Project: Masterplan Publieke Ruimte Peterbos
Location: Peterbos, Anderlecht (Gewest Brussel)
Year | Duration: 2020 - now
Partners: Osmos, Createlli, VVV, Studio Paola Viganò
Client: City Renovation Department Anderlecht
CONTEXT AND OBJECTIVES
Peterbos is a neighborhood of Brussels built in 1967 and made up almost entirely of social housing in which around 3,000 people live. Today it is one of the most complicated areas of Brussels, and the public space is degraded.
In this context, the Brussels City Council, promoted in 2017 from the "Sustainable Neighborhood Regeneration" program a contest for a comprehensive regeneration project with a participatory process whose objective was to involve the different actors, in particular residents, in a sustainable process of regeneration of the neighborhood. The objective of the project is for Peterbos to achieve an active, inclusive urban public space, where the inhabitants feel involved and responsible for their neighborhood and therefore vandalism, robberies, feelings of insecurity, drug trafficking that today today they take place in the neighborhood.
The process is divided into three phases: phase 0 of participatory analysis, phase 1 in which an architecture competition is launched based on the participatory assessment needs program, from which the studios Studio Paola Viganò and VVV Studio are winners. In phase 2, in which a participation is made on the urban proposal developed by the technical team in phase 1. Participation is resumed so that citizens can comment on the proposal and based on this, the rethinking and necessary corrections to the urban renewal plan.
The objective of the new Masterplan is to focus on these problems and try to solve them, the goals set are the following:
-
Enhance the landscape, reducing the "obstacle" effect, the discontinuity and opening the space, making it more permeable and thus avoiding corners.
-
To make the park pleasant again for pedestrians and cyclists, for this also by redefining the place of the car.
-
Activate and connect the social and recreational life of the Park with plains, gardens, roads, greener and more equipped paths, activating the ground floors, kiosks and living spaces.
THE PARTICIPATION PROCESS
Createlli participated in the participation of the second phase, which we divided into three parts: informative, propositional, and devolutive-reflective. We propose a multi-channel participation, involving the neighborhood associations, the administration, political people and people from the neighborhood.
The informative part consisted of two digital informative sessions (due to the COVID situation) with neighboring people and the technical team. We translate the design into a less technical and more informative language. A permanent exhibition point was also set up in the local area of the neighborhood, where posters and a model were displayed to explain the architects' proposal to citizens.
In the participatory part, we organize walks around the neighborhood divided by groups of agents (adolescents, women, and inhabitants in general), with the technical team and the participatory team. We organized a dynamic with children as agents of the future, in which they imagined how they would want their neighborhood in the future. At the same time, we launched a digital survey in which 200 people participated.
In the devolutive-reflexive part, we gathered the conclusions and elaborated a day of return and exchange between the technical people and the neighboring people, and the rest of the agents, exposing the results obtained and delving into the points where there was less consensus or that they had been considered more delicate.
RESULTS
In the online survey 104 people participated, 128 in physical activities and a total of 28 drawings of children between 6-12 years old were collected. A total of 260 people were mobilized (it must be taken into account that some people have been able to participate in more than one activity).
Thanks to the different means used, many and diverse opinions could be included in the final report. They highlighted issues such as insecurity, concerns about cleanliness, proposals to improve open spaces, and suggestions for street names to facilitate accessibility. The architects work with the opinions received to finalize the Masterplan having all this information.
In the autumn of 2020, the technical team has made the necessary corrections and rethinking, which will be checked again with the public this winter.
