Located not far from the large Gare du Nord train station, Rogier Square crosses the boulevard of the botanical gardens to form a strategic shopping and multifunctional junction for Brussels. The design of its surface presented an infrastructural challenge, with the underground of the public spaces taken up with the complex networks of transportation and urban services. On the greater metropolitan scale, the project is part of the implementation of a green belt for the city. The completion of this first segment aims at initiating a wider gradual transformation of the urban axis running from the parks of the National Basilica of the Sacred Heart to the Botanical Gardens.

The partial renewal and transformation of the boulevard offers a contemporary approach to the urban relationship between transportation and public space. The project reduces the surface area given over to road traffic lanes in order to create a more generous pedestrian space. The desire to establish a significant amount of vegetation on site despite the constraining presence of the numerous underground networks, led us to the idea of increasing the thickness of the ground. Ground foundations sufficiently large are interspersed with densely planted blocks of trees. A new topography is created whose coherent and shaded surface one can make sense of and enjoy. The classic urban promenade is here redefined through a simplified and essential vocabulary.