Molenbeek: festival and legacy

Molenbeek Festival and Legacy

ISBN: 978-0-7017-0241-0

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February 2011

‘The work of design produces narratives that add to the value of existing contexts, and at its narrowest, to the utility logics of the economic corporate world. But there is also a kind of public-making work that can produce disruptive narratives, and make legible the local and the silenced.’ Saskia Sassen

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MOLENBEEK

festival and legacy

A Study in Urban Design and Architecture

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MOLENBEEK

festival and legacy

A Study in Urban Design and Architecture

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Acknowledgements

Daniel Mallo and Armelle Tardiveau

Our deepest thanks go to Christine Fontaine, architect and lecturer at UCL, Saint-Luc Brussels School of Architecture, Engineering and Urbanism. This project emerged out of a series of conversations we have had with Christine who now has become a regular and expected guest critic for the final year students in architecture at Newcastle University. This long-standing relationship has enabled the development of a project on one site (Molenbeek) for post-graduate students of Saint-Luc and Newcastle University with different pedagogical and architectural concepts. We hope to engage in joint projects again in the future as it benefits the students in providing them with a wider perspective on public space and architecture as well as challenges and enriches the pedagogical approach.

Christine Fontaine organised the workshop in Brussels outstandingly by putting us in contact with Wim Embrecht (director and coordinator of Platform Kanal and ART2WORK) who generously hosted us in the Belle Vue brewery located at the heart of the area of study. Wim also gave his time to speak to the students about the complexity of Molenbeek as well as the mission of Platform-Kanal. Wim Embrecht’s energy and capacity to gather forces for Molenbeek has been hugely inspiring. Christine also invited Abdelmajid Boulaioun and Stefan de Corte to whom we are most grateful for their talks to our students.

Abdelmajid Boulaioun (architect and director

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of ARJM, lecturer at UCL, Saint-Luc Brussels) presented a competition his practice took part in which proposed a participatory process for a neighbourhood rather than focusing on a design outcome. This approach was of great support to our brief and also generated an important discussion on how to win a jury panel when the outcome of a process cannot be anticipated.

Stefan de Corte (lecturer in geography at Vrije Universiteit Brussels and founding member of the Interdisciplinary Urban Research Centre COSMOPOLIS) provided us with a greater understanding of Molenbeek and the Senne canal in terms of their economic, historic and social role for the region and the country.

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Finally, we would like to thank the students for their enthusiasm, their trust in their tutors and their skills to unearth valuable material that transforms spaces.

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Contents

Acknowledgements Daniel Mallo and Armelle Tardiveau

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Platform Kanal, A Citizens’ Movement Wim Embrechts and Fabian Staben

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Festival of Initiatives Daniel Mallo and Armelle Tardiveau

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City & Participation: The Brussels Canal Christine Fontaine

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Student Projects Local Initatives Film Park - Small Kitchen, Big Eat - Altering Perceptions 12- 35 Outreach Initiatives Music Box - Say the Word - Eat Festival - Made in Molenbeek 36- 67 Bridging Initiatives Boat Build - Raft Race - Urban Book 68- 89

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A Citizens’ Movement

Wim Embrechts and Fabian Staben

PLATFORM KANAL, A CITIZENS MOVEMENT Based in the building of the former brewery Belle-Vue in Molenbeek-Saint-Jean, Platform Kanal was formed in 2008 as a citizens’ movement after a series of encounters and discussions about the post-industrial conversion/ renewal of old industrial urban districts. As a result of a spontaneous synergy between a range of persons with a collective “sense of urgency” with regard to common challenges and problems, the participants agreed on the need to open up their debate and bring it to a higher level, covering all the Canal Zone. The debate is about the need for visions for the future of the city of tomorrow, about the creation of a vision that is supported by a large number of local actors and partners, about making the most of the potential of these districts and their populations. There is a consensus about the need for new links between people, sectors, interests, and energies. The initiators agreed furthermore on the necessity for an integrated and dynamic approach. Bridges have to be built in order to address these challenges: bridges between physical urban structures (districts, municipalities…), bridges between the public authorities involved and citizens, between different social sectors, between cultures and between private partners

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and civil society. Platform Kanal is an open network of individuals who want to concretise their common goals, are willing to take responsibilities and to act politically together with others. It started under the form of an informal network structure and it is neither a federation, nor an umbrella organisation, nor an interest group. Platform Kanal’s work is based on consensus.

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Owing to the increasing amplitude of its projects, Platform Kanal was established as a formal administrative entity (a nonprofit association under Belgian law) at the end of 2009. Today the organisation has an operational team of five permanent employees (the managing director, a project manager, a finance and administration officer, a neighbourhoods/ pedagogical officer and a communications officer) and an intern. Platform Kanal tries to engage with the largest possible spectrum. But due to the stratification and the complexity of the subject matter, to the large scope, to the high heterogeneity of the population and to the identities of the different urban quarters, the task is not easy. However, Platform Kanal is not operating in isolation It is part of a much wider citizens’ urban dynamic interconnected with other associations that aim to shape the city of tomorrow. All these coalitions are grassroots initiatives, researching new forms

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of democracy. In order to focus the work of the platform and to increase its efficiency, several work groups have been established.

Within these groups and based on their forms and orientations, specific programmes and projects have been initiated. Every group has its representative in the steering board of Platform Kanal, which allows integrated work. Local actors from different sectors and interested citizens constitute the work groups.

Recently, there has been a shift in the mode of function from the thematic work group approach to specific projects such as Festival Kanal. Strong partnerships, collaborations and temporary near-fusions between groups are the result of these projects. The development of a long-term vision is supported by concrete actions.

The organisation of Platform Kanal is committed to adapt to changes and the steady growth of its activities. Partnerships continue being created. The structure must nevertheless stay flexible and dynamic and needs to adapt depending on the efficiency of its activities and on its forces. The decisionmaking level is and will remain small.

The existing partnerships have extended autonomy. It is the strength of these various dynamics that shapes the platform as a whole.

Through collaboration, Platform Kanal wants to create added value by optimising and strengthening synergies. How is it possible to unite the programmes of some partners in order to optimise their final output? How can a win-win relation can be achieved? How to make the most of the existing energy? The values of Platform Kanal are citizen participation, emancipation and empowerment of the underprivileged, and a harmonious and controlled urban development. The consensus among its members becomes apparent through the projects that have been realised.

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Platform Kanal wants to increase the visibility of the Canal Zone’s challenges, of on-going local and supra-local projects, of existing possibilities and capacities of the inhabitants and the urban space. It addresses politicians, inhabitants, users and actors. It primarily wants to disclose the positive developments and capacities of the Canal Zone and its inhabitants. Platform Kanal aims to start a process of imagination of a larger vision.

Multiple meanings have to be attributed to this extended zone. This can be made possible through the confrontation of different development scenarios, of different visions for the future and of different political opinions, and through making the debate a public one.

Platform Kanal seeks to influence the political agenda with regard to the urban development of the Canal Zone, notably in the framework of the future Regional Sustainable Development Plan of the Brussels-Capital Region. Therefore it wants to put the debate on the table and thus sensitise and get as many involved as possible. If the need emerges, Platform Kanal can open up the debate to the public, offer expertise, give direction and take a stand, suggest propositions. This does not mean that Platform Kanal has only one single voice, vision, and standpoint. As a platform it wants to be a space of diversity and coexistence. Platform Kanal wants to put forward an innovative discourse on the different possibilities for a sustainable post-industrial development of Brussels’ old industrial districts. This is only possible by the means of an integrated action, going beyond (municipal and regional) territorial and (Flemish and French-speaking) community boundaries.

FESTIVAL KANAL Festival Kanal is the largest project of Platform Kanal. After a laboratory edition in September

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2010, a fully-fledged festival is now being organised. It will include physical artistic and architectural interventions in the public space that will be set up by early summer 2012. The main festive action will take place during one week in September 2012, coming to an end on the car-free Sunday (September 16). Festival Kanal sees the Canal Zone primarily as a public space and will use it as a stage for all the activities that will be free of charge. Festival Kanal wants to create a momentum that allows the examination of the challenges to the Brussels Canal Zone and to elaborate proposals for a harmonious urban development. It will be the starting point of a public debate about Canal Zone’s future. Festival Kanal wants to be leverage for the shaping of diverse social, economic and urban planning processes. It builds bridges between disciplines and sectors. The festival is a means of mobilising and bringing together local actors, engaged citizens and inhabitants in a creative and participative way, involving them in cultural and artistic projects.

Festival Kanal addresses the specific duality of the Canal Zone. The canal is an important waterway and road axis, but its urban districts are known for their social immobility and the canal is often perceived as a frontier. The festival aims to transform the area into a “mustgo zone” where the public is invited to stroll around (on foot, by bike, etc.), discovering, learning, interacting and intervening in an urban context. The festival perceives the Canal Zone as an “active space”.

of Brussels and of Belgium are located here.

“Cultural citizenship” is at the centre of the reflections on the festival, in a sense where citizenship is not being constructed on the basis of nationality, integration or tolerance, but on the basis of shared experiences, learning processes and empowerment. Participatory processes are a challenging task, notably in the context of disadvantaged neighbourhoods and populations. Festival Kanal wants to give a creative answer to the question of how to get people involved in the active shaping of their local urban environment.

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Festival Kanal wants to be a celebration, sending a positive message, contributing to a better image at different levels (locally, nationally and internationally). The festival conceives the Brussels Canal Zone as a vast urban laboratory and the canal as a central stage of an urban scenography.

Existing positive dynamics and initiatives are to be made more visible and reinforced.

Furthermore, new partnerships are to emerge from the festival. This process has started with the preparation phase of the festival and will not finish with its end.

Youth and inter- as well as trans-cultural issues play an important role in the festival. Festival Kanal wants to put forward a different image of the « canal youngsters ». The festival wants to offer these young people a preeminent place, to give them the space and to encourage them to get actively involved. The youngest districts

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Image: Google Earth 2012

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Festival of Initiatives

Daniel Mallo and Armelle Tardiveau

THE EDGE AND THE CENTRE The neighbourhood of Molenbeek, located at the westerly edge of the city of Brussels, lies within walking distance of its historic centre but is separated by the canal for the Senne River. This area is an ex-industrial quarter and currently one of the most deprived in the region with a high rate of non-qualified population and unemployment. The identity of the area is characterised by a negative stigma due to its run down built fabric and a highly diverse ethnic make-up of residents with a dominant group of North African origins. In recent years, the area has begun to attract creative minded people as well as young families in need of affordable space. The question at stake deals with how to revitalise this area while not excluding those who, more than often in regeneration development, are displaced further out.

The proposals presented in this book map the cultural diversity of Molenbeek and celebrate the everyday life activities of the residents as valuable assets for a positive, social and economic integrated development of communities. The brief proposed for the projects aims to consider what spatial practices enable existing or latent grassroots initiatives and how micro spatial interventions engage a macro section of the population within and beyond Molenbeek as well. Three spatial modes of intervention emerged from the proposals: ‘local initiatives’ concentrate on a unique focal point of intervention in the area, ‘bridging initiatives’ engage a dialogue of

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two specific places on both sides of the canal, ‘outreach initiatives’ capture momentum through mobile and dynamic approach.

Amongst the existing grassroots citizens’ initiatives in Molenbeek, Platform Kanal (a citizen’s movement) plays a key role which aims to create new ventures, cooperation and synergies between an open and diverse group of people including local residents, traders, academics, cultural actors, directors of enterprise zones, artists, architects and urban planners, etc. This independent network organises a bi-annual festival along the Canal, ‘a festival that builds bridges between people, districts, disciplines, sectors and cultures’. http://www.festivalkanal.be/

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RESIDENTS’ INITIATIVES ‘The work of design produces narratives that add to the value of existing contexts, and at its narrowest, to the utility logics of the economic corporate world. But there is also a kind of public-making work that can produce disruptive narratives, and make legible the local and the silenced.’ (Sassen, 2006) An initiative is the crystallisation and the enabler in which a community’s assets flourish and become productive. The wealth of the neighbourhood lies in the capacities of individuals and their formal or informal networks, yet often invisible and unrealised in areas such as that of Molenbeek. Supporting and giving space to initiatives, however small and modest these may be, provide the possibility to pull strengths together, create

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new combinations, new opportunities and new sources for income and production of a positive narrative (Kretzmann and McKnight, 1993). The highly diverse origins of the students taking part in this project mirrored the diversity of Molenbeek itself: The highly diverse origins of the students taking part in this project mirrored the diversity of Molenbeek itself: It facilitated the collection stories as well as the identification of core groups that can carry a process forward; it also enabled students to map associations and local institutions; finally, it helped to identify the leveraging activities and resources from outside the community that can support an asset-based development approach (Mathie and Cunningham, 2002).

Small scale initiatives were the focus of a research by City Mine(d), an international network of individuals and collectives involved with city and local action (www.citymined. org): in 2010, City Mine(d) organised in Brussels a series of events, workshops and debates under the overarching title ‘Urban Platform’. One of the aims was to illustrate and reflect on initiatives dealing with environment, democracy and solidarity in various European cities. Within ‘Urban Platform’, the project ‘Small initiatives, Big Challenges’ shed some light on the raison d’être of initiatives as well as attempted to find common grounds and create connections. City Mine(d) argue that initiatives don’t exist to make money or gain power, but emerge out of citizen’s desires or needs. Moreover, they are voluntary and selfinitiated and involve militants, activists and civil society. They also bridge the gap of the welfare state as citizens lead programmes promoting social inclusion, offering integration in the labour market or animating the sociocultural life (Moulaert et al., 2005).

FESTIVAL Platform Kanal defines the Festival Kanal as a ‘must go zone’ where ‘projects are artistically diverse and explore cultural, social, political and historical issues’. It is primarily within the cultural, social and political context that

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the projects presented unfold. The proposals address both initiative and festival yet, in different ways: the festival may act as a platform to give an impulse to an initiative; conversely, the festival consolidates an established initiative, thus making public the positive assets of the area. Bringing together initiative and festival allows for engaging two different time scales in one scheme: the visible part of the festival is encapsulated in a short and intense moment while the initiative requires a slower mode of deployment.

Festivals hold the capacity of transforming the everyday spaces to become ‘however briefly, places where lived experience and political expression come together’ (Crawford, 1999). The festival is a moment in time when everything is possible. Such event and temporary transformation of the urban space provide an opportunity to engage with the urban fabric as a theatre: it enables the possibility of turning the unfamiliar into the familiar, of changing threatening environments into places of fun, of making possible the impossible, in other words, altering the perception and meaning of an area. These ephemeral interventions hold the capacity to become a repository for social interaction, galvanising community wishes and turning them into new citizens’ initiatives.

The area defined for both festival and initiatives is articulated along the axis of the Canal, either side of which offering a wealth of unused or undefined spaces. The area has been envisaged as an entity, i.e. a Molenbeek-Brussels neighbourhood, rather than two sides parted by the caesura of the canal. The spatial articulation of activities for the festival is a form of temporary urban design requiring great precision due to its small scale and short time span. The initiatives often nest where the social support lies and the spatial vacuum invites them. The festival allows for the initiative to travel beyond the canal and back, wherever it started from.

Whether the initiative travels physically from one space to the other or spreads a rumour on the Molenbeek or Brussels side, they all leave a trace and spark an ephemeral change

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in the perception of the urban context. This transformation is part of the process that opens the possibility for change. The festival deals with weaving the social and urban fabric on both sides of the canal as well as celebrates the canal itself, its water and infrastructure, as a means of transportation to other part of the country or to imagined landscapes.

A NEW PERSPECTIVE City festivals have mushroomed throughout European cities in the past decade: they stimulate the economy and attract tourism, particularly in the summer, when local residents have deserted the city. However, the remit of the festival proposed here is of a different nature: it is intended to reveal the local potential of the area and empower a network of small-scale initiatives. This festival also allows for ‘multiple publics and varied struggles between contentious concerns’ and ‘multiple sites of public expression’ (Crawford, 1999): it exposes at once the variety of local initiatives and the diversity of audiences, thus not privileging a unique voice but ensuring that the multiplicity of voices in the area are equally celebrated. Festival Kanal, is indeed, an outstanding opportunity for both Brussels and Molenbeek to create new spatial experiences and opportunities.

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References: Crawford, M. (1999), Blurring the Boundaries: Public Space and Private Life in Chase J., Crawford M. and Kaliski J. (Eds.), Everyday Urbanism, New York: The Monacelli Press Kretzmann J. & McKnight J. (1993), Building Communities from Inside Out, Skokie, Illinois: ACTA publications Mathie, A. & Cunningham, G. (2002), From Clients to Citizens: AssetBased Community Development as a strategy for community-driven development. Occasional Paper Series, Nº4. Available at < http:// www.communityrestorationtrust.com/PDF/communitydevelopment. pdf> [Accessed 2 May 2012] Moulaert F., Martinelli F., Swyngedouw E. and Gonzalez S. (2005), Towards Alternative Model(s) of Local Innovation. Urban Studies, Vol. 42, No. 11, p. 1969–1990 Sassen, S. (2006), Making Public Interventions in Today’s Massive Cities. Available at <http://static.londonconsortium.com/issue04/ sassen_publicintervensions.php> [Accessed 2 May 2012]

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City & Participation

Christine Fontaine

Projects of urban rehabilitation In the course of its history, the area along the Brussels canal has undergone many mutations in the relation between water and human habitation. The water running through the city was itself once the River Senne and its harbour, before becoming the industrial canal we now see. The water was at this location going through the levees at the outer limits of the 11th and 12th century fortifications, a strong limit between the city and the countryside, or “Pajottenland”. The existing canal is actually the sum of three canals: the northern one heading toward Antwerp (11th-12th c.), the south one (1832) leading to the coal-mining region, they both were considered as ending in Brussels, seen as the platform of exchange, until the end of the 19th century when at last the north and south termini were connected by a third canal.

Because it is a physical limit, but also an administrative division between two Communes, the canal continues to be a vector of division between two neighbourhoods, two populations, two images of one city, two worlds.

The ambition of the actions that could change this situation is not to erase the differences between these separate neighbourhoods and make one homogeneous one, but to help these different communities live together in a climate of respect and mutual development.

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As the city has always turned its back to the water, because it was the vector of floods and illnesses, or the area for industrial activities, or the support for boat transportation, the challenge today is to reverse the schema backto-front and to ‘build’ along the canal a shared urban space.

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The valley of the Senne and its topography have historically reinforced a physical separation between the courtly and aristocratic quarter of the ville haute or ‘upper town’ and the proletariat, commerce and industry situated in the ville basse or ‘lower town’. Whereas the political and industrial logics are no longer the same today, social segregation persists.

Stefan de Corte summarises the Canal Zone in a few statistics, showing that the future of the city is right in this west central Brussels, where the vast majority of young people live today.

Three major social issues will also determine the future of Brussels tomorrow, as Eric Corijn explains: - Boom City: In the next 10 years, Brussels may count as many as 170 000 new inhabitants due to a jump of births in the immigrant communities but also because of the immigration in parallel to the exodus of Belgian community.

- Spatial evolution: the centre of Brussels had until recently a demographic profile exactly opposite of that of Paris, because in Brussels, the exodus of the elite had increasingly left the centre to the poor, whereas in Paris the

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centre is strongly identified with the elites.

Today, as the immigrant communities continue to settle on the west side of the canal, now abandoned by industry and commerce, the heart of Brussels is being re-appropriated by an elite community whose parents left Brussels in the sixties to live in suburban villas.

Current policies tending toward a ‘stronger regionalisation’ will have to contend with renewed interregional competition and the corresponding struggle to conciliate these contradictory tendencies in the attempt to restore both a healthy and adapted economy and a strong multicultural centre.

‘Neighbourhood Contracts’ (see: www. bruxelles.be/artdet.cfm/4962) have been undertaken, stimulating the renewal of poor and damaged neighbourhoods through public investment. New schools, sports centres, cultural places and social housing have been built, trying to offer to the communities shared spaces to use and identify with.

These operations have allowed programs at an intermediate scale to emerge under the figure of contemporary architecture. Thanks to these public programs, the identity of these places has completely changed in appearance, but also socially.

- A plan of the underground could take as its axis of symmetry the canal and would include within it the two Communes of Brussels and Molenbeek. The extension of the centre has no choice but to expand westward. This changes the vision of the canal from one of dividing the city into two parts, into one of connection.

The specificity of Brussels is also about the dynamic of local groups of people who, with the energy of spontaneous actions, manage to improve daily life. Platform-Kanal is one of them. Its actions allow the expression of invisible inhabitants, who would not normally speak in public but still are part of the community. These actors play an essential role in stimulating dialogue between citizens and political authorities, raising new questions in diverse and innovative ways (see: www. bruxelles.be/artdet.cfm/4962).

In the face of these challenges, the danger of gentrification looms. It is not enough to work against social exclusion; we must push for meaningful social mixing. It is not enough to welcome more immigrants; we have to reinvent the city with a new social dimension, including the identities of all.

Eric Corijn invites us to plan this transition.

Sustainable development requires not only accounting for technical and/or environmental constraints, it also requires considering a series of social and human questions.

Rivers and streams are as if “sleeping” in the Brussels Region. Yet some important policy decisions could make it possible to reclaim control and good management. Private investors are not waiting for these changes in order to imagine the transformation of the landscape of the “canal-front”. In the next 10 to 15 years the canal will be the area of the most dramatic changes in the Brussels Region.

For the past decade, at the level of the Communes in the Brussels Region, projects called Contrats de Quartiers or

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As a result of these issues, the Brussels canal is an interesting case to study in urban and architectural schools. Teaching staff from LOCI-St-Luc Brussels and from the University of Newcastle have been working in collaboration for many years. For this workshop in Brussels, it was about sharing students’ approaches and design tutors’ pedagogies on the same subject.

The exercise dealt with the micro-scale in urban territory, including some main preoccupations: People, Territory, Heritage, and Architecture. It addressed the issues of density and diversity of public spaces in the city. Contemporary concerns, such as participation in this neighbourhood of Brussels inspired the students projects, but also the reuse of industrial heritage and the upgrading of the urban landscape around the canal. One must be careful not to force acceptance of a program at any price, but to rely on citizen

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participation, and observation needs to be integrated in the design process. New facilities would provide a new and dynamic space for appropriation, by involving the population.

The intention was to help the inhabitants to affirm their identity by participating in the renewal of this off-centre area of Brussels. The work also intended to capture the potential of existing sites having lost their original uses, but which constitute the collective memory of the neighbourhoods. Finally, projects had to benefit from the presence of water in its development and the work of public spaces.

The study area included a number of very original places such as: • • • •

a former brewery on the edge of the water a foundry in the heart of the urban fabric a centre for refugees in an old military casern close to the tourist centre an un-built site at the intersection of a Boulevard.

Newcastle Students had the opportunity to stay in the heart of Molenbeek, in situ. After visiting the site, the students from both schools met and exchanged information on their mutual work. Whereas students from Brussels were invited to work on urban design, architecture, or on local heritage buildings in response to specific programs and particular expectations from the inhabitants, the students from Newcastle were involved in an urban and architectural intervention, imagined around the ideas they captured from their observations on site and the interviews of the inhabitants. After a week of brainstorming, it was exciting to listen to very energetic proposals from the students. Most of the solutions were telling stories about sharing: Sharing musical styles and instruments, sharing cooking, food, goods, sharing expertise on fabric design and fabric making, offering knowledge on water, boats as well as building boats, sharing events like movies and festivals.

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Projects from Newcastle were intended to appropriate leftover spaces with architectural pavilions, playing on the notion of the temporary, and where existing communities on the sites could share their cultural identity and know-how in the spirit of the Festival Canal.

The results of this pluridisciplinary workshop show how a spirit of collaboration among students from neighbouring disciplines, together with local experts and in a rich interaction with the culturally diverse local population, can give rise to creative solutions in a complex and rapidly evolving urban context like that of Brussels. Architecture in its various modes and temporalities is more than isolated buildings made to resist the passage of time. It is above all a support for life, even its most fleeting moments and configurations.

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Christine Fontaine is a lecturer and International Relations coordinator at UCL- Faculté d’architecture, d’ingénierie architecturale, d’urbanisme (LOCI) Site Architecture Saint-Luc Bruxelles.

Stefan de Corte is a PhD Researcher, Lecturer of international masters: 4Cities & POLIS Academic coordinator: master ‘Stedenbouw en Ruimtelijke Planning’ (EhB) Professor Eric Corijn is Head of the department of Geography, Faculty of Sciences, Vrije Universiteit Brussel

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> Local Initiatives Film Park

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Paul Maguire, Louise Daly and Vladimir Kabat

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Molenbeek Film Festival is an initiative to create a positive dynamic dialogue to merge and engage the local community. It shall provide a platform for promotion, creating a catalyst for pride and ownership within the area.

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Small Kitchen, Big Eat

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Alistair Wilkinson, Majeda Hattar and Cheng Xu

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Inspired by Can Altay’s Turkish project the initiative will create a place that will allow women opportunity and freedom to work, whilst offereing distinct benefits to the male population.

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Altering Perceptions

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Victoria Telford, Akshay Varma, Chen Xu and Carla Sanz

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Platforms for an exchange of skills and cultures, at the same time as facilitating small entrepreneurial businesses can also be seen in Hoi An, Vietnam, where locals specialise in the niche market of tailoring and tourists visit to emerge themselves in culture.

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14 â&#x20AC;Ś

Parc de la Fonderie

Connections to the Surrounding Area

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production

> Film Park

filming street

Paul Maguire, Louise Daly and Vladimir Kabat

Molenbeek Film Festival is an initiative to create a positive dynamic dialogue to merge and engage the local community. It shall provide a platform for promotion, creating a catalyst for pride and ownership within the area.

The social stage permits dynamic exchange crucial in tackling social issues and stigma, encouraging activities to spill out onto the street and reclaim the under-used space.

Thresholds are broken; spatial environments begin to occupy new territories re-defining the existing boundaries.

Inspired by Kurt Deruyter, cultural exchange to raise aspiration among the â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;lost generationâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; the initiative works on both the human and global scale.

The concept is to generate flexible spaces that expand and contract in response to shifting patterns that form the everchanging backdrop of local life.

filming school

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filming home

Contractable forms operate in isolation serving the microsocial unit while expanded forms allow connection to neighbouring units to form a unified whole and process that extends its reach to entire park.

We invites the community to engage in workshops run by artists in residence and film industry professionals. Users will be encouraged to create their own documentary films representing individual perspectives and impressions of the area, generating a potential social and spatial sphere where residents can develop new skills, networks and cultural exchange to enhance opportunities; allowing the invisible voices to be seen.

The initiative intends to colonise the park and other adjacent typologies of potential public space, whilst showcasing the process of making throughout the year allowing individuals to be spectator and actor, observing and choosing their level of participation.

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filming

playground

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Series of Boxes

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Box Construction Process

Industrial embedded rail track with pre-stressed concrete railway sleepers.

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Primary Structure - Steel Frame.

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Corrugated Re-used Metal External Walls, Roofing and Flooring.

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Completed Units with external Connecting joints.

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Self powered undercarriage.

5

Internal Walls + Partitions create Internal spatial layout.

8

Additional Units.

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production

filming street

filming school

â&#x20AC;Ś17

Permanent Cafe Box

filming home

filming

playground

Non Festival Set-up

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18 â&#x20AC;Ś

Active Thresholds

Festival Line Up Pamphlet

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audio

cutting

â&#x20AC;Ś19

visual effects

finalising movie

Festival Set-up

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20 â&#x20AC;Ś

Festival Activities

Film Screening

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â&#x20AC;Ś21

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22 â&#x20AC;Ś

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> Small Kitchen, Big Eat Alistair Wilkinson, Majeda Hattar and Cheng Xu

On either side of the Charleroi Canal in Brussels is an ever increasing migrant population that originate from North Africa, the Arabian Nations & Eastern Europe.

These migrant populations have begun to colonise the district of Molenbeek and are establishing their own communities.

On the west bank of the canal are small migrant populations as well as the Petite Chateau, a former army barracks, now a migrant holding centre.

The chosen site is located adjacent to Rue de la Foret on the west side of the canal. It is in a prime footfall route for immigrants & has a good visual panorama to the surrounding area which was important for the initiative chosen as it acts as a draw for people from both sides of the canal. The site is in an area which is dominated by bulk food/ drink import warehouses, which predominantly cater for the migrant populations.

Site analysis identified two issues. Firstly a disconnection between either side of the canal and limited opportunities for migrant women.

Secondly the lack of communication between established local populations and the more recent immigrant community.

â&#x20AC;Ś23

benefits to the male population.

The idea of it being beneficial for men and creating an outcome for them is key to the success of the proposed initiative.

The initiative itself centres on food, which is at the centre of many cultures. The intention of the project is to create a kitchen in one of the vacant units along Diksmuldlaan Street which fronts the canal. The kitchen will be a place for migrants and locals to come together and learn culinary skills from women of different cultural backgrounds in cooking classes. In exchange the locals that attend the classes will teach migrants the countries language.

This will help create a cultural understanding and help build positive relations and respect between both cultures.

The project will be very much community orientated working on a low budget to help fund the initial set up. The use of recycled materials from local businesses will allow for the creation of the market kiosks designed by the community.

Inspired by Can Altayâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s project in Turkey and the area of Brussels, the initiative will create a place that will allow women opportunity and freedom to work, whilst offering distinct

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Programme of Events The project is to be established within an empty retail unit, subsidised by the local council along with an initial start-up grant. It aims to create cultural connections, improve preceptions, cultural awareness and education within the community. The festival shall occupy adjacent streets and tree lined avenues with kiosks, stalls and table settings encouraging

24 â&#x20AC;Ś

the surrounding to come together for a great gathering of food and social interaction, as well as competitions and events.

The annual festival in conjunction with Kanal Festival will market and generate interest for the initative on a city wide scale, assisting in future expansion.

Cu

ltu

ral E

xch a

ng e

n

ctio

a ter l In

cia

So

Tuesday

Wednesday

Thursday

Friday

Evening

Afternoon

Morning

Monday

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Letâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Get Started

Making the kiosks, tables and umbrellas from waste materials Kick-start Funding Ingredients

Subsidised retail unit

â&#x20AC;Ś25 Students bring their own

The market

Kitchen equipment Cooking together

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Eating together

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Daily Events The kitchen will be open daily and has been designed to open up in order to improve spatial relationships. When closed the tables and umbrellas will be stored within the kitchen.

26 â&#x20AC;Ś

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Weekly Events Each week the kitchen will expand to provide a market stall, where products produced in the kitchen can be sold as well crafts of the families involved in the initative.

â&#x20AC;Ś27

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28 â&#x20AC;Ś

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> Altering Perceptions Victoria Telford, Akshay Varma, Chen Xu and Carla Sanz

Our site is situated in the highly fragile social context of Petit Chateau, a refugee centre holding over 700 asylum seekers from around the world.

The Petit Chateau is a complex institution offering material and psychological assistance to its occupants, with management continually shifting from being patient to being firm with people who are often entirely uncertain what their future holds.

The building itself is a former military barrack and before that a prison, therefore, visually it appears like a guarded fortress, largely isolated in its context. This insular nature of the design intensifies the negative stigma associated with the centre and its occupants, giving the impression that the people living in ‘Petit Chateau’ are being ‘held’ like criminals.

On the contrary, the people of ‘Petit Chateau’ are not as socially immobile as one might assume, they are free to come and go as they wish according to a reasonable curfew and once past the first stage of immigration, are legally able to work in Brussels.

aesthetic of the building, particularly the wall that encloses the courtyard at the front of the centre, we propose to remodel this wall and in doing so create spaces that better engage with the city.

…29

Although the residents of the Petit Chateau would be majority users, more universally useful spaces would encourage more engagement with the public. Therefore, through the theme of ‘mobility’, the idea of this scheme is to introduce accommodation for a ‘donate, repair and sell’ bicycle workshop that would run alongside a ‘rent a bike’ scheme. To further dissolve the hardness of this space our scheme also includes a secondhand bookstore and coffee shop. After some essential training, the intention is that the residents of the Petit Chateau would manage the project and produce income to keep it going. Funding for the initial development of this project however would come from sponsored events during the ‘Festival Kanal’, including an outdoor cinema and a ‘Tour de Brussels’ bicycle race.

Our design initiative aims to address this negative perception felt by those who know little about the centre and its people. At the same time, we would be creating more usable spaces for the residents in order to ease the transition from refugee to citizen.

As the disconnect with the Petit Chateau and the city is largely down to the defensive

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Boundaries

30 …

Bicycle Repair Workshop

As the residents of the Petit Chateau are often seen to locals and visitors as socially immobile within the city, our initiative is centred around the theme of ‘mobility’. The idea that the residents of the centre are in a state of none progress is not always the case, and we would like to build on the positive aspects of the centre which is that some of the residents are able to get work and travel around the city.

Therefore, the idea of this scheme is to introduce accommodation for a ‘donate, repair and sell’ bicycle workshop that would run alongside a ‘rent a bike’ scheme, as well as including a coffee shop and second hand bookshop to encourage a more culturally engaged community.

Resident_Refugees

Outdoor Space Bicycle Shop

Refugees currently have no way of interacting with one another.

Bicycle Showroom

“Sometimes you prefer not to say you are a refugee...”

People are often entirely unsure of their futures.

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TIMELINE_

Festival_introduce events involved with Petit Chateau during Festival Kanal

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Common Space

p

Second-hand Bookshop Children’s Playground

Coffee Shop

…31

Outdoor Seating

e Showroom

Initiative_alterations to the ‘wall’ of Petit Chateau

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Initiative development_further developments to the Petit Chateau courtyard bring people within the centre together.

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Public space installations art exhibitions Kiosks

…

Outdoor Cinema

PROM

WALL

COURTYARD

32

Second-hand Bookshop

Coffee Shop and Children’s Playground

COURTYARD

Common Room for Residents

WALL

Common Outdoor Space Bicycle Showroom

COURTYARD

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WALL

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Festival Initiative

Food Market

FESTIVAL PROGRAMME

Through our design initiative we aim to dissolve the defensive nature of this building, particularly in regards to the wall that lines the front of ‘Petit Chateau’. It is a strong, solid wall that acts as a barrier to the city, giving off a very unwelcoming impression of the centre and its residents.

Therefore, we intend to use the courtyard space for different activities that would better engage the people of the centre with each other and the people of the city, creating more welcoming less fortress like spaces.

…33

Sponsored events to raise funding for the project.

Festival Kanal Showcasing the skills and talent of the residents to the world.

Using the chateau as the venue for activities.

PROM

INITIATIVE PROGRAMME Making the residents feel a part of the city.

Skills through workshops and exchange learning.

Initiative’s Home Involvement of local agencies.

‘Rent a Bike’ scheme.

Mobility through ‘donate, repair and sell’ bicycle workshops.

PROM

INITIATIVE PROGRAMME

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34 â&#x20AC;Ś

Residents of the Petit Chateau watch an outdoor cinema.

Bustling promenade during the festival.

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Festival Programme The festival will be used as a catalyst for our ‘home’ initiative to produce the funding to take the project to production. Through a series of sponsored events in and around the Petit Chateau, we aim to encourage people to engage with the residents of the centre and alter their perceptions. This should also be a way to bring the residents of the centre together and begin to interact with each other.

Suggested Events Include: - - - - -

Outdoor Concerts Outdoor Cinema Art Exhibitions ‘Tour de Brussels’ Bicycle Race Outdoor Installations

…35

‘Tour de Brussels’ sponsored bicycle race.

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36 â&#x20AC;Ś

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> Outreach Initiatives Music Box

38

Carlie Douglas, George Musson and Siham Saleh

“

Music will be used as a tool to bridge cultural, religious, race and language differences; breaking down cultural prejudices and fear of the unknown.

“

Say the Word

46

Lizzie Bird, Tina Gough and Alastair Whiting

“

We must harness the power of progress to protect diverse visions of the world; these are the threads that weave the tapestry of humanity’s story.

“

Eat Festival

52

Nicholas Backhouse, Hui Xu, Harveen Dhillon and Thomas Maison

“

“

Eat Festival will bring the people of Brussels together through food and a sharing of knowledge of recipes of favourite dishes.

Made in Molenbeek

60

Keir Thomas McNeil, Hai Ha Thai Minh and Aaron Fay Murphy

“

Platforms for an exchange of skills and cultures, at the same time as facilitating small entrepreneurial businesses can also be seen in Hoi An, Vietnam, where locals specialise in the niche market of tailoring and tourists visit to emerge themselves in culture.

“

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38 â&#x20AC;Ś

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> Music Box Carlie Douglas, George Musson and Siham Saleh

The diverse cultural background of our group allowed a rich and extensive social and spatial exploration of how the areas function.

When investigating the area we found that both sides of the Kanal viewed the other with suspicion and trepidation. Our investigations highlighted a common love of music, although experienced and enjoyed in completely different and often incompatible ways.

Music Box aims to re-unite the socially segregated communities of Molenbeek and Brussels. Music will be used as a tool to bridge cultural, religious, race and language differences - breaking down cultural prejudices and fear of the unknown. Music is common to all cultures and can be used as a tool for education and entertainment. Evident in all aspects of life, from media to festivals, we all understand music.

Music Box will also serve as a centre for training and skills building. Hands-on experience will be gained the construction of the portable stages and home structures. This will enrich the lives of deprived, unemployed and often socially excluded young people, whilst passing along time-tested and culturally significant skills.

â&#x20AC;Ś39

The physical environment of Molenbeek is particularly degraded and segregated. Music Box aims to improve this, creating new routes of connection whilst opening up new public space suitable for a performances and a variety of other uses.

Music Box serves to knit together the segregated population, providing a lasting, slow growing and truly sustainable legacy. A valuable community facility.

Music Box will bring together Bronks Childrenâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Theatre and the Maison des Cultures to fund a small initial collection of locally made portable stages. These will create impact through initial performances in schools, to engage children and garner enthusiasm for after school and holiday classes. This will lead to the involvement of parents and siblings, providing the initial uniting factor, to break down cultural prejudices, not found in young children. As the initiative grows, mobile performances will begin to appear throughout the area, further spreading awareness.

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MUSIC BOX 40 …

S

H

+

=

MUSIC CLASSES AND OUT-REACH PERFORMANCES MUSIC BOX

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Function and Location

A MOBILISE MADE BY LOCAL MECHANICS - TOWED TO LOCATION

…41 7

B UNPACK

SECURE INSTRUMENT & SPEAKER SYSTEM STORAGE 8

6

C ES SIT ST AG

E

UNFOLD & PLUG

PO

TE

NT

IA LP

O

RT AB L

E

SET-UP

9

D PERFORM

READY TO ROLL...

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1

A COMMON PASSION THAT BRIDGES BOUNDARIES

2

WORKING IN PARTNERSHIP TO FUND THE MUSIC BOX

3

START YOUNG WITH SCHOOL PROGRAMMES

4

COMMUNITY WIDE INVOLVEMENT

5

LOCAL CRAFTSMEN BUILD PORTABLE STAGES

6

OUTREACH PERFORMANCES GET PEOPLE TALKING AND...

42 …

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7

... GET PEOPLE INVOLVED IN OUT-REACH MUSIC CLASSES

8

HOME-SITE SUITABLE FOR LONG TERM GROWTH

…43 9

11

LONG-TERM PHASED BUILDING PROJECT

10

OUT-REACH PERFORMANCES BUILD TO FESTIVAL KANAL

HOME PHASE ONE - STARTING SMALL...

12

... FOR SUSTAINABLE GROWTH

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Phased Project Development PHASE THREE

3

PHASE TWO

2

PHASE FOUR GATEHOUSE

4

44 â&#x20AC;Ś

Practice Rooms

2

Practice Space

3

Administration Offices

4

PHASE ONE Workshop & Training Welcome Office Practice Rooms External Stage

1

Double Height Stage

2

Cafe & Gatehouse

4

Long-term Phased Project Delivery Diagram

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Initiative and Legacy

â&#x20AC;Ś45

Initial Outreach Performance to Generate Interest

Long-term Project Development Phase Four: Music Box Gatehouse

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46 â&#x20AC;Ś

School

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Significant Sites

Site of Intervention

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> Say The Word Lizzie Bird, Tina Gough and Alastair Whiting

When in Molenbeek we observed that a majority collective were people dropping off/ collecting children from school. Further investigation a diverse range of schools with various teaching languages and methods .

language skills through the availability of materials and equipment, specifically by providing space for people to interact and to gain the benefit from actually having conversations.

Over the past couple of decades a substantial Muslim Community, of mainly North African ancestry has established itself in Molenbeek.

The local built environment has adapted to incorporate North African culture slowly extending the immigrant communities public domain, “We define Public Domain as those places, where an exchange between social groups is possible and also actually occurs” (In Search of a New Public Domain, Chapter 2: The New Cultural Geography, M. Hajer A. Reijndorp ). This is visible on the street in the nature and use of commercial buildings, especially the market, which has a diverse selection of stalls. Despite the adaption, which includes aspects of home, parents are concerned that their children are losing their roots, indigenous culture and in particular their native language.

Funding for the scheme would be kick started by UNESCO as part of promoting the International Mother Language initiatives and continued in conjunction with La Founderie and Maison des Culture in partnership with local schools.

…47

‘We must harness the power of progress to protect diverse visions of the world and to promote all sources of knowledge and forms of expression; These are the threads that weave the tapestry of humanity’s storey.” Irina Bokova, Director-General of UNESCO Message for International Mother Language Day 2011.

In Molenbeek one in three of the community is under the age of 20, at school they mix and are taught with native Belgian children speaking French and Flemish.

‘Say The Word’ will be located on a site in the centre of Molenbeek, close to Le Founderie which houses a museum of the industrial heritage of Molenbeek. It will provide, a space for learning new languages and improving

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Initiative Home

ee eb ol

oo sin

gt

M

dre na re l

k

hi l

..School... My e .. frie nd s

live close....

e We lik

We feel

Hom

48 â&#x20AC;Ś

roots

t or comf

h

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Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;m wo rrie d

exp

lo rin g.... .

The Process Say the

W o .. rd

alk Chatte .....T rN

t er at

When we were exploring Molenbeek we tried to talk to a number of people including a few of the people above.

We found children positive about their area, men that felt comfortable in Molenbeek and parents, particularly mothers that were worried that their children are loosing their roots. Language barriers seemed to be a big issue in Molenbeek. The Say the Word centre will provide space for the community of Molenbeek to learn and celebrate languages by reading, listening, watching and speaking new languages.

Listen

Read

Listen

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Watch

Speak

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Listen

â&#x20AC;Ś49

Prepare

Deliver

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Place

Open

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The Table and Bench Form the core of ‘Say The Word’ ...

Activities are brought to the table to use, encouraging interaction.

The table is inscribed with words and phrases from festivals and activities.

50 …

The benches can be utilised in many formations including a smaller children’s scale.

Say the

W o

.. rd alk Chatte .....T rN

S t er at

1. Working with schools

peak

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LA FoNDERIE

2. In partnership . . .

3. To record

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â&#x20AC;Ś51 The benches are flexible and can be connected in many different combinations.

As with the Table the benches are inscribed with results from the activities.

4. Translate . . .

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5. A Walking Tour

6. For Festival Kanal

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52 â&#x20AC;Ś

The visibility, the ease of accessibility and the amount of available space makes this site a unique opportunity to create an activity bringing people from all over the quarter and other communities on the other side of the canal.

Location of Thursday Market Empty Abandoned Construction Site

Open to the Canal and Easily Identifiable

4

5 2

1

Presence of a Large Courtyard in the Heart of the City

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Metro Conte de Flandre: The door to Brussels Transport System

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> Eat Festival Nicholas Backhouse, Harveen Dhillon, Thomas Maison and Hui Xu

Our project is located in Section 4 of the site including the Comte de Flandres Metro Station on the Molenbeek side of the canal. Our initiation of the project begins on the basis of the existing assets, such as bus links and Metro lines. In addition there is also the Thursday market which mainly sells fruit, vegetables and spices, particularly for Moroccan cuisine.

The Food Festival of Molenbeek will aim to bring the people of Brussels together through food and a sharing of knowledge of recipes of favourite dishes.

This will begin from a small-scale community initiative using council land and a current organisation called La Rue to create a city allotment. This will generate a community who have similar interests and lead on to some of these like minded people creating an ethical and sustainably driven food festival at Festival Kanal. The ingredients required will be grown in the local community allotments, or bought from the market on Thursday, therefore creating and sustaining economic activity within the area for the community. This will allow more stable structures in the site to be established including movable kiosks.

Recipes of these dishes will be available in leaflets in English, French & Arabic, which will mention ingredients, where to buy them locally and their sustainable and ethical footprint.

empty site can be established as a Moroccan restaurant which includes different fusions of food.

The restaurant will include an open kitchen which is visible to the diners so that customers can experience the methods of cooking of the various dishes prepared. Outdoor seating will also be provided and then this will give a chance to create a more vibrant atmosphere.

â&#x20AC;Ś53

In Brussels, an organisation called â&#x20AC;&#x153;wormsâ&#x20AC;? advocates the use of compost in the city. Each year, the non profit organisation proposes an objective to find city compost allotments. As an alternative we propose an extension of the Jardin Urbain, the extension will take place at the vacant space in Molenbeek which will now be owned by the community. People living in the quarter can dispose their organic and biodegradable waste at the new allotment.

Scrap material (wood palettes, sandbags) is used for the different elements of the allotments.

The allotment is managed by the Jardin Urbain. The vegetable allotment extends and attracts people from further a field who have similar ideas creating ethical and sustainable local produce. The vegetables are collected each week and distributed to the members of the community. In this way, they eat locally produced vegetables.

With the aid of Worms organisation funding will be provided and a group of people who are interested in restaurant management, the

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Less Rubbish!

Fresh Compost!

54 …

Would you like some help?

Creation of new Composting Area

Fresh tomato’s for tonight’s soup!

The Urban Garden is open every week!

Let’s have a green break...

Development of Allotment

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Allotments

Organic Waste

Consumption

Transform into Fertiliser

â&#x20AC;Ś55 Increase in Production

Storage

Process Diagram

Composting Bins

Rainwater Collection

Vegetable Planters Greenhouses

Chicken Coops Allotment Plan

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Protection from thesun!

Hi Kids, welcome to the allotment!

Fresh ready to eat dishes!

56 â&#x20AC;Ś

Shall we go for a picnic?

Food Festival

Yes, they are here every Thursday...

Would anybody like to try some homemade couscous?

Hmm...

Perfect!

Fresh ready to eat dishes!

Weekly Sale of Ready to Eat Dishes

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The Eat Festival The quantity of vegetables produced increases each month and provides a surplus. The ethical food produce will give the opportunity to establish a food festival at Festival Kanal.

The ingredients required will be grown in the local community allotments, or bought from the market on Thursday, therefore creating and sustaining economic activity within the area for the community. The first festival will be situated outside the allotment. People who are interested in cooking will use the produce from the allotments to cook at home and bring food to the festival to sell. The festival will also include cooking demonstrations, cooking classes, food tasting and an outdoor

â&#x20AC;Ś57

Eat Festival Stalls and Kiosks near the Metro

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Menu Starters Entrée au choix ‫نيئدتبم‬ Harira Soup Flour, tomatoes, lentils, chickpeas, onions, rice, eggs, celery, parsley, coriander, saffron, ginger, pepper, either beef, lamb or chicken Zaalouk Salad Eggplant, garlic, tomatoes, olive oil, paprika, cumin, pepper, parsley, vinegar Taktouka Red pepper, green pepper, tomatoes, garlic, paprika, cumin, pepper, parsley, coriander Main dishes Plat au choix ‫ةيسيئرلاقابطأل‬

…

58

Moroccan Couscous Lamb Tagine Olive oil, garlic, onions, ginger, coriander seeds, cinnamon, black pepper, lamb, tomato puree, honey Pastilla Pigeons, onions, butter, almonds, eggs, parsley, coriander, salt, pepper, saffron, cinnamon, Desserts

Dessert ‫تايولحل‬

Sfenj (Moroccan doughnuts) Flour, salt, yeast, water M’Hanncha (Almond pastry) Butter, sugar, almonds, filo pastry, eggs, honey, orange blossom water, cinnamon, Moroccan Date Pudding Butter, sugar, eggs, flour, cinnamon, nutmeg milk, walnuts, dates, vanilla

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A Lasting Legacy Created from a small initial start up, using scrap materials. The use of recycled waste means running costs are at an absolute minimum and it is almost self funding.

Creates a cohesion within the neighbourhood and a connection between the person and nature. It will create a connection between different cultures from all over Brussels. The producer and the consumer are very close and there are no middlemen. it teaches people about growing locally and reducing the carbon footprint of food. People are closer to the origin of food and gain a greater knowledge of where it comes from. The restaurant will include an open kitchen which is visible to the diners so that customers can experience the methods of cooking of the various dishes prepared. Outdoor seating will also be provided and then this will give a chance to create a more vibrant atmosphere.

â&#x20AC;Ś59

Eat Festival front of the Courtyard

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60 â&#x20AC;Ś

Site Location Plan

Tiered Privacy Concept

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> Made in Molenbeek Keir McNeil, Ha Thai and Aaron Murphy

The initiative aims to reclaim under-used and misused spaces around Molenbeek in order to create a series of spaces which better link the culture and people of Molenbeek with Brussels.

The ‘Made in Molenbeek’ vision seeks to facilitate the creation of small entrepreneurial business, based in traditional African textile crafts. The initiative aims to empower local African women by providing them with a safe environment and a platform from which they may practice and share their traditional home skills passed on from generation to generation of women, in order to earn extra income and also to share knowledge. Whilst the initiative is focused primarily on the local women of African origins, it is also envisaged that the initiative will challenge preconceptions of Molenbeek by educating a whole range of people from Brussels about various traditions within North African culture. The festival will provide a stage for the people of Molenbeek to showcase their culture and heritage, by providing Kiosks along the high street of both Molenbeek and Brussels, in an attempt to encourage the locals of Brussels into Molenbeek. Whilst regular, permanent events such as fashion shows will provide an insight into the latest crafts produced in Molenbeek.

base is subject to varying levels of privacy. This ensures that a series of appropriate spaces are provided for both the local African women and the visitor population. The most public space provides an area in which visitors can buy local produce and watch displays such as fashion shows. Whilst, the next level down provides space in which local African women can come together with visitors in order to share traditional skills. The most private spaces provide an environment in which the African women may work, socialise, practice religion and care for their children, away from the public eye.

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The notion of providing a platform for an exchange of skills and cultures, at the same time as facilitating small entrepreneurial business can be seen in Hoi An, Vietnam, where locals specialise in the niche market of tailoring and tourists visit to emerge themselves in traditional, artistic culture.

The concept was inspired by the theoretical seminar readings; which taught us that bottomup schemes based upon the local population’s needs and desires often lead to the most realistic and successful outcome. Therefore, the concept is based upon a tiered structure of privacy, whereby each space within the

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Initiative Timeline

W

1

Sh

sh op PHASE

op flo

or

62 …

h op Of f

o rks

Ca

fe

ice

o e w rk

Privat

PHASE

Phase 1 involves the utilisation of existing buildings within the site, in order to create a workshop from which local women may work and a retail unit from which their goods may be sold. The retail unit will be located along the main street.

2

Phase 2 involves the modular construction of the ‘base’; a workshop and administrative facility within the existing courtyard. This provides space in which visitors can learn about crafts and allows for the creation of a meeting place; the cafe.

che Pr

Cr e w or k

sh o p

ivate

PHASE

3

Phase 3 involves the construction of a crèche, private workshop and private gardens. This ensures local women feel safe to carry out their daily routine away from the public eye, and allows them to remain close by to their children.

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Shopfloor

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Phase Three Completion

Private Garden Store Cafe

Public Workshop

Reception Admin

WC’s

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Creche Private Workshop

Public Garden

Venue Space

Playground

Store

Shop

Store

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Workshop

Creche

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Storyline

64 â&#x20AC;Ś

This provides an indicative insight into the potential daily routine of a local woman working at the base. Their day may commence by dropping their children off at the creche, before moving onto to the workshop to begin work on a specially ordered garment. Soon after arriving at work the woman may retreat to the most private area of the base, the prayer room. Then they may drop in at the creche to check on their child before visiting the retail area, or public workshop in order to measure up her next client. Lunch may be shared with a friend in the cafe, before finishing work and collecting the child at the end of the day.

Visualisation of the Shopfloor

Reception

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Admin

Workshop

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â&#x20AC;Ś65 Visualisation of the Public Workshop

Visualisation of the Creche

Cafe

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Section through Publicly Accessible Areas

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The Festival

Made in Molenbeek Initiative

Venue Space

…

Shopping Area

66

Kiosk

Kanal Pinwheel

The ‘Made in Molenbeek’ initiative has an important role to play in the Kanal Festival.

During the festival the main street and bridge shall be pedestrianised and transformed by kiosks selling locally produced crafts, whilst the public space is to be transformed into a fashion show showcasing local craft. The kiosks are strategically located along between the base and the over side of the canal in order to encourage involvement by locals and visitors and therefore to further encourage exchange of cultures.

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FESTIVAL

4 …67

Visualisation of the Kiosks and Stalls

The above image shows the kiosks installed along the bridge. It is envisaged that these shall attract many visitors and educate people about the ‘Made in Molenbeek’ initiative. The image below shows the newly landscaped public space adjacent to the cafe. During the festival this space is used for a fashion show. It

is envisaged that this space will provide similar showcase events periodically, at the same time as providing an improved environment and backdrop to daily life.

Visualisation of the Fashion Show

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k

oo

B an

b

Ur

ft Ra

ce

Ra

ild

u tB

a

Bo

68 …

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> Bridging Initiatives Boat Build

70

Sarah Muscat, Lowri Bond, Nicholas Kemp and Xiangxiang Du

“

Young people will run, staff and manage the boats on their journeys through Brussels and work with the college to take others on educational trips between Brussels, Antwerp and Charleroi.

“

Raft Race

74

Kyle Cowper, Anthony Vickery and Jing Wang

“

“

Raft Race seeks to break down the barrier of the canal by actively using it, blurring the distinction between the two sides it creates.

Urban Book

82

Fatma Harun, Jun Lee and Raichel Warren

“

Inter-generation and intercultural communication, where parents tell the stories from their childhoods to children will bring an understanding of the different cultures in this diverse area.

“

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Location Map

1

2

3

Context

M A

View A: Underused Night School Park

B

C

View B: The ‘Hidden Canal’ View

B View C: Dead Space with Desire Paths

Key 1 Maison du Sage de Femme 2 Primary School and Nursery 3 Night School and Playing Field 4 Institut de Arts et Mettiers B Brussels Site M Molenbeek Site

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> Boat Build Sarah Muscat, Lowri Bond, Nicholas Kemp and Xiangxiang Du

Walking through the site we strolled through quiet, residential streets, past a café, a bakery, women chatting in Arabic on the street corner, past the small Maison du Sage de Femme and Molenbeek Primary School, noticing snippets of grafiti in many languages, speaking of displacement, anger and hope.

The night school where a group of young people are playing basketball and where the neighbourhood opens out onto the chaotic, noisy bridge over the barely noticeable canal.

Here, traffic and trams create a perilous obstacle for us to cross. To the right on the South side of the canal, the Brussels side we cross a small, unused green space laced with muddy paths, finding tall, new, affluent apartment blocks, a new creche and sports centre where women are walking home with their shopping and toddlers in push chairs. We walk to the left and beyond, through uninviting string of disused and dislocated spaces to the Institut de Arts et Mettiers.

Returning through the site in the afternoon we notice this North-South route suddenly busy with women, small children and teenagers walking between school, college and home. It is this community of North-South walkers that Boat Build hopes to engage with by activating an under used site on the Molenbeek side and a neglected green space on the Brussels side of the canal.

Primary School, Nursery and the Institut (college) to develop a closer relationship with their canal and with using water to PLAY, LEARN and WORK.

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BOAT BUILD starts with a team of young people and community trainees (under the supervision of staff and technicians at the Institut) constructing a boat building workshop using shipping containers on the Molenbeek site, in an under used part of the grounds of the Night School. Then building and fitting out barge 1, the ‘Brussels barge’.

When it is complete another two boat builds create barge 2 ‘Antwerp’ and barge 3 ‘Charlois’.

These boats will be used as new community facilities on the canal, venues for meeting, playing, socialising, learning, traveling and touring. Young people will run, staff and manage the boats on their journeys through Brussels and work with the school and college to take young people on educational trips between Brussels, Antwerp and Charleroi.

The process is visible to the whole community and parents and students from the primary school and college can visit to see how the boats are being made. This generates interest and pride and the launch of the boats on their journeys become exciting, hopeful events in themselves.

Boat Build works with young people and families using the Maison du Sage de Femme, Night School and those attending Molenbeek

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Programme In preparation for FESTIVAL KANAL 2012 we invite students, parents and siblings to help clean up the triangular grassed space on the Brussels side of the canal and hold a programme of water and boat making activities with the primary school and Maison du Sage de Femme in the run up to the Festival.

72 â&#x20AC;Ś

We chose to focus in this site on the Brussels side of the canal as an important part of supporting the Boat Build project. It will provide a space for social and fun activity for the many parents with toddlers and younger siblings that we observed passing through this site daily.

In addition, activating this site provides the primary school which doesnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t have a garden or green space, with a nearby site for classes to take place outdoors.

The Boat Build workshop will be sited in the grounds of the Night School because there is a corner that is currently not occupied, is visible to passing public and is secure. The workshop is completed on the Molenbeek site ready for the construction of the first barge.

Students of all ages along with parents and teachers take part and clean up the Brussels site in preparation for the workshop.

From container to workshop, the conversion process.

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Outdoor Classroom

â&#x20AC;Ś73

Outdoor Classroom In Use

The Outdoor Classroom is Installed

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74 â&#x20AC;Ś

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> Raft Race Kyle Cowper, Anthony Vickery and Jing Wang

The canal currently acts as a boundary between Molenbeek and Brussels, creating disparate communities largely at the expense of Molenbeek. Festival Kanal activates life around the canal, but the water remains unused. Our proposal seeks to break down the barrier of the canal by actively using it, blurring the distinction between the two sides it creates.

During the year residents are able to recycle specific materials (ropes, timber, tyres and canisters) by bringing them to the site on certain days. The materials are then sorted and stored. Tyres and canisters are arranged to form an enclosed space with a distinct presence. The materials also find a new use as play equipment within the site.

begin to design the raft using all available materials. After initial construction teams can test whether their rafts float using the on-site test pool.

â&#x20AC;Ś75

A temporary platform is constructed on the canal on a Sunday (no boat traffic) and all rafts are lifted down onto the canal where they are boarded by the teams ready to begin the race.

The winners are the first to pass under the Boulevard Leopold II Bridge.

The year round accumulation of materials produces a dialogue and awareness of local recycling as well as building community involvement with the initiatives function during the Kanal Festival, the raft race. City Mine(d)â&#x20AC;&#x2122;s project, Soap Box Race served as a good precedent to draw upon when articulating our proposal.

The materials collected are all suitable for raft building. A week long after school project involving local children from Molenbeek and Brussels gives participants the skills and confidence to build a successful raft.

Randomly assembled teams are given basic instructions on how to build a raft and then

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How to Build Your Raft...

Raft Building Instructions

76 â&#x20AC;Ś

Site Location

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Initiative to Legacy

â&#x20AC;Ś77

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Initiative Home Master Plan

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Race Day Traffic Calming

Recycling Material Cages

Recycled Tyre Wall

5

5

Recycled Material Playground

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Raft Testing Pool

5

â&#x20AC;Ś79 5

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Race Day Raft Test Pool

80 …

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Recycled Material Storage

Recycled Material Playground

â&#x20AC;Ś81

Temporary Platform from Recycled

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Initiative Home

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Molenbeek Site

82 â&#x20AC;Ś

Mo len be ek ChaussĂŠe de Gand

Primary School Kindergarten Flemish

Bru ss

An els toi ne Da ns a

str

er t

t aa

Kindergarten Arabic Kindergarten Primary School French

Primary School French

Primary School Flemish

Brussels Site

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> Urban Book Fatma Harun, Jun Lee and Raichel Warren On visiting Molenbeek, Brussels and the dividing canal, it seems that the canal, along with the language barrier and lack of understanding of different cultures, has dissected the two neighbourhoods; we discovered that one of the main issues is concern over the younger generations losing their origins.

If you take a moment and think back to your childhood... storytelling was an important time of relaxation and bonding, taking us into an imaginary world, influenced by our surroundings and the people around us.

Our intervention therefore feeds back into and from existing cultures, through telling children’s stories.

The idea is inter-generation and intercultural communication, where parents tell the stories from their childhoods to children from the Molenbeek and Brussels communities; this will bring an understanding of the different cultures in this diverse area.

A child’s story has the same inherent meaning across all cultures, considering the 7 basic plots to any story line. So, even with the language barrier, the story being told can be understood through pictures, expression and an understanding of their own stories, turning potential confusion into imagination.

This ‘Storytelling’ is realised in two forms, the ‘Iniatives Home’ for everyday use and the ‘Kanal Festival’. This endeavour requires two sites, one on the Molenbeek side and one on the Brussels side.

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The inbetween spaces we have chosen for these sites, encourage the self initiative of the local communities to create a social network of exchange, where participation in the programme brings together the different people in the wider context. Encouraging values beyond monetary gains. The programme is constantly evolving, with a high turnover of activities.

…83

All through the year the Molenbeek site is occupied by parents reading stories to the children. Over time this site will be developed into a library, made up of old stories, modern stories and invented stories.

The Brussels site is where the stories come alive through prop making, which will eventually enable us to string the stories across the Kanal Festival; a journey is made across the canal in the form of a story telling exercise, where specific sites are inhabited with props, allowing children to be inspired by their surroundings to co-construct the stories, previously plotted. The children can live and experience the story and learn about others cultures in a unique way. Like a real life picture book.

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Initiation to Festival Children Audience Readers Story makers

Parents Story-tellers Committee Audience Care-takers

Business Sponsors

Initiation

84 …

Meet Parents and Kids

Build ‘Homes’

Teachers Facilitators Architect, Designers, Builders Home builders

Build stories (co-construction) Run the library: Storytelling, Care-takers

This initiative requires a structure of actors who form a web of interests. The organisation starts with investment from business’ in the area, as a catalyst for the initiative. The schools are also part of this foundation, but in a non-monetary fashion. The parents facilitate the longevity of the Story Telling Library in Molenbeek Here we have illustrated the site in Molenbeek; this is where stories are narrated.

This site is currently derelict, located in a very residential area, between two blocks of flats.

This proposition creates a good opportunity to shine a light on the many cultures in the Library & Story-telling room

Rue Fin / Fin St

raat

Entrance

PLAN

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Artists Builders Producers

Visitors & Residents Audience Journey Participants

Young People Builders Prop makers Designers

Storytelling Journey at “Kanal Festival” Develop Story-telling journey route

programme, through volunteering and enthusiasm, along with enthusiasm from the children, local artists, teachers, residents, designers and business.

As you enter into the cosy atmosphere underneath this green roof, a space that can be occupied in the sunshine, you are greeted by a beautifully crafted piece of furniture, which runs, like a spine, along the length of the building, this is where the storytelling activities

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…85

stem from; bookshelves, drop down benches, storage, reading pods, doorways and windows to the adjacent sloping space, which creates a suitable area for storytelling in the sunshine.

Outside the furniture creates a space where

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Workshop and Playground

86 â&#x20AC;Ś

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â&#x20AC;Ś87

The second way to engage with the programme is through workshops in Brussels ; acting as the stage for storytelling.

Strategically located in close proximity to numerous schools. Here, props are made, inspired by the stories, that will eventually be used to inhabit sites along the storytelling journey, at the Kanal Festival. The site has been occupied by multiple units that again make the most of the inside and outside environments; the double sided piece of furniture encompasses table, chairs, storage and bookshelves.

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Festival Story Telling Journey On

ce

88 …

Upon a

Time ... there was

G nd a elle a a Ga z

g in search riffon do of

ac

lou dt ha tw as de str oy ing the sun in

Brussels and

k bee len Mo

...

Molenbeek - Rue Fin

Every two years, when the Kanal Festival visits Belgium, storytelling is taken to the streets, children are encouraged to be inspired by their environments and their friends and family, to create a story, which has been suggested through the ‘props’ that have taken over the We have selected 6 sites connecting the two sites already mentioned, in which this can take place. The children are encouraged to enjoy the story through activity and play. Like a real

The Cave - Bastide

The Wilting Tree - Rue du Pene

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Whirlwind - Rue Yvonne Jospa

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…89

The Hunt - Rue Fernand Brunfaut

Storm Encroaching - Rue des Mariniers

Blustery Glance - The Canal

Brussel’s Home - Zennestraat

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Contributors

Nicholas Backhouse, Lizzie Bird, Lowri Bond, Kyle Cowper, Louise Daly, Harveen Dhillon, Carlie Douglas, Xiangxiang Du, Christine Fontaine, Fatma Harun, Majeda Hattar, Vladimir Kabat, Nicholas Kemp, Georgia Giannopoulou, Tina Gough, Jun Lee, Paul Maguire, Thomas Maisin, Daniel Mallo, Keir McNeil,

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Ha Thai Aaron Murphy, Sarah Muscat, George Musson, Siham Saleh, Carla Sanz, Fabian Staben, Armelle Tardiveau, Victoria Telford, Tim Townshend, Akshay Varma, Anthony Vickery, Jing Wang, Rachel Warren, Alastair Whiting, Alistair Wilkinson, Chen Xu, Cheng Xu and Hui Xu

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School of Architecture Planning and Landscape The Quadrangle Newcastle University Newcastle upon Tyne NE1 7RU Cover and Title Photography Courtesy of Paul Maquire Designed by George Musson

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