European quarter

type

Sociological survey and tactical urbanism

Context

The European Quarter is a complex neighborhood with a busy urban history, made up of decades of projects and plans. The European Quarter Fund (FQE) is an important player in reflecting on the quarter's history and evolution. It is developing a series of studies to help guide reflection on developments in the area.

Mission

The FQE wanted to feed the reflection on the quarter's social context: what are the wishes of its inhabitants and users? On this basis, define the strategies that can be implemented to improve social and functional diversity and, more broadly, the attractiveness of the quarter.

Approach

The approach consisted in setting up several tools for analysing the social context: an online survey which gathered more than 300 responses and served as the basis for detailed analysis on several themes (mobility, density, diversity, etc.), three participatory workshops organised with target audiences: residents, cultural and economic actors, and European officials. On this basis, we defined an action strategy in a logic of "soft" interventions bringing a progressive and rapid transformation of the quarter in parallel with "hard" interventions linked to major urban projects. The mission therefore made it possible to anchor urban action proposals rooted in a participatory consultation process with the actors of a quarter, in the logic of tactical urbanism.

client

Fonds quartier européen

location

Bruxelles

date

2015

status

Completed

Team

CityTools

LOCI - UCLouvain