A visit to the CIVA exhibition Operational aesthetics (02.02-15.04.18) invites new ideas about nature in the city. What role could urban renewal, and the Neighborhood Contracts more concretely, play therein?
Text by Nadia Casabella : http://a-plus.be/en/recensie/environmental-aesthetics/#.WrPO_OjOWUk
'Much of the Flanders region is rural in character and dependent on raw material imports.'
'The Wasted City. Approaches to Circular City Making' CITIES Foundation
As a result of our winning entry for the 2015 WINVORM competition with our partners BOOM landscape, the first tiles have been placed on the de Coninckplein in Roeselare. More info about the design for this public space in the projects section.
Innovatieve Stadshaven / Innovative City-Port is a fascinating commission that attempts a morphological approach for long term planning and results into an intriguing method that combines a spatial “do and don't” plan, a strategy describing the coalitions of actors and their possible actions throughout time, and a future-oriented prospection of what could be possible on-site.
The collaboration with Chris (drift) and David is enormously inspiring, and we hope to bring the original question of the city of Antwerp to a next level: Eilandje 2 does not need being a repetition of what happened at Eilandje, but its redevelopment as a new working area is momentarily put under pressure by the new infrastructural projects that will soon start execution (the Oosterweelverbinding and the relocation of the Groot Schijn river).
More info on the commission: http://www.agvespa.be/nieuws/opdracht-innovatieve-stadshaven
Image © Antoine Horenbeek
Masui has lately received lots of attention in the media and the associative world. It is being profiled as one of the last productive citadels in Brussels. But to which extent this is happening for real?
Last week, a couple of interns at Brussels Perspective (the Brussels' Regional Planning Agency) presented the conclusions of their study about productive activities at Masui. Likely, more than one had to frown.
First of all, very little of what was analyzed could actually be considered productive: wholesalers in food items and construction materials, garages, some retailers again in construction materials and food… last year, while we were working in the CRU3 (Urban Renewal Contract at West Station), we encountered quite some ironworkers and other metal processing activities, printing businesses, garment industries… Nobody talks though of West station as a worthwhile site for urban industry ;)
Second consideration: absolutely everybody is convinced about the need to keep these businesses in place. Who are we to chase them away anyhow? But is heavy concurrence, as a result of overpopulation of similar businesses, and low profit margins, growth-restrictive, next to a business model based on mere survival and incapable of generating jobs something to really keep? As a matter of fact, what is so sexy about this form of (pseudo) production?
New studies proliferate by the day, unraveling the difficulties of survival of some established urban industries but also pointing at the incredible opportunities that innovation and entrepreneurship offer to newly born businesses… even if we are against any form of selection to be made by the government to decide which industries should stay or should go in the city, because we seriously believe that if a company wishes to stay somewhere is only after careful economic consideration, we would lavishly support any form of planning that would inform companies on what they really do. Not that Grandes Marees or Van Wezel, both located at Masui, would need it. The smaller actors do need it, indeed!
More about the guided visit organized by BRAL: https://bral.brussels/en/artikel/explore-masuivergote-het-verslag (also available in French) More about the presentation at Perspective – Bureau Bruxellois de la Planification:
It has been an intense week, indeed… we stayed at the Center Pole North where we exhibited drawings, analytical as well as future projections, and a model. Nathanaelle, Clemence, Elsa, Jan and Nadia answered the inquiries and coached the round tables with experts dealing with mobility, green-blue network and social-economic emancipation. Thanks to Elsa, Fanny, Adrian and Sven for helping organizing this. Thanks to those who took part in the round tables: you were too many to mention here ;) And a special thanks to Stefika and Caroline, neighbors, and the workers at the Center Pole North, for supporting us during this exciting week: a breakthrough in the way regional planning processes can reach out to those concerned ;)
More at https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:6376078287579553792/
Between 18-23/02/2018 the work we (1010-grue-brat-osmos) so far made for the PAD Maximilian-Vergote will be displayed at the Center Pole North.We look at this Meridian week as a potentially intense moment of exchange with inhabitants and other stakeholders.
On Sunday 18/02/2018 we organize three debates with Serege Kempeneers, Gery Leloutre, Lise Nakhle, Roeland Dudal, Olivier Bastin and Lieven de Cauter in the afternoon (soon available as podcast).
In the morning, we start the day with a brunch with inhabitants, a moment to explain the work so far completed and its institutional context. During lunch, we will eat our sandwiches while discovering the area anew: through the eyes of the river Senne (animated by Guillaume de Wauters and Benjamin Thibaux) or the industrial heritage (animated by Guido Vanderhulst).
Everyone welcome!
Nadia is now coordinating the design studio “SpaceSpeculation” at the ULB Faculty of Architecture. The aim of the studio is to introduce students to the metabolic and infrastructural organization of our cities in order to move from an object-centered approach to spatial design to a systemic one, engaging flows, actors and places into their proposals for urban transformation.
This semester the studio will attempt to review our connection to the food system by diving into a particular place: the morning market in Brussels, located along the northern edge of the Willebroeck Canal traversing Brussels, as an enclave between the Avenue de Vilvorde and the North-South railway corridor. In fact, our historical and rather immediate connection to the food system has been replaced by a sheer technical and logistic complexity, that has broken out the previous endless cycles into man-made, linear events. In this new constellation, the city is associated to unsustainable consumption practices, responsible to a great extent for the application of environmentally harmful agriculture techniques and human exploitation here and elsewhere.
More about the design unit at: http://archi.ulb.ac.be/etudes/enseignement-du-projet/space-speculation Concerning this semester's task: http://archi.ulb.ac.be/sites/default/files/documents/a_spac_2017-18_q2.pdf
Image: Joachim Beuckelaer, The vegetable vendor (1563)
It was a swift competition, with no time to seriously think about the over-ambitious commission we were risking to obtain… and we got it: a humble team, a humble approach, and scarce time to get ready for the IABR 2018! Now working full power on it, hoping to disentangle some of the production processes and actors that might support a further circularity of the M4H site.
Our partners on-site, Mariska and Ronald, proceed with interviews and try to identify potentially interesting actions to locally close the loop, while in Brussels we work on mapping the industries and actors that are still located in M4H and are struggling to improve the circularity of their operations.
Bert is now officially part of the Ostende City Atelier / Stadsatelier Oostende. Our work for the Coastal Line / Kustlint starts yielding its fruits ;)
More at: LINK TO OUR OWN WEBPAGE EXPLAINING THE PROJECT & https://twitter.com/StadsatelierO