Garden of the Common Hill
The Emanation of the Commons Ku Leuven Sint Lucas Brussel Patrick Moyersen, Jasmien Wouters 2021-2022 Pau Martín Comas
Chapters Introduction to the site Site plan Images and moments Experiences narrated
Axis of interest of the site XYZ X Basilique d Sacre Coeur perspective Y Schaerbeek door exhume Z Ascension and descention by levels
History pill of the city of Brussels Schaerbeek door in medieval times Schaerbeek boulevard for the Bourgeois Jardin Botanique Transformation into business center
Midwinter and the grid where we witness Thoughts on the midwinter composition
Proposal for a common Botanique Step 1: Bridge to bring back Schaerbeek door Step 2: Expanding the overlapped layers to uplift the garden and landscape Step 3: Create hilly landscape to organize the garden 360º
Designing the hill from blank space Sketches annd references of the design process
Materialising the hill Pictures of the process, references and result of the proposal
The site plan is located on Jardín Botanique stretching from the façade of the Finance Tower to the Botanical garden building
Botanical garden building
Finance Tower
The starting spot of the exploration is a big tree on the botanical garden. On a sunny Sunday I reach to grasp what I see it’s happening. I reached the beloved tree and I expected people to be sitting in front of it, but no one was there this time. I sit on a bench and a lady sits on a bench on my right and another one on my left as the three of us sit in peace of mind. People at the park are walking around in families, couples at a slow pace or friends laying on the grass tanning like lizards do
There are plenty of bugs, flowers are out and the only people who look stressed are dog walkers. Some people walk on their own to explore, meditate or run away. Sun comes and each on their own condition walks between the bushes and by the paths. A girl with a suitcase looks lost and searches on the phone for what path she should take. A lady with a velvet dress takes a picture of the tree. A crazy child runs up and down with some fancy sunglasses. He was all over the place, falling on the ground, and it was more intense than the rest of the family but as he was living his fantasy the energy did not run out.
Sun is out and birds are singing while I hear the soft breeze on the tree leaf. The scene could not be more romantic if there was an impressionist painting outside of this scene. A girl jumps on the bench, and I move a little, but the father says you do not need to move because the girl just wanted to jump on his shoulders, and it was not smooth so I was concerned our integrity would be damaged, but they left successfully.
We can point out the noise coming from the highway and a train passing by. They are constant on a bigger or smaller intensity, and they are part of the landscape together with the trees, birds, and skyscrapers. Somehow people in charge agreed that what they wanted was a city resembling New York or Paris with big infrastructures and business in mind while most people who disagreed just ran away to the outskirts. So now there’s little people who genuinely put care in here.
People observed is: -Crazy family and powerful looking mum and big hair. Eccentric crazy son. Father and son that push the walk forward. -Boy Instagram dressed collecting people’s looks. -Guy dressed in black with headphones who walks in a very energetic way moving his arms just like in a marathon. -Business students with strong opinions and a beer at hand. -Man coming from manual labor having a cigarette with a very clear direction. -Intellectual couple celebrating the ritual of a stroll as scheduled on the calendar.
-Coachella Californian girls maybe lesbians wearing a cup of coffee wanted to sit, but none of the benches were fully available. They go in disapproval. -High school couple playing fool around they are happy. -The two ladies on the bench are now having a nap. -Flemish family in cheetah clothes walk in group like the Kardashian, as the mum rules and the girls follow. -Spanish family walk by with colorful clothes for children and black clothes for the parents. They look like the father wants to act as a leader, but he is abstracted from what happens while the mum manages them altogether.
Axis of interest of the site XYZ
Axis X - Basilique du Sacre Coeur perspective
Axis Y - Schaerbeek door exhume
Axis Z - Ascension and descension by levels
The Boulevard du Jardin Botanique was inagurated in the 1820s, and was also called Boulevard du Schaerbeek. By the time it was one of the favourite spots of ‘Bruxellois’. The view to the Basilique du Sacre Coeur is almost exclusive for motor transport, in a way that reduces the Botanical Park and other leisure activities to a leftover from the road system magnitude.
The site as a door worked as a node between the urban context of the city ‘core’ and the rural context of the ‘near to the road’ neighbourhoods. This distinction is still preseent in the street fabric and building tipologies, but the door is now buried under interlacing highway, avenue, train, tram and metro tracks. As well as the construction of the Congres building and parking, Finance tower and Botanical garden. The node is nowadays quite broken and serves as a public transport interchange, long road between Rogier and Saint Josse and a beautiful garden to chill on Sundays as well as other activities.
The scale of the site is highly contrasted between the industrial brick houses and the international style concrete skycrapers. Also situated on a slope, allows for different levels of infrastructure to intertwin from tram, motorway, metro, parking and garden. All in an unclear composition yet unresolved from the construction of ‘la jonction’ of the train network from Gare du Nord to Gare du Midi. We approach the slope and superposition of levels as an opportunity to expand the possibilities of the site in a vertical direction and wishes to make the transitions gentle and smooth. At the same time, willing to give a little homage to the colossality, beauty and hostility of the accidented landscapes.
History pill of the city of Brussels
Brussels map on 1712 drawn by Fricx E.
Schaerbeek door in medieval times
Porte de Schaerbeek drawn by J.J. Bulens
The first enclosure of the city is thought to be built in the XI century in the shape of a rampart with punctual towers and seven gates. It was quickly overwhelmed and suburbs started appearing around it. It was in 1357 when the Brabant succession war that the Count of Flanders penetrated the city without incidents. After this event, the second enclosure was built including the suburbs and cultivable area. It also contains seven doors and was reinforced later with ravelins, half-moons, bastions, defensive towers and hornworks. Fort Monterey, a square and regular citadel flanked by four bastions and designed according to the rules dear to Vauban, was built between Saint-Gilles and Forest. But these works would quickly go out of fashion. Barely a century later, the enclosure already lost all military value.
Porte de Schaerbeek around 1613 drawn by Cantagallina
Schaerbeek Boulevard for the Bourgeois
By the XIX century the urban structure of the medieval city was still pretty intact. The surroundings of the city were described by Charles Ondiette as “…no less pleasant than the other walks inside and outside this city; they are shaded by large bushy trees, between which one discovers in various places all the town and the surrounding countryside…” However, with the Industrial revolution the city needed to expand, so a contest was celebrated to design the new boulevards on the land previously occupied by the rampart. The wining proposal by Vifquain planned to establish a wealthy neighborhood in the east side, described by him as “the most beautiful position in the whole city, the most magnificent views”. The plan also considered the proximity to the Royal Palace as a motivation for investors to get behind grand and enchanting projects.
Jardín Botanique “Le Botanique” was produced on the initiative of the Royal Netherlands Horticultural Society, and it intended to bring together in the same building the scientific, administrative and symbolic functions of a botanical garden. Pierre-François Gineste, an artist and decorator was in charge of the project. The orientation of the building was initially planned facing the slope but it was eventually changed facing the city and in a south orientation improving the performance of the greenhouse. The building is in a neoclassical and monumental style, and was extended several times. A portico was added at Rue Royale side as well as a big party hall, a library and a new room of herbarium were built. The site was regularly threatened with reconstruction, transformation, even destruction. The work on the North-Midi railway junction would lead to the split in two and a portion removal of the garden. In 1983, “Le Botanique”, cultural center of the French Community Wallonia - Brussels was created and it continues to this day.
Transformation into business center After the second world war and the tunnel construction between Gare du Nord and Gare du Midi, the site experienced a transformation from palace tipology and renaissant buildings to an administrative and financial district with the construction of the Congress building, the Finance tower and other constructions. Nowadays the situation is described as: “[...]original houses, apartment buildings dating from the interwar period [....] stand next to the Cité administrative de l’Etat, the Crédit Communal building and the Passage 44, while the towers [...] cast their shadow over this precious haven of harsh worms, amputated and redesigned over the years.” - Charles PICQUÉ MinistrePrésident de la Région de Bruxelles-Capitale chargé des Monuments et des Sites
Midwinter and the grid where we witness
Midwinter
Midsummer
Midsummer
Love
How is winter brought to us? We already bid farewell to the explosion of life, and now we are surrounded by a cold and quiet fog. Let me know when things are still so I can see the real picture. The grid is this blank space in which all phenomena is allowed to happen. In it we witness the experiences of true meaning. They happened in the past and they are happening in this moment, since everything you do it’s been done before and everything you say I said that yesterday. The city pours a river of thought so .
Stillness -Trees release the leafs and fall asleep so they don’t have ‘eyes’ anymore to explore the wind pass by, now they only have their solid roots to relate with the earth and the nearby trees. -Bears go to sleep in hibernation -We rather stay at home or somewhere nearby than going to explore new places -Depression hits as the landscape looks dead Cold -We need protection and our boundaries are a shield. Allowing us to cover our truth and get away with it. -We want to be a ball and resist cold – Stretch embracing ourselves – self hug -Air feels fresh but u don’t want it to intrude cause its cold uuh Introspection -Lots of time to sleep -Sleep and dreams is time to visualize life through emotions to consume them and so let go of the experiences and learn. Attention to the past and future. -You set yourself in a conscious way Intenseness of emotions -Loneliness presents you to express so it builds up the intenseness Cooperation to survive -We need other people’s collaboration to survive be on our own in the wild means death.
Proposal for a common Botanique
The amount of information and context experienced in this site is unreal. Given to us by the legacy of time and boosted by contiguous cultures thet keep the city moving. With this information the next step is to shape a proposal. The purpose is to improve the full realm of this urban node. Building, preserving and unbuilding the things that happen to make sense. Through the exploration, different ideas are explained and they will lead to a conclusive understanding of an architectural project. The tools used are drawings, models and photographs.
Step 1: Bridge to bring back Schaerbeek door
View on Boulevard Leopold II from Sacre Coeur church showing the Congress building and other administrative buildings at the horizon.
Boulevard Leopold II viaduct photographed together with the nowadays Pompidou Center currently ceased.
Step 1 The urban highway of the Brussels ring and Parc Botanique Avenue dominate the crossing between Schaerbeek and the old city center. The first intention is to remove this underwhelming situation by lifting the infrastructure creating this big arch of entrance alluding the medieval Schaerbeek door, also known as Köln door.
Step 2: Expanding the overlapped layers to uplift the garden and landscape
Extreme superposition happens in Atomium. Different scenes are in different levels, visually distant from each other.
Big hall on underground metro Botanique as a common space layered underground.
Step 2 A lot of connections cross at this point. To enhance the garden, those connections need a less prominent take of the floor. Instead they can lift or bury underground, to expand the free surface and give richness to the infrastructure and garden.
Step 3: Create hilly landscape to organize the garden in 360º
Cappadocia underground city in Turkey
Mitsky concert in Botanique provisional hall
Step 3 A hilly landscape serve as a key to organize the site in 360º. Creating a strong visibility on the garden and subtract some attention from the massive office buildings, currently dominating the scene. There are different tryals and inspiration used to reach the hill desired, and the process is explained on the following pages. This hill has no other purpose than to interrupt the hectic present situation, and replace it for a leisure space. Allowing new possibilities for the common activities that nowadays require exclusivity, which is quite odd.
Designing the hill from blank space
At first it’s not so easy to make the intention and the production meet. The intention on the left explains in a conceptual way how this accidented landscape could be key to coordinate a very complex space with a scale already unrelated to the human and with it’s own personal essence. There are undocumented tryouts with aluminum paper baking paper and papiermâché that will bring me to the fitting shapes.
The current regular position of the towers, garden edges and road configuration doesn’t answer to the caothic and organic distribution of the other facilities. Exploding the edges with complexity, increase the possibilities of this place, removing the walls for porches, the crossroads for new façades, the infrastructure leftovers for an extension of the garden. Breaking those limits boost the purpose of improving free space.
Concrete structure near Brussels Canal
This complexity requires an extensive control over the topography. Site view help trans-cribe what is the effect of the design, since the proposal doesn’t have a single façade but instead is projected in all axis XYZ.
IMO in Barcelona by Pepe Llinás
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Materialising the hill
One piece of the total area is chosen to describe the material and constructive detail. This spot is located in front of the finance tower on a highly accidented slope meaning to act as a voluptuous node between Rue Royale, Congress gardens and the balcony onto Boulevard du Jardin Botanique with views all the way to Sacre Coeur.
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Berliner Philarmonie by Hans Scharoun
Crematorium by Toyo Ito
These shapes require a system furhter than those based on a regular grid as the traditional concrete, steal and wood do. Instead an option is to use a pattern that disconnects the regular interior from the irregular surface. An example would be a concrete structure that hold different beams in the shape desired as Hans Scharoun does in the Berliner Philarmonie. Another method is creating the interior in relation to the surface and relating them in shape, as in the crematorium by Toyo Ito. A trial for this shape is using a structure made of cardboard resembling the land on the left picture or a concrete structure on the bottom picture and relying onto it a piece of fabric soaked in plaster so it hardens in this instantaneous shape.
The hardened fabric can also be a structural element by itself, but the challenge is to give it a shape as it needs to be still for some time until it gets reach stifness. As Gaudí used to do, a method that can help and solve the design and structural challenge is hanging upside down the fabric. If we hang it from the spots we want to use as columns then the shape is partly achieved.
Hanging model of Cripta Güell by Antoni Gaudi
Having a previous reference of the hanging spots, the next step is to lay all the plaster dissolved in water on the fabric. When upsite down we can already see the properties of that material and sense the confusion of the fabric look and the stiff touch.
Finally the human scale is given through cutout paper human silouettes and dry weed dumped in plaster. On the following page the resulting model is shown sectioning the land in the four cardinal directions.
The structure is based on parabolic concrete curves that hold the weight of the thick earth layer, trees and vegetation. Within this thickness from inside to outside we find these elements: -Building and mining crums attached on a wire grid and solidified with cement. -Concrete wall with varying thickness depending on the weight. -Water treatment layer including insulation for the walls and drainage. -Earth of a generous thickness to allow trees to grow in adecuate conditions. -Biodiversity of floral speices to mimic the synergy happening in a natural environment.
This aproximate representation of the model and it’s measurements can be more properly seen in the following images. They represent different scenes during the day together with the light conditions.
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