WATER LINE, Forest (Belgium), 2016-2019

Client : City of Forest
Team : TAKTYK, INFRA Services
Program : Public Spaces
Location : Forest (Belgium)
Surface Area : 3 ha
Cost : 1 500 000 €
Date : 2016 – 2019

This consultation is an opportunity to approach water as a common good. In the context of Brussels 2040, the logic of hydrosystems, the Senne valley and Voluwe valley, continue to be developed at the scale of the metropolis.

In Forest, it’s at the operational scale of the watershed that we mobilized. How can we retain rainwater by creating supports for new uses? The route of the water retains water from the watershed, contributes to the mesh of man and life, and stimulates new experiences of space. The risk of water becomes a subject, an opportunity for the emergence of a collective project. The work of the neighborhood contract and civic engagement are demonstrative of the recognition of the issues and expectations that are exerted through this consultation.

A strategic project 
Tracé de l’eau is an opportunity to improve the hydrological behavior of the watershed. We also understand that the objective of the project of public space in a dilated communal territory, is to accompany the invention of a communal urbanity that extends from the station of Forest East to the place Saint-Denis. On this scale, the future of the station near a civic and neighborhood pole and the affirmation of the Abbey as a cultural center are two strong levers that we have integrated into the agenda of public space.

An inventive tool box
The creation of public space in Forest must show and test the work for future operations in the territory of the municipality.