Due to the growth of Leuven's university hospitals, in the future they will be brought together on the Gasthuisberg site outside the city center. This will free up the current Sint-Pieters and Sint-Raphael site for redevelopment. An opportunity for a new sustainable district right in the center of the city.

In order to depart from the broadest possible sustainability framework for this new district, it was decided to test the design from the outset and let it be inspired by the sustainability meter, previously developed for the City of Ghent. Ingenium guides the architects and developer in taking design decisions so that the project provides an answer to the needs of today and tomorrow in terms of energy, social, ecological, economic, water management, mobility, choice of materials, etc., without affecting the carrying capacity of our society and planet in the long term. The aim here is a score of more than 80% across the 10 themes.

Now that the Flemish Sustainability Meter has also progressed to a more developed stage, it will also be used to test and give direction to the project. The energy section will be worked out in more detail by Ingenium, at this stage in the master plan of the site's energy facilities. From a longlist of both collective and individual energy production, work is now continuing on a scenario in which a low-temperature heat network exchanges both heat and cold between the various buildings and needs on the site. The possibilities of supplying energy from a ATES system are being explored. Heat pumps valorize this heat for use in the various functions.

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