The Pocket Parks project is being carried out as part of sustainable neighborhood contracts, an urban renewal policy at the Brussels regional level. These four new parks are located along railway lines on residual spaces. Like stepping stones, they contribute on their own scale to the search for local, territorial, and social connections, functioning both as small neighborhood facilities and as parks that are part of a larger metropolitan continuum. This project is being developed through a participatory process, in consultation with stakeholders, citizens, associations, designers, and decision-makers. Four visions are proposed for each site: the terrace, an urban square and future forecourt for new housing; the valley, a place for urban exploration overlooking the railway; the garden station, an experimental, co-managed neighborhood garden; and finally, the stop, a former royal station facing the canal and the neighborhood's belvedere overlooking the city.
The current crisis has prompted civil society to question notions such as property, service, and the value of human labor. Initiatives such as co-construction, exchange, repair cafés, and neighborhood composting are all contributing to the transformation of public spaces and their implementation process. More generally, a landscape project is designed for the long term, and its sustainability is linked to its management and appropriation by residents. The Pocket Parks project aims to integrate these initiatives as widely as possible, since these future new spaces will depend entirely on local involvement in their management. Pocket Parks could then become new “commons” at the heart of the city and its residents.
nominated for brussels architecture prize 2021, public space category
photographs : © Severin Malaud