Minerve wins ULI Awards!

Minerve’s award list is getting longer! We are thrilled to announce that this groundbreaking sustainable development project in Edegem, Belgium, has won the 2024 ULI Europe Award for excellence. This prestigious recognition underscores Minerve’s transformative impact on sustainable urban living and its alignment with the Urban Land Institute’s mission to decarbonize real estate, increase housing attainability, and educate future leaders in the industry.

Developed by Revive, with a master plan by Architecten Achtergael and landscape design by OMGEVING, Minerve sets a new standard for mixed-use, sustainable brownfield developments. As part of the first phase, completed in 2022, POLO designed two residential courts in the northwest of the site.

At its core, Minerve is about transforming an industrial past into a green, inclusive future. Key sustainable features include:

• A fossil-free energy policy, utilizing residual heat from the Agfa-Gevaert site for domestic heating and hot water.
• Responsible water management, with rainwater reuse, a stormwater buffer, and green spaces that enhance local infiltration.
• Sustainable mobility solutions, such as shared bicycles, electric cars, and largely car-free streets.
• Preservation of heritage, integrating recycled materials and industrial history into a modern eco-friendly community.

By 2025, Minerve will feature 350 homes surrounded by 23,500 m² of greenery, creating a nature-inclusive urban oasis. This award reaffirms Minerve’s role as a benchmark for affordable, sustainable, and replicable urban development, and we are proud of POLO’s contributions to this visionary project.

Developer: REVIVE

Architects: POLO.platform (first phase), Achtergael, ECTV and Areal (second phase), ECTV (third phase).

Landscape architect: OMGEVING