Public engagement makes a Belgian community centre truly user-friendly

The Amal Amjahid Community Facility sits in an urban neighborhood of Molenbeek, along a public passage connecting the district to the canal. The project forms part of the Sustainable Neighborhood Contract “Around Leopold II”, a public initiative aimed at urban renewal and social cohesion in the area.

Beyond its social role, the building also integrates sustainable design principles – including natural ventilation, thermal mass and prefabricated materials – aligning the project with broader ecological goals alongside its social ones.

• To provide a safe and inspiring place where the whole community is encouraged and enabled to interrelate and thrive.
• To be a trusted and valued contributor within the community.
• To keep the building available, accessible, and safe for the use of local people and others.
• To provide and enable a range of opportunities and activities which respond to the needs of local people.

The Amal Amjahid building in Molenbeek is a socially innovative public facility that redefines how architecture can support inclusion, resilience and community empowerment. Developed through a participatory process and named after a local martial arts champion, the project integrates a sports hall, boxing and martial arts centre, café and daycare into a single, multifunctional space.

It addresses pressing social challenges – such as youth radicalization, lack of childcare and limited access to safe public spaces – by offering accessible, community-driven services. The design fosters spontaneous social interaction through shared outdoor areas, a monumental public gallery and hanging terraces, creating a vibrant civic hub. Prioritizing low-tech sustainability and long-term usability, the building shows how thoughtful design and community engagement can drive urban transformation and social cohesion.

The building was delivered by the municipality of Molenbeek-Saint-Jean as client, with Bogdan (previously Bogdan & van Broeck) as architect, UTIL Struktuurstudies for structural engineering, and Enerdo studiebureau for building services engineering. Construction ran from 2017 to 2021.

A range of stakeholders took part in shaping the project, each in a different capacity:

• Citizens
• Public authorities
• Municipality of Molenbeek-Saint-Jean
• Schools

The Amal Amjahid Community Facility was shaped through a bottom-up, participatory design process that involved local stakeholders from its earliest stages. Residents, youth groups and local organizations contributed directly to decision-making and to defining the building’s programme, through community consultations, workshops and even naming contests that helped shape the building’s identity and functions – a genuine co-creation of public space.

This participatory governance is reflected in the building itself: the entrance gallery increases the neighborhood’s porosity and can extend the sports hall during special events, while the layout encourages interaction between the sports hall, boxing club and crèche. Together, the public commissioning process, the policy framework of the Neighborhood Contract, and a programme that bundles daily-life services with youth sports created continuous, low-threshold access through an interior public street – fostering greater civic presence, informal use, and, ultimately, stronger local ownership and trust.

• Behavioral innovation: the building encourages positive youth engagement through sports like boxing and martial arts, offering an alternative to radicalization and social exclusion.
• Social practice innovation: it introduces new ways of using public space, blending sports, childcare and community interaction within a single, inclusive environment.
• Organizational innovation: it integrates multiple services – sports, daycare, café and public gallery – under one roof, managed through a coordinated, community-oriented model.
• Process innovation: it applies to a participatory design process that involves local residents in naming and shaping the building’s functions, fostering ownership and relevance.

These innovations are reinforced by the building’s environmental and urban design: a public passage links the canal and the neighborhood, while three “voids” – the entrance gallery, a central patio, and suspended gardens – act as climate-light devices that bring daylight and safe permeability into the block. The patio lets activities spill outdoors in good weather, and the hanging gardens give the crèche above street level a safe outdoor play area, all within a compact footprint that conserves scarce inner-city land.

• Passive climate control: the building uses night cooling stacks and the thermal mass of exposed concrete to naturally regulate indoor temperatures, reducing reliance on mechanical systems.
• Prefabricated façade technology: highly insulating prefabricated wooden panels, clad in aluminium, improving energy performance and reducing on-site construction time and waste.
• Smart shell, low-tech approach: instead of complex digital systems, the project favors simple, robust and user-friendly technologies that are easy to maintain and operate.
• Maintenance manual for end users: a digital/manual hybrid guide was provided to ensure long-term usability and to give users the knowledge they need to look after the building’s systems themselves.

Delivery of the building brought together a multi-stakeholder team – the municipal client, &Bogdan as architect, UTIL for structural engineering, Ener do for building services, and an acoustics consultancy – aligned with the regional canal-landscape development strategy and the Sustainable Neighborhood Contract instruments. This integration allowed a feasible mix of services on a small site, with shared spaces such as the gallery and patio generating synergies between them: parents at the crèche use the café, youth sports are visible to neighbours, and events can scale into the gallery.

• Improved security perception: by activating public space with inclusive sports and childcare facilities, the building contributes to a safer, more welcoming urban environment.
• Youth engagement as a security strategy: boxing and martial arts programmes offer constructive outlets for at-risk youth, helping reduce vulnerability to radicalization.
• Strengthened public trust: the participatory design process, including community involvement in naming and planning, fostered a sense of ownership and trust in public institutions.
• Passive surveillance and connectivity: the permeable ground floor, daylit voids and elevated gardens created comfortable, observable, semi-public spaces that increase dwell time, encourage passive surveillance, and strengthen neighborhood connectivity.

• Participatory design: the project underscores the value of early and sustained community engagement. Involving local stakeholders in naming and programming decisions fostered a sense of ownership, legitimacy, and alignment with local needs.
• Architecture as a medium for social cohesion: the spatial configuration – emphasizing openness, visibility and shared circulation – demonstrates how built environments can facilitate informal social interactions and strengthen community ties.
• Integrated programming for holistic impact: co-locating diverse functions (sports, childcare, public gathering spaces) within a single facility illustrates the effectiveness of multifunctional design in addressing complex urban challenges.
• Low-tech sustainability as a viable strategy: adopting passive environmental systems and prefabricated components shows how low-tech, context-sensitive solutions can achieve both ecological and operational efficiency.

• Structural constraints from programmatic priorities: placing the sports hall on the lower levels, despite structural inefficiencies, introduced engineering complexities and increased construction demands, highlighting a trade-off between spatial logic and functional accessibility.
• Limited technological integration: the “smart shell, low-tech” approach promotes sustainability, but may limit adaptability to future digital infrastructure needs or smart building systems, potentially constraining long-term innovation.
• Scalability of participatory methods: the intensive community engagement process, while effective locally, may be difficult to replicate at larger scales or in contexts with limited institutional support or civic participation culture.
• Operational complexity of multi-use programming: integrating diverse functions – sports, childcare, public space – under one roof requires robust coordination and management, which may pose challenges for long-term governance and maintenance.
• Lack of quantitative impact data: although qualitative outcomes are evident, the absence of systematic data collection limits the ability to measure long-term social impact, particularly regarding safety perception and behavioural change.

The Amal Amjahid project shows strong potential for long-term sustainability, both in its physical infrastructure and social programming. Since its completion, the building has remained fully operational, with its multifunctional spaces actively used by the local community.

The integration of passive environmental strategies – such as night cooling, thermal mass and prefabricated insulated façades – ensures low energy consumption and reduced maintenance needs, and a user-friendly maintenance manual was provided to support ongoing building management and empower local stakeholders. Socially, the participatory design process has fostered a sense of ownership, contributing to continued community engagement and care for the facility. The project’s alignment with broader urban regeneration strategies also ensures institutional support and integration into long-term planning frameworks, and the building continues to serve as a model for inclusive, low-tech and community-driven urban development.