Living Tomorrow today – with ECOPact and Hydromedia

“Living tomorrow”. Everyone thinks about what it might be like, but it’s the real trailblazers among us – the quiet revolutionaries – who develop the disruptive solutions and open innovation ecosystems that make tomorrow possible, today. 

In the quiet city of Vilvoorde north of Brussels, Belgium, Frank Beliën, Founder and Chairman of Living Tomorrow, and his team are helping facilitate this by creating a space for new ideas to flourish, where innovators come together to solve the world’s most pressing challenges. 

An internationally operating research organization that realizes projects around living and working in the future, Living Tomorrow’s first campus or "House of the Future" was built in 1995. Then, in 2023, the organization opened its new, sustainable Innovation Campus, which has Holcim’s ECOPact low-carbon concrete and Hydromedia permeable concrete at its core.

The challenge 

In 2019, Beliën — a trained architect, one-time racing driver and serial entrepreneur — decided to build the new Living Tomorrow Innovation Campus, an innovation hub and living lab that is now exploring innovations to contribute to a sustainable future. 

Building sustainability into the very fabric of their new campus, Living Tomorrow’s management turned to the most innovative and sustainable building solutions they could find to construct it, which included Holcim’s ECOPact low-carbon concrete and Hydromedia permeable concrete.

The solution 

ECOPact was chosen for the project because it delivers 100% performance while offering at least 30% lower CO₂ emissions compared to standard (CEM I) concrete. This helps our customers reduce the carbon footprint of their buildings. Throughout the construction phase for Living Tomorrow, we supplied over 3,000m³ of ECOPact for the new campus building. 

For the campus parking lot, Hydromedia permeable concrete was chosen. As a water-management system, Hydromedia rapidly absorbs rainwater from streets, parking surfaces, driveways and walkways – reducing the risk of flooding.

The result 

Living Tomorrow’s Innovation Campus opened its doors to the public in September 2023. The impressive 50-meter tower has a total usable area of more than 6,700 m² spread over 14 floors, and is now one of the largest innovation centers in Europe. 

Six experience zones in the building let visitors experience what life will be like after 2030, while the tower also houses a hotel, meeting and events center, office spaces and an innovative 'chef's table' on the top floor.

At the time of the campus opening, journalists wrote amazedly about service robots that deliver food and luggage to the hotel’s rooms, a robotic dog called ‘Boogie’ that entertains visitors, and a digital waste bin that scans your rubbish and tells you which compartment to throw it in. 

Thanks to ECOPact, the project reduced the construction footprint by 58%. And with the help of Hydromedia, the campus’ parking lot acts as a drainage system when the frequent Brussels region rains arrive, reducing the risk of flooding.