1075 – Conversion of St Joseph’s Church into 13 flats in Uccle

Daily life beneath the vaults: making way for the echoes of lives to come

The project to transform Saint-Joseph’s Church in Uccle, which is still under way, is breathing new life into a building whose scale, materials and presence in the landscape still bear witness to its original purpose. The project does not seek to erase this identity, but rather to work with it to accommodate thirteen contemporary flats within a building deeply shaped by its history.

For our team, the challenge is on a par with the architectural ambition. It involves installing new floors, redistributing loads, adapting the existing structure and supporting the necessary transformations whilst respecting the building’s intrinsic qualities. Every intervention requires a detailed understanding of the existing structure to enable the building to evolve without losing what makes it unique.

Beyond its technical aspects, this conversion invites a broader reflection. By creating living spaces within it, the project gives the site an unexpected sense of continuity: the rhythms of daily life take the place of past uses, whilst the walls continue to bear witness to people’s lives. More than just a change of function, this transformation seeks a delicate balance between memory and use, between collective heritage and new ways of living. It is a discreet and respectful metamorphosis, in which engineering complements the site’s history by bringing it back to life in the present.