1959. Preserving the majority of the existing structure, the building is being reimagined as a contemporary, mixed-use environment combining housing for students, young researchers, and creatives, along with an arts residency, and cultural, educational, and community green spaces. The project is grounded in a participatory design process, with future users actively involved in workshops to shape the living, working, and creative environments.

The transformation of this iconic tower, located along the Boulevard Périphérique, aims not only to renew the architectural object but also to strengthen the urban connection between Paris’ 18th arrondissement and the metropolitan area of Saint-Ouen.

This detailed presentation of projects rooted in the principles of reuse and recycling will highlight the transformative power of architecture — one that goes beyond heritage preservation or carbon reduction, inviting a rethinking of contemporary urban and domestic qualities, and revealing the affective potential of existing built structures.

The presentation will take place at MO museum on 29 May at 7 pm.

About the presenters

Djamel Klouche is an architect and urban planner, with degrees from the Ecole d’Architecture de Paris La Seine, the École des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales (EHESS) and Sciences Po Paris. He is Professor at the Ecole Nationale Supérieure d’Architecture de Versailles (ENSAV). With Caroline Poulin and François Decoster, Djamel Klouche co-founded l’AUC, an architecture and urban planning firm based in Paris, joined by Alessandro Gess as a partner. 

l’AUC was awarded the “Grand Prix National de l’Urbanisme” by the French Minister of Housing on December 15, 2021, for its body of work. In September 2023, l’AUC received the UIA’s Albert Abercrombie Prize for Urban Planning and Design. 

l’AUC is very much involved in the process of transforming existing buildings, particularly those of modern heritage: l’AUC has just delivered a project to transform two single-function office towers into a mixed-use program combining offices, housing, hotel and services open to the city, on behalf of Beffimo in Brussels’ Gare du Nord district, and is currently working on the transformation of the Tour des Poissonniers in Paris.

Mike Fritsch is a Luxembourgish architect, curator, and educator. Mike oscillates, as a practicing architect, between large-scale transformation strategies and architectural repairs, both as an independent and in collaboration with l’AUC. 

In parallel, Mike is teaching at ENSA-Marseille, where he manipulates new territorial narratives on adaptations and social interactions of the “already there”. These subjects compose a wider corpus of research and projects focusing on the use of post-disciplinarity to grasp our entangled ecologies.

Curator of this year’s Luxembourg Pavilion at the 19th edition of La Biennale di Venezia, together with Alice Loumeau and Valentin Bansac, Mike proposes “Sonic Investigations”, an invitation to shift focus and rather listen to new territorial mutations through sound, accompanied with works by sound artist Ludwig Berger and a book published by Spector Books and coedited with Peter Szendy called “Ecotones – Investigating Sounds and Territories”.

The event is part of the HouseEurope! campaign, aiming not only to introduce the initiative more broadly in Lithuania, but also to invite discussion about the future of European cities.
It is also part of the Circular Design European CiD innovation alliance, co-funded by the European Union.