Known for its remarkable industrial heritage, the rehabilitation of this 45 hectare industrial site is a major challenge for the development of the Brussels region.  With portions of land lying completely vacant, the site offers potential for a wide variety of activities – commercial, residential, and cultural – at both the local and regional scale.  The chain of parks proposed for the Tour & Taxis area are structured around a visual corridor, a valley, imagined as a tributary of the Seine.

The valley typology, quite present in the parks of Brussels, manifests primarily as lawn more or less enclosed by groves of trees reaching just to the banks of the river, at which point they open onto the water in wide, expansive views.  Our vision for Tour & Taxis is to reinterpret this language through a contemporary lens.  The current topography of the site provides slopes from the existing trench, and we imagine introducing slight inclines on the old railway bed.  This multitude of inclined planes allows for a coordination and management of how lawns and connective spaces can be laid out and used.  The final reconversion of the site happens at the existing canal, with a significantly urban rehabilitation of its banks, transforming the canal into a structural axis for the development of adjacent neighborhoods.

The first significant changes on the site will introduce spaces immediately open to the public, followed by a progressive development of the park chain. The spaces thus created will together follow the evolution of the neighborhoods.