Altering Practices for Urban Inclusion Elective ‘19-‘20 – subtheme: SMH Neighbourhood Integration

Co-organisation and tutoring of a Community-engaged Architectural Design Learning course at the KU Leuven Faculty of Architecture (in collaboration with Prof. dr. Burak Pak and drs. Rosie Romero) during the co-construction phase of the Solidary Mobile Housing (SMH) co-creation process.

In the framework of this elective, thirteen students met weekly with the course tutors (Prof. Burak Pak, drs. Aurelie De Smet, and drs. Rosie Romero) and one of the SOB employees (Geraldine Bruyneel) to contribute to the initiation of the neighbourhood integration of the SMH project. Furthermore, context of this course, the students also studied and compared a series of similar cases from Belgium and abroad and used these as a ground to collectively reflect on the past and future processes and outcomes of the SMH project, together with the other SMH partners.

Two temporary on-site interventions were organised during the elective period to initiate exchanges with the surrounding neighbourhood. In the context of these events, several small-scale ‘infrastructures’ were designed and built to facilitate the site’s shared use. These included:

• (1) a series of modular, multifunctional ‘boxes’, to be used as tables and chairs, planters, building elements for a bar, etc.,
• (2) a greenhouse (realized with the help of one of the future inhabitants, at their workshop in Anderlecht), to be used for activities in the context of the planned community garden,
• (3) the transformation of the site’s fence into an ‘enterfence’ (= a means to inform and invite neighbourhood residents to future public activities on the site), and
• (4) a neighbourhood map and walk, enabling the future inhabitants to get familiar with their future neighbourhood; and
• (5) a birdhouse and mural, aiming to create a ‘homely’ feeling on the terrain.

Through these infrastructures, the future inhabitants and the neighbourhood could start already appropriating the site gradually, even while they were still awaiting the construction and the installation of the SMH units on the terrain.