Mich Rossiter
is an architectural designer based in London + Rotterdam[email protected]
How to be both proposes the transformative reuse of a former tannery and second-hand car export garage in Anderlecht, Brussels. The resulting ensemble of buildings works to calibrate spaces for dwelling, spaces for making and everything in-between. These orbit around and land in a central ‘polyvalent yard’, within which the daily negotiations for access, delivery, leisure and noise are staged, along with a new connectivity to two nearby parks.
Aesthetics is taken as a motor for reuse. The proposal blends the area’s industrial architecture with forms borrowed from the existing arched windows of the tannery block below. The top-up’s structural approach exploits the tannery’s oversized foundations. These were built over a century ago to ward off Brussels’ marshy geology, from which Brussels’ name originates – a settlement (“broek”) in the marsh (“zele”). The design balances programme-specific requirements with baked-in affordances for future adaptation, resulting in a mass timber structural lattice around which prefabricated hempcrete-filled panels comprise the breathable envelopes.
The transformation of the site is rooted in conversations with local actors at the WAQ and La Rosée and a participatory workshop held at Gilbard, next-door. A manifesto written early in the project is instrumental in acting as its spine and compass:
1. House everyone
2. Listen to the real experts
3. Exploit the loophole
4. Cherish the existing
5. Confront dwelling with making
6. Reframe comfort
7. Persuade through alternative media
What if you had an atelier in your apartment? A workshop beneath your flat? A studio in your studio? What if your next-door neighbours were mushroom farmers, chair designers or second-hand car exporters? How can you live in a community where the contradictions and inconveniences of the city aren’t shied away from, but confronted and embraced?
This project humbly explores what happens when you don’t have to decide. It explores How to be both.
Colophon
How to be both was produced by Mich Rossiter as part of the Urban Architecture graduation studio at Bouwkunde, TU Delft Faculty of Architecture and the Built Environment, Netherlands between November 2025 and June 2026.
All material was produced by Mich Rossiter, unless otherwise stated. Every effort has been made to credit relevant authors, where necessary.
Tutors
Elsbeth Ronner
Leeke Reinders
Studio
Urban Architecture, TU Delft
Chaired by Paul Vermeulen