Alice Wattelet.

Located in the center of Belgium, Ottignies is a French-speaking commune in the province of Walloon Brabant in Wallonia. Possessing a strong railway influence, the city has a strong potential for development.

Recently merged with the city of Louvain-la-Neuve, it becomes essential to link these two cities not only by name but also by their physical limits. How to work urbanity taking into account ecological issues, without intervening violently?

Our intervention was therefore focused on the work of vegetation. Our site, an industrial wasteland isolated between two railroad tracks, has as its only natural link with Louvain-la-Neuve, the wood of dreams. The establishment of a park as a unifying place of the city, responding to that of Louvain-la-Neuve becomes necessary.

 

Its purpose, its continuity materializes in the form of a place of learning and sharing around craftsmanship, inviting mutual help and exchange of knowledge. Like the park, it aims to federate a new form of exchange between the different inhabitants.

Therefore, in order to combine encounters, mobility and ecology the intervention develops in the form of an inhabited tablecloth, an outdoor public space bringing together different scales of soft mobility and respecting ecological issues (proscription of the car except emergency or exceptional case).