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Project

The Socio-ecological Turn in Urbanism. Historicizing Interpolations between Ecology, Urban design and Participation in Brussels

Brussels, as many cities world-wide, faces a double challenge. On the one hand, the demand for housing and office space results in a continuous increase in built-up area. On the other hand, the Brussels Capital Region needs more open space for recreation and environmental needs, such as water management and biodiversity. This duality recently came to the fore in the debate about the so-called Friche Josaphat, a wasteland on a former marshalling yard, where the Brussels Region plans 1,600 dwellings in an area that was labelled as a green lung in the Regional Plan for Sustainable Development. These plans, however, are contested by a number of action committees, arguing that the built program is situated on ecologically valuable land and its construction would lead to irreversible loss of biodiversity and the destruction of an essential link in the Brussels ecological network. The competing claims on open space are also reflected in the interactions between different governmental actors. They manoeuvre between on the one hand biodiversity and ecological claims, and on the other hand the need for urbanization in the Brussels Region. Moreover, governmental institutions are fragmented and open space policies are divided between urban development agencies (like Perspective Brussels), and the environmental agency (like Brussels Environment). Also, the action committees cannot fully play their role as ‘watchdog’: although participation has in the last decades been juridically inscribed in planning processes, the arguments of the committees are often not taken into account in the actual design and planning of urban space. Due to institutional fragmentation in both the governmental institutions and the action committees, there are not enough forums in which debates on the balancing of urbanization and ecological needs can be funnelled and resolved. In conclusion, two related sets of tensions occur in today’s planning policies in Brussels: first, between social and ecological goals, and second, institutions and committees. Some of the most pressing urgencies in Brussels, such as housing and social facilities, seem to come at the detriment of nature, biodiversity and the other way around. Among different types of governmental institutions, and between governmental institutions and action committees, there is a lack of forums where different options for urban development can openly be discussed. These tensions, and the need for forums in which they can be discussed, have been on the agenda before. Interactions between social and ecological dimensions have existed in past planning and design practices in Brussels, through the collaboration of action committees, experts, governmental institutions, and designers from the 1960s onwards. In the 1960s, action committees gained a foothold in discussions on urban planning, claiming the place of citizens in the debate and decision-making process on how the city should be developed – even to the extent that Brussels became known as the ‘city of the 100 action committees’. Today, the most prominent of these action committees are BRAL (Brusselse Raad voor het Leefmilieu / Brussels Council for the Environment), IEB (Inter-Environnement Bruxelles, Inter-Environment Brussels, which represents several french-speaking action committees) and ARAU (Atelier de Recherche et d'Action Urbaines / Studio for Research and Action). Indeed, Brussels has a long history of debate and cooperation between governmental institutions and action committees. Two instruments, in particular, were paramount: First, the organisation of tables rondes (round tables) that brought together competing claims and actors in one forum. For example, the first round table on the planning of the Maelbeek Valley in 1971 allowed action committees to halt the plans of the national government to build a large urban highway through the city centre, and to request a more green development. Second, the so-called ‘counterprojects’: designs that proposed and visualised alternative futures for particular urban developments, mainly developed by the action committee ARAU. They were a means for contestation and development of new alliances, and a laboratory for new kinds of environmental design. In many cases, they incorporated ‘green’ concerns in urban projects. We can learn from these past experiences, yet these historical precedents must be critically revisited. The history of civil strife and participation in Brussels has been studied in architecture, urban design and urban policies. But when it comes to how action committees dealt with the tensions between green and built space, much less is known about the cooperation between these committees, planning agencies, scientific experts, and urban designers in Brussels from the 1960s onwards. Existing historical research focuses on how the political and ideological context is expressed in the built form, but rarely on how broader ecological concerns are translated in design concepts. This project therefore aims at filling this gap and develop 1) A historiography of the action committees and of the expertise they developed/relied upon, with a particular attention to the round table and the counterproject as tools for socio-ecological debate and cooperation; 2) An understanding of how these tools and strategies connect with current and alternative methods of discussion, intervention and development of future scenarios, such as research-by-design. Indeed, in the field of architecture and urban design, research-by-design has been an effective instrument for exploring alternative futures, internationally as well as in Brussels. In this project we therefore propose a double approach that brings together history – usually seen as a reflective science - and design - which is prospective - in an innovative framework. We aim to study the history of participation and urban design in Brussels, while using design prospectively in contemporary discussions on open spaces in Brussels. In this innovative methodology, the common logic of these sciences is reversed: history becomes a prospective tool for contemporary discussions, while design provides a reflection on those same discussions. The goal of this research project is to develop a critical historiography of participatory urbanism in Brussels focussing on conflicting ecological and social claims, that can be mobilized in current-day debates about urban design and policy making. Thus, the research will provide the action committees with operative insights regarding their own past, and offer a conceptual framework for designers and policy makers that goes beyond the unproductive duality between built and open space.

Date:15 Dec 2022 →  Today
Keywords:urbanism
Disciplines:Landscape architecture practice, Landscape architecture history and theory, Regional and urban history, Architectural history and theory, Architectural design history and theory, Design practice, Urban and regional design, Sustainable design, Voluntary associations, participation and civil society
Project type:PhD project