Fosbury & Sons opens third Brussels co-working space
Brazil meets Wall Street at the sumptuous Fosbury & Sons Albert co-working space in Brussels, where spiral staircases, plants-a-plenty and dark bamboo surfaces enhance office life through comfort and areas that help users focus
Co-working space innovator Fosbury & Sons is spreading its humanist approach to office life even further with its fourth space, and third Brussels location, Albert II-laan. Interior design studio Going East has brought a ‘Brazil meets Wall Street’ aesthetic to the 5,000 sq m co-working space in Brussels’ business district, creating warm, lofty spaces with plants and spiral staircases.
With their mantra ‘The office is dead!’ the three Fosbury & Son founders – Serge Hannecart, Stijn Geeraets and Maarten Van Gool – had some fun bringing their ethos of comfortable workspaces to the old-fashioned office building, the ‘SEVEN’. Once a clunky office building stuck in the past, it has now been renovated by ASSAR Architects and been given a complete interior makeover.
At the Albert, you’ll find a broad and welcoming ground floor lobby, more reminiscent of a jazz club than a reception, with its grand piano and in-house restaurant Midori. Across this area, architectural elements, such as the black staircases or the dark bamboo wood surfaces, are given plenty of space and become functional design features.
The Fosbury & Sons co-working concept generates the atmosphere of a cultural space or a hotel – the founders love bringing new life to tired buildings, mixing unique design objects and comfortable seating. Beyond trends, their style is about creating a high quality of life whether you’re focussing on work, or taking your lunch break.
In 2018, Fosbury & Sons renovated Constantin Brodzki’s 1970 cement firm HQ in Brussels Boitsfort, turning an impressively brutal building into a welcoming co-working space filled with design objects from Marrakech, cream-coloured textiles and warm lighting. Soon after they opened another space west of the city in a satellite business park, Fosbury & Sons Alfons, which is filled with green plants and daylight.
Just like the first two Brussels locations, the business district was not an obvious choice, but it’s an area where the three founders see potential. Within walking distance to Brussels Nord, it’s not far from the KANAL Centre Pompidou, which is set to become a massive cultural draw for the city after its completion.
Fosbury & Sons now provide workspace for 1,170 people in Brussels across the three locations, plus the first space they opened in Antwerp in 2016. However, they aren’t stopping there. With Axel Vervoordt, Coussée & Goris architecten and VDD Project Development they will be bringing their cosy design-led concept to the former Actiris building near the Brussels stock exchange.
The upcoming year will see the team spreading their wings internationally, with Fosbury & Sons Prinsengracht and Westerdok in Amsterdam and Fosbury & Sons Marina, in Valencia, all opening in 2020.
Wallpaper* Newsletter
Receive our daily digest of inspiration, escapism and design stories from around the world direct to your inbox.
INFORMATION
fosburyandsons.com
ADDRESS
Fosbury & Sons Albert
Koning Albert II-laan 7
1210 Brussels
Belgium
Harriet Thorpe is a writer, journalist and editor covering architecture, design and culture, with particular interest in sustainability, 20th-century architecture and community. After studying History of Art at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) and Journalism at City University in London, she developed her interest in architecture working at Wallpaper* magazine and today contributes to Wallpaper*, The World of Interiors and Icon magazine, amongst other titles. She is author of The Sustainable City (2022, Hoxton Mini Press), a book about sustainable architecture in London, and the Modern Cambridge Map (2023, Blue Crow Media), a map of 20th-century architecture in Cambridge, the city where she grew up.
-
Tekαkαpimək Contact Station: a building ‘as inspiring as the endless forest and waterways of the land’
The new Tekαkαpimək Contact Station by Saunders Architecture with Reed Hilderbrand and Alisberg Parker Architects, opens at Katahdin Woods and Waters National Monument in the USA
By Beth Broome Published
-
Bentley collaborates with fashion designer Supriya Lele to create ‘Nīla Blue’
This one-off Bentley Bentayga S showcases a new paint and interior specification created with Indian-British designer Supriya Lele
By Shawn Adams Published
-
Wallpaper* checks in at Yoruya, a Japanese inn where less is always more
Yoruya, which transforms a 110-year-old former kimono merchant shopfront and residence in Kurashiki, is an exercise in graceful restraint and craft
By Joanna Kawecki Published
-
Green Ark, a new garden pavilion from modified softwood, is conceived for plant conservation
The Green Ark, set in the heart of Belgium's Meise Botanic Garden, is an ultra-sustainable visitor pavilion by NU Architectuur Atelier
By Jonathan Bell Published
-
Residence Norah is a modernist Belgian villa transformed to its owner’s needs
Residence Norah by Glenn Sestig in Belgium’s Deurle transforms an existing gallery space into a flexible private meeting area that perfectly responds to its owner’s requirements
By Ellie Stathaki Published
-
Bruges Triennial 2024 takes over the city with contemporary art and architecture
Bruges Triennial 2024, themed 'Spaces of Possibility', considers sustainability and liveability within cities, looking towards a greener future
By Ellie Stathaki Published
-
‘Interior sculptor’ Christophe Gevers’ oeuvre is celebrated in new book
‘Christophe Gevers’ is a sleek monograph dedicated to the Belgian's life work as an interior architect, designer, sculptor and inventor, with unseen photography by Jean-Pierre Gabriel
By Tianna Williams Published
-
A Belgian house in the fields blends subtle minimalism with family life
House in the Fields by Stef Claes is a family retreat in the green Belgian countryside sprinkled with a US modernist architecture twist
By Ellie Stathaki Published
-
House P’s linear, leafy composition aims for a ‘sensory architecture’
House P by Vandenborre Architecten is a family home conceived as a leafy sanctuary of minimalist elegance in suburban Belgium
By Ellie Stathaki Published
-
This 1970s brutalist house in Belgium has a new life as a designer’s home and studio
1970s brutalist house Villa Stuyven is now home to creative couple Bram Kerkhofs and Lore Baeyens, providing a concrete-lined backdrop to a life of design and collaboration
By Jonathan Bell Published
-
Step inside the Pringiers family’s rural retreat in Belgium
Belgian architect Glenn Sestig’s latest project for the Pringiers family is a rural retreat and private gallery featuring an award-winning concrete construction
By Ellie Stathaki Published