Late 2023, our team proposal (Plant en Houtgoed + Meow) won the competition for the refreshment of the green spaces of Avenue Louis Lepoutre and Place George Brugmann in Ixelles, announced by the @bouwmeestermaitrearchitecte for @ixelles_elsene. 

We proposed an inhabitants-centered approach, where a plan is gradually developed together with citizens over a series of consecutive workshops. The output of this process shapes the project and guides the design team to create a public space made for the needs of the neighborhood. We decided to start the participation process from an empty page, giving the participants a chance to give open input about the project. The goal of this first workshop was to listen to urgent concerns and to understand how the neighbors relate to the current park. Participants were invited to determine urgent themes to work on, to position themselves by discussing a series of statements, to share site-specific knowledge and to propose their own ideas for the park. We allowed ourselves to be surprised by the neighbors during this first moment, leaning on their local expertise and their personal relation with the project site.

This first workshop gave us a broad and diverse view of the site and revealed the biggest flaws, challenges and opportunities of the current design according to its users. It immediately widened the scope of the project beyond the initial competition brief and made it clear that the mobility question around the zone was in fact one of the most urgent points to address. It also revealed that an intensive renovation of the park was not the right answer to address the needs of the neighborhood. The output of this workshop was a patchwork of ideas, opinions and dreams about the historic avenue and Place Brugmann. 

In a second workshop, we invited the participants to create their own subjective maps of the project zone, mapping their own experience with the area and proposing possible solutions answering to the output of the previous workshop. The result was a subjective atlas of Avenue Louis Lepoutre and Place George Brugmann, revealing the missed potential in the current design, locating specific challenges annoyances and addressing sensitive topics. The atlas also showed us the overseen beauty of the existing park and offered nuanced solutions for several topics. In the end, this exercise showed us that the park does not necessarily need an extensive programmation to activate the park or radical changes to its function, it should rather keep its status as a calm and green passage in this historic neighborhood, celebrating the belle-époc architecture of its surroundings and respect the historic elements that define the park today. 

After the first two workshops, we translated the output of the participation process into a mission brief which the project team used as a basis for the new design. This brief reflects the different action points which were defined together with the participants and integrates some of the local knowledge, site-specific solutions and design tactics which were suggested during the workshops.

To answer the mobility question, the commune will start a parallel study with Brussels Mobilité to connect the different zones of the avenue in a safe way, unifying the different parts of the avenue and place Brugmann. Out of the analysis, it became clear that the project zone does not offer a large enough space to integrate a qualitative dedicated area where dogs could run freely. Still, the commune took note of this urgent need and will continue to search for a feasible solution in the surroundings. The historical lighting fixtures, trees and main axes will be preserved in the new design, lush and colorful greenery will reframe the existing views and create calm resting areas with comfortable historic seating furniture.

The new design cherishes the identity of the neighborhood, offers more diverse atmospheres along the route, avoids enclosed areas and allows easier maintenance for a cleaner park. The existing market will get a central place at Place Brugmann, opening up towards the surrounding greenery. The project highlights the qualities of the existing park and its historic elements, integrates the knowledge of the local residents and addresses the specific needs of the neighborhood. It reflects the value of co-creating and participatory design, giving a voice to a very diverse group of users and integrating years of site-specific know-how into a durable design for the future of this public space.