FLUCTUATIONS, Liège (Belgium), 2022

Program : “L’architecture peut-elle réconcilier le fleuve et ses habitants ?” Exhibition
ICA-WB (Institut Culturel d’Architecture Wallonie-Bruxelles)
Location : Liège (Belgium)
Date : 2022

A sponge (park) on a (water)table
In a context of urban densification, the value of existing urban park is not yet to be contested. In Brussels nevertheless most of them being under heritage jurisdiction, they are considered as frozen images of nature. The attentive examination of existing ground conditions leads to responsive design strategies to adapt those needed spaces to current socio ecological challenges

Picturesque revisited
Through to the first Brussels Urban Landscape Biennal we highlighted in the whole Brussels region the potential of heritage park located in rich sandy ground to become sponge parks, a new public infrastructure vital at the scale of a several watersheds. This hypothesis is tested through the design of on action plan for water and biodiversity improvement in Josaphat park, an iconic Brussels park. What is at stake? We deal here with a real paradox. The park was conceived as a piece of a valley, but its current water management ignore it. Above the ground, the architect Galopin designed the park as a succession of scenes of nature along several lakes with very poor living quality. Under the ground a vast pipe and pumping systems bring the water to the top of the park featuring a cascade. Working closely with hydrologist and biodiversity experts the design research attests the potential of the sandy ground to infiltrate and retain water above the clay. We discover that the wooden hills of the park can become a vast water reservoir able to supply constant flow of water into the pond system. In short, our proposition acknowledges the ecology of the valley as an alternative to the obsolete technological design of the park. The picturesque is understood not as a scenographic construction but as a holistic attempt to design places for living human-nonhuman systems. 

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Picture copyright : Adrien de Hemptinne