Campus of resilience around Brussels
Basic information
Project Title
Full project title
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Project Description
It is no secret that we urgently need to reinvent the model of our civilisation in order to solve the ecological, political and social challenges of our time.
Our Brussels' based community has decided to act on these challenges by anchoring innovative projects in abandoned buildings.
We now aim at the next level by developing a 6Ha resilience lab in a derelict campus. Our goal is to show that it is possible to imagine a world where we respect our natural and human environment.
Project Region
EU Programme or fund
Description of the project
Summary
We live in a global world struck by numerous global crisis. In order to survive, each ecosystem (human and natural) has to develop their own solutions: we need local solutions to global crisis. For that reason, local initiatives and creativity should be supported: low tech, resilience, permaculture, post-plastic lifestyle, circular cycles of water, ecological energy production, healthier human relationships, etc.
However these initiatives often grow apart from each other and struggle to find an overall solution to the global crisis. It is therefore essential to connect these initiatives and provide them with a platform where exchange, mutualisation and collective improvement can take place.
We are about to settle this platform in a 6Ha abandoned university campus next to Brussels. After 20 years of vacancy and 2 years of negotiations, we are about to convince its owners (the ULB and VUB) to grant us access to this wonderful site.
Our aim is to occupy the site for 5 to 10 years and create an ecosystem focusing on resilience. A resilient ecosystem is a place where we live in respect with the environment as well as develop techniques to be able to survive in case our civilisational model comes to an end. In order to achieve this we will:
- involve students from ULB and VUB universities for them to learn and make experiments in an open-air laboratory
- invite members of the wider Brussels resilience community to get involved in the campus
- inspire this resilient community by setting up a programme of conferences, debates and events around resilience
- devise a theoretical 'glocal' solution together, prototype it, improve it until it provides interesting results and then spread it across Europe in order to inspire other communities.
The vacancy of this campus is a great opportunity for Brussels' citizens to take a leap into the world of tomorrow and we want to seize it!
Key objectives for sustainability
rThe campus of resilience has several key objectives. All of them are connected to the improvement of the way we deal with our environment, whether it is our natural or human environment.
1. Revive the cycles of water: water is one of the most powerful and necessary elements on Earth. We want to understand how we can make the most out of the water present on-site while keeping it as pure as possible. For this, we will purify it thanks to lagoon and plant treatments, use natural products to preserve the water, create a waterflow and combine it with a turbine to create electricity, etc.
2. Maximise the power of plants: diversity in flora is key to build resilience. We plan to use plants to decontaminate the ground, produce food thanks to permaculture, use the wood found on-site to build light housing, heat ourselves or cook, grow medicinal plants to heal ourselves, etc.
3. Improve human technology: community is also key to resilience. However we forgot how to live close together. On the campus, we will re-learn agile management techniques to involve all occupants in decision-making. That way, we hope to re-gain self-confidence and re-own our faith.
4. Develop a dynamic and inclusive community: we are careful not to build a bubble disconnected from its environment. For that reason, neighbours will be involved in the project from scratch. We have planned a playground so they discover the site through their children, didactic walks to understand the project and events especially geared towards them.
5. Devise innovative housing solutions: because one of the most polluting and consumerist sector is real-estate, we focus on re-inventing the way we house ourselves. Having people living on-site is also the best way to activate a campus as big as 6Ha because they constitute the spine of the project and are present at night. We therefore plan to develop light-, frugal-, mobile- or minimal-housing on the campus.
Key objectives for aesthetics and quality
Aesthetics is not an end in itself.
In this project, we propose to put an end to the diktat of beauty because this model is no longer desirable. Functionalities are more important and are considered beautiful per se. An autonomous and resilient ecosystem allows each element to take its place naturally. Beauty will be achieved in the balance of a landscape that is built around playfulness, pedagogy, edibility and circularity.
Imagine an edible landscape in which squash, beans and vines will shade the pergolas. Picture a productive landscape that will house landscaping elements in the service of circularity: storm water basins, a water purification basin, and a fish farm will contribute to the creation of a bucolic and soothing setting. An aesthetic situated at the crossroads between the necessary, the desirable and the dreamed of, will be the result of multiple experiments initiated by the various actors on the site.
Experimenting is everywhere.
More than a production space, the campus will be a place of experimentation, an educational and playful park, a place of transmission, sharing and exchange. Wander through the park where nothing is left to chance; look up, see beehives on the roofs, learn that reeds help to purify water, understand that squash is a climbing plant. Take part in workshops, learn how to fertilise compost, make the most of organic waste, grow seasonal species. Build a light habitat out of recycled materials, discover diverted materials, recycle construction waste. Ride an elliptical bike that drives a mill that irrigates the plantations, etc.
Through the dynamics of meeting, exchanging, sharing and transmitting, the site is revealed in all its splendour. Discovery makes the experience rich.
Here lies our aesthetic.
Key objectives for inclusion
The main idea of temporary use of vacant spaces is to provide cheap spaces for people who cannot afford to rent spaces on the market. That way, we support economically disadvantaged people, artists, non-profits, etc.
Another important aspect of our project is to host associations and projects which meet the neighbourhood's needs. The derelict campus where we will start our project is located in a residential neighbourhood, where people are scared of the many illegal parties and acts of vandalism that were perpetuated there over the 20 years of vacancy. The several buildings have also become dangerous due to their slow decay.
We foresee to put inclusion at the forefront of our project through 3 ways:
1. Include the neighbours in the dynamics of the site by providing them with a playground, green spaces to enjoy for free, resilience projects to discover and take part in as well as an inspiring programme of events around the topics of transition.
2. Include students directly in the conception of the project. Since the owners are the ULB and VUB (Brussels' FR and NL universities), we will include their students' fresh minds and creative ideas in the process of developing a project that is both innovative and close to the new generation's needs.
3. Include economically disadvantaged people by providing them with affordable spaces and housing. A living community on site is not only a chance for the place to come alive but also for refugees, homeless people or marginal people to find a home. They usually become the spine of our projects, the glue between the multiple actors who use the site as well as the main connectors with neighbours. Therefore they are genuinely welcome!
Innovative character
The innovation of my idea lies in several facts:
1. By using vacant properties in order to support grassroots initiatives such as the low-tech, the resilience or the transition movements. No project with such long-term vision and anchoring in the reality has been done before in Belgium. We usually say that thanks to temporary use, we create durable dynamics. The resilient dynamics is definitely one that aims at changing the world for real and for long.
2. By centralising initiatives on resilience in one single place which is dedicated to the development of technologies that will shape our future. The seriousness of the project will enable these projects to come out of the fringe and build greater outreach.
3. By opening such place in Brussels, which is the heart of the EU. Such proximity with the EU Parliament will make it easy for parliamentarians to visit the campus and be inspired by the experiments carried out there.
3. By proposing to make real the 'Doughnut theory' developed by Kate Raworth. This theory promotes the idea that if we don't live in respect with our social and our natural environment, our civilisation will eventually break up. This theory inspires us and founds our imagination. However we deem it crucial to work on its principles on the field: this will allow us to truly understand what it means to respect the environment and our human needs. Be concrete is also the only way to spread the message towards the entirety of the population.
4. By anchoring our project in the 'making' rather than in the 'thinking'. Our civilisation is mostly based on the tertiary 'administration' sector. Many humans have lost the intuition to make, do or act as well as given up on the hope of becoming actors of their own lives. We say loud and clear that getting hands-on and becoming a maker create self-confidence. And self-confidence is key to building a fulfilling lifestyle.
