With Scheldezicht we want to redefine the residential high-rise building as a stacked social community. Encounters between the residents is stimulated by creating collective spaces and designing circulation areas as spacious meeting places. The distinctive facade of Scheldezicht adds a landmark along the quays of the river Scheldt and allows neighbours to form vertical mini-communities that eliminate the anonymity of high-rise living.

Stacked housing projects often fail to encourage social contact between neighbours. Many people live close to each other, but there are few opportunities to meet each other. With our project we want to challenge this apparent paradox and stimulate social interactions without sacrificing privacy. The architecture is based on the idea that the building demonstrates from the outside what it does inside. The social qualities which are integrated into the design and the visual expression of the tower, make Scheldezicht a sustainable project, focussing on collectivity and community.

“Living vertically in housing towers around the world, is normally socially challenging. This tower seeks to solve this problem by creating multiple common zones and areas and local, physical potential for social contact in the “mini-communities” of the facades. These act as tools to enable the neighbours to get into closer contact with each other and thereby create a strong and resourceful community feeling”, says Lone Wiggers, Partner and Architect at C.F. Møller Architects.

Scheldezicht contains a wide variety of housing typologies, which attract very different residents, from small apartments for students, young double-income couples, large family homes, adapted apartments for the elderly, to innovative duplex flats. These homes are grouped into vertical mini-communities. In addition to apartments, the building also includes shops, offices and communal areas. The following collective spaces are provided within the project: a bicycle repair space, a collective laundry room and a double-height community space adjoining a roof landscape on the fourth floor that is shared by all residents.

A light grid structure envelopes the facade of the slender tower, distributing and grouping the different housing typologies. Within each compartment of the grid, apartments are clustered into a collective entity connected by private terraces. The balconies are staggered in relation to each other, which brings neighbours into contact with each other, yet allows sufficient privacy. The outdoor spaces add living quality to the homes in the form of terraces, winter gardens and a shared roof terrace. Visually this also helps to highlight the building’s unique characteristics, which are recognisable from a large urban scale while also providing intimacy on a human level. 

“The design of our building is based on the idea of stacking the typical town houses, that can be found in the adjacent historic ‘Zuid’ neighbourhood, on top of each other, integrating it into its’ urban context while also giving additional benefits to the inhabitants in terms of living quality”, says Gunther Slagmeulder, Architect, Urban Planner and partner at BRUT.

Material Used:
1. Façade Bricks, Nature7 mix, Vande Moortel 
2. Windows, MasterLine 8 HI+, Reynaers Aluminium 
3. Terrace doors, CP 155 (-LS), Reynaers Aluminium Scheldezicht | Reynaers Aluminium
4. Glace Façade, CW 60, Reynaers Aluminium 
5. Concrete framework, Slender Wall, Verheyen nv

Overlooking the River Scheldt, the appropriately named Scheldezicht building is a mainly residential tower in the trendy port city of Antwerp. As the main star of the city’s recent development project “Nieuw Zuid” (New South), the 24-storey high rise proposes a new way of sustainable urban living with residents regularly meeting in a green environment. Reynaers Aluminium windows and curtain walls offer the perfect high-insulation finishing touch.
 

The vibrant Nieuw Zuid district includes 38 buildings and twelve hectares of green area, forming one of Belgium’s largest and most sustainable new construction projects. And exciting new building projects attract only the best architects, which is exactly the case for Scheldezicht. Finished in 2020, the slender tower is a creation by Belgian architectural firm BRUT and C.F. Møller from Denmark. Their productive collaboration resulted in a pure and elegant design that puts livability and sociability between residents first.

You will find outdoor terraces, winter gardens, and a shared roof terrace – green accents that all contribute to a refreshing sense of community. As balconies are staggered, it is easy to chat with other people nearby but not feel overlooked. Various communal areas and retail facilities at ground floor enable all Scheldezicht residents to gather regularly in a relaxed setting.
 

Getting creative with curtain walls and windows
Architectural design also plays a key role in this well-being. The tower has a light grid structure across its façade, with white concrete for the terraces and columns. The striking white framework contains dozens of different compartments that not only look aesthetically pleasing, but add natural cooling too by cleverly making use of the wind that flows in from the river.

But gusts from the River Scheldt can be both a blessing and a curse. That is why the façade between the terraces is made of masonry and aluminium exterior carpentry. For this curtain wall, local fabricator CS Raamconstructies turned to Reynaers Aluminium ConceptWall 60, the perfect solution for larger glass panes with outstanding thermal insulation qualities. Especially for Scheldezicht’s north side, which contains the winter gardens, we supplied bespoke ConceptWall 60 profiles to tackle the higher glazing and thermal requirements.
 

"Experience a futureproof residential building that withstands the roughest weather conditions."

For the sliding elements, ConceptPatio155-Lift & Slide (LS) solutions guarantee unrivalled wind and water tightness to protect against all kinds of rough weather. Bearing in mind the new district’s sustainability, installers also called on high-quality insulating window systems, such as the MasterLine 8 High Insulation + (HI+) variant. This design choice enhances the project’s energy efficiency, while complementing the city’s external heat network that warms every building in Nieuw Zuid with renewable energy.

Virtual viewing of aluminium systems
During the Scheldezicht project, our support went further than just the supply of materials. At Reynaers Campus, our headquarters in Belgium, the virtual reality room Avalon proved to be a great asset. By using VR headsets, our professionals helped contractors and architects visualise the building’s design at an early stage. Comparing a variety of virtually rendered systems allowed the designers to choose the right solution for the tower.

Robustness, style, and sustainability come together in the recently finished residential building. Experience a futureproof design that chooses to be different from your regular socially isolated skyscrapers. Scheldezicht residents enjoy a comfortable life together in a unique green environment, right on the riverbanks of Antwerp.