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ELEMENTS EUROPA THE BAROQUE ELLIPSE AND ITS TWISTS AND TURNS 75

HACCP OR BEHIND THE SCENES

Food safety must be managed by a “hazard analysis and
critical control point” (known as “HACCP”), referring to
applicable health standards. From an architectural point of view,
the most restrictive requirement is the obligation to make food
undergo some systematic workflow from dirty to clean areas,
i.e. a self-contained process throughout its evolution. Indeed,
food arrives there in a “dirty” state (that of its wrapping) and
passes to a “clean” state (between “raw” and “processed”) when
it reaches the kitchen or plates before reverting to “dirty” when
meal leftovers become waste.

The blueprints (following page 76) give an idea of the
geography of the various ensembles set up for that purpose
(deliveries and waste collection taking place via the unloading
platform in the Justus Lipsius building in basement 2, the large
restaurant in basement 1, the cafeteria on the ground floor,
dining halls on the 9th, 10th and 11th floors). Throughout
this patient development, the whole point is to sustain the
functionality and understanding of those processes whilst
enforcing strict hygiene rules and benefiting from the very
dense configuration of the Residence Palace basement as
much as possible.

The kitchen floor’s polyurethane coating colours helps
clarify the “workflow from clean to dirty areas” principle
on a daily basis:
– green for “clean” (preparation) areas floor,
– red for “dirty” (unpacked goods storage and washing/
cleaning) areas floor,
– grey for “free-flows” service and bar areas, visible right
from the public areas.

A pneumatic transport system facilitates food waste
processing: in the large kitchen and washing/cleaning sections,
dry shredding stations send waste into Ø 110-mm stainless steel
pipes all the way to storage reservoirs in basement 2, where
pump lorries take it to a centre where it is turned into green
energy (biogas) and fertilisers.