Project

Atelier In Between

Atelier In Between is a policy preparation process commissioned by the Government of Flanders' Agency for Nature and Forests (ANB). It initiates a dialogue between the diverse actors that have an impact on the open space in the metropolitan area in and around the Brussels-Capital Region. Architecture Workroom Brussels facilitated a process of knowledge sharing and development about the future of the open space between the parties, experts and designers concerned, through cartographic research and a series of workshops.

 

While Flanders is becoming increasingly urbanised, the realisation of the importance of green, open space is gradually dawning. Although many still consider green open space as a weak sector that does not yield anything in economic terms, documentation of its value and functions contradicts this. The landscape provides a number of vital services: space for recreation, social contact, peace and quiet, food production, and energy generation or storage. What's more, it increases the resilience of the urbanised landscape with regard to the effects of climate change.

However, translating these insights into the policy of the different actors remains a major challenge. The choices made in each sector (housing, economy, mobility etc.) and at each competence level (regional, provincial, municipal), all have a specific impact on the same open space. A common vision enables more powerful, more transparent and more effective steering in the direction of the future to which we aspire for the open space in the urbanised metropolitan area around Brussels.

Atelier In Between includes a process involving workshops that bring together the parties concerned from different sectors, and took place in the autumn of 2013. The participants were experts from the academic world, and civil society (Bond Beter Leefmilieu, Natuurpunt, Boerenbond), designers, representatives from the Flemish and Brussels administrations and agencies (Spatial Planning and Housing Policy, Brussels Environment, the Agency for Nature and Forests, the Flemish Land Company) and local organisations. Following the launch of a green safari, an actual site exploration of the green, open space in Brussels and the Brussels Periphery (Vlaamse Rand), three thematic workshops were organised in relation to the perspectives of the housing landscape, productive landscape and resilient landscape. The challenges and problem areas were highlighted, knowledge was exchanged, and the opportunities for a different approach to the open space were gradually uncovered.

Eight concepts emerged during the workshops. Architecture Workroom Brussels bundled the findings in a series comprising eight large-scale design challenges for Brussels and its Periphery (Vlaamse Rand). The urban development agency LIST produced visual designs of the concepts and in April 2014 they were the subject of a synthesis-work session that focused specifically on inter-administrative dialogue.

Type: Atelier

Year: 2013-2014

Commissioning party: The Agency for Nature and Forests

Related Projects
2017: Atelier Zennevallei
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2018: Urbanising in Place
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Operation Open Space 2.0

Open space is vitally important. We need open space to safeguard our food supply and biodiversity. The open space also provides our urban society with many other services. It mitigates the effects of climate change, has a cooling function, offers buffer capacity for water shortages or excesses and is needed to generate renewable energy. What’s more, the open space affords us moments of calm, silence and experiential aspects that serve as an essential counterweight to hectic urban living. Over the course of the past century, the open space has been under pressure. We are increasingly eroding the open space for additional urbanisation, for living and working, for recreation or infrastructure. Open space has become a scarce commodity. In Flanders, seven hectares (or ten football pitches) of open space disappear every day. Despite the ‘concrete stop’ – or ‘construction shift’ – announced in the Spatial Policy Plan for Flanders, we continue to swiftly devour the open space.  → more

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WORKROOM

Since 2010, Architecture Workroom Brussels has focused on the future of our living environment. The organisation began as a safe haven to address the link between space and societal transitions, aimed at fostering a futureproof design practice, commissioning and building culture.

It has now become evident that the transformation of our streets, neighbourhoods, and landscapes is both a prerequisite and a lever for achieving societal goals in synergy. Yet we observe that these transformations remain difficult to imagine and implement. They span so many sectors and involve so many actors that responsibility falls on everyone, and therefore, ultimately, on no one.

That is why we make it our mission to create the space that connects them. And with this refined mission comes a new name: WORKROOM, House for transformation. WORKROOM is the shared space where the future of our living environment is not only imagined but also organised.

We are currently taking the lead on three mission-driven transformations:

  • SOCIETAL INCUBATORS - By 2030, stakeholders from the youth, culture, sports, care and education sectors will join forces to create renewed societal spaces that tackle loneliness and counteract the fragmentation and pressure on public infrastructure.
  • FOSSIL-FREE NEIGHBOURHOODS - By 2030, at least ten neighbourhoods will be underway with the transition to fossil-free energy in an inclusive and affordable way, with a view to completely phase-out fossil fuels by 2040.
  • SPONGE LANDSCAPES - By 2030, we will have achieved our water, agriculture and nature goals through a single, coherent approach at catchment area level, in which strong regional coalitions collectively enhance the landscape's sponge capacity.

To make these transformations a reality, WORKROOM works shoulder to shoulder with pioneering designers, local authorities, organisations and businesses, governments, knowledge institutions and impact investors.

Through co-creative design, we imagine shared pathways to the future in exhibitions, publications, innovation programmes and public programmes. These are the workrooms where we connect the actors capable of realising these transformations. From there, we design shared ownership and the organisational, funding and policy models that lead to real change.

The name is simpler. The stakes are higher. WORKROOM is the shared space where we tackle the social and spatial transformations that no one can achieve alone. In an era of polarisation, compartmentalisation and instability, that is perhaps the most radical thing we can do.