Paradis Express is a mixed-use, eco-district in the heart of Liège and just a few minutes from the train station. The project gives this Belgian city the opportunity to respond to myriad environmental issues as it offers residential, office, co-working, co-living (YUST) and daycare spaces all in one place.

This beacon project showcases the combination of efficiency in sustainable design and high architectural design. It is also an exemplary, participative project that commits the urban designer, other public authorities and the developer to a new way of building parts of the city.

Only four teams were selected from a pool of 40 proposals. Those preliminary candidates were Ateliers Jean Nouvel and MDW, DDS+, Altiplan, and A2M. The jury unanimously selected Paradis Express as the winner of the competition and particularly praised its concept, architecture and skyline.

Seeking to connect the neighborhood with the living city, A2M freed a maximum of ground to provide a public area and accentuate the landscape’s continuity between the hill and the river. This effort toward urban cohesion features undulating green waves that recall the city’s unique topography with its succession of hills and valleys that themselves form the basis of the layout. These waves cross the site lengthwise, supplely linking the buildings to the city.

A2M designed a master plan that gives special prominence to an urban porosity. This translates into the possibility to connect the districts and creates a strong on-site link between the small, two-level building on the north and the 100-meter-high financial tower.

Paradis Express is also one of A2M’s very first applications of sequential design meant not only for all urban volumes but also for the façade design. This also stands as a tribute to Morandini’s kinetic art!

This project is Passive House and BREEAM Outstanding. It received the 2016 MIPIM Award as best Futura Project.