Footbridge in Schaerbeek / MSA / Wallonie-Bruxelles Architectures / Wallonie-Bruxelles Architectures

Footbridge in Schaerbeek

About: Ten years ago a former intervention organized the plantation and the furniture on the two halves of the space, it tried to diminish the impact of the train as much as possible by hiding it under with thick vegetal massifs.
Recently a new pre-definition mission was held with a participatory process in order to implicate the neighbourhood in different architectural and socio-economical projects, among others, the conclusion revealed the needs for a stronger unity and a better use of that space.
As a part of this large revitalization program, a special public tender was floated on that matter in order to formalize this plaza into a communication node. The tender proposed the realization of a circle canopy (Strasbourg like) to find a new identity of the space and to accommodate the trams and bus shelter under it. An original designed was asked by the public authority in order to achieve a renewal of the space.
We took quiet passionately the subject proposed by the tender, we elaborated an original proposal of cable suspended canopy with an original geometry to fit to the crisp like space. Rapidly we arrived to the conclusion that the canopy could not match the already powerful circular definition of the surrounding buildings and that the priority was in the centre of the space.
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