Soil+Land Stewardship – Projects – Architecture Workroom Brussels

Healthy soil is the source of all life on earth. We sometimes forget this, because it lies beneath our feet. Three future scenarios explore how we can improve our soil care and become soil stewards.

Publication 'The Future of Soil and Land Stewardship'

Detail illustration from Scenario 1 'Save Our Soil'

Detail illustration from Scenario 2 'We Are Soil'

Detail illustration from Scenario 3 'Operation Soil'

Healthy and living soil is of immeasurable value. It ensures durable water management, healthy food production and rich biodiversity. Nowadays, few people realise how important soil is for man and nature. In order to raise awareness about the soil, OVAM has created 'Soil+Land Stewardship'. The initiative aims to provide an action perspective for all actors who come into direct or indirect contact with soil. Farmers, gardeners, entrepreneurs, food consumers: we are all soil stewards. Looking after soil means looking after our future generations.

Together with a group of stakeholders from all over Europe, OVAM and ShiftN developed three future scenarios, which Architecture Workroom has visualised. They explore the directions in which Soil+Land Stewardship could develop between now and 2050. The three resulting creations each take the reader on a different journey. An activist pamphlet demonstrates the strong bottom-up driven movement of 'Save Our Soils'. A board game encourages the rediscovery of the natural wealth in our immediate environment, and a strategic map illustrates continental cooperation between Europe and Africa around soil care.

The three future scenarios do not point out a clear path we should follow, but show us different possibilities. They help us explore the consequences of certain choices. OVAM wants to use the future scenarios to engage in dialogue with stakeholders, potential soil stewards and partners, with the aim of broadening the scope of soil stewardship as a practice.

Year: 2020-2021

Commissioning party: Public Waste Agency of Flanders (OVAM)

Partner: ShiftN

More information: here

Use of publication and posters 'Soil + Land Stewardship'

Poster Scenario 1 'Save Our Soil'

Poster Scenario 2 'We Are Soil'

Poster Scenario 3 'Operation Soil'

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.