Fort Kudelstaart’s proposed plans represent a great challenge: sustainably retrofitting built heritage while preserving cultural value.  With the urgency to address climate change and take it into account with the renovation, it's obvious that the area which would use the most resources gets priority when it comes to concept development. It will also be important to not only look at traditional ways to achieve energy efficiency, but to also look at the compatibility of new technologies combined with historical elements. Due to the large size of the project and the many processes delaying the start of the build, we decided to dedicate this study to a part of the Fort where there are possibilities in any case. In phase 1 of the construction of Zeilfort, concerning the renovation of the existing building, a cafe kitchen will be introduced in the right wing's fort. Therefore this Living Lab did research on the impact of implementing a circular system in the kitchen facility of Zeilfort Kudelstaart. The team had employ the theoretical mechanism of the Water-Energy-Food nexus as a tool to categorically organize inputs and outputs of resources within the scope of our analysis of the cafe kitchen facility. This living lab’s goal is to contribute pertinent research-to-practice realizations in reducing built environment impacts, proving that valuable insights may be gained from intense periods of research and development from outside, multi-disciplinary sources.