Tivoli

The Tivoli competition project, straight-jacketed in an immutable layout tailored by unalterable volumetrics (both part of an indisputable brief), essentially emerges as a pointless exercise in low-cost façade design. Only thing left to chew on is the landscaping because it significantly represents the project’s last ditch at pertinence.

So a traversing car-free path is proposed in order to welcome and foster positive exchanges between all members of the very diverse population living and working here: mixed origins, mixed social backgrounds, mixed age groups. It makes its way through the entirety of the site, widening for small squares where young and old can meet, welcoming people from the quartier or just passing, children off to school, parents watching over their children’s play, …

Community spaces and gardens, daycare centers, laundromats, cafes and galleries, as well as convivial urban business venues (Greenbizz) are all clustered along this serpentine … shared pedestrian space is designed as a backdrop for shared experiences for all.

The use of a limited palette of materials (albeit implemented differently) serves to accentuate the unity of the concept, and hence to foster this sense of community. The hustle and bustle of activity comes to a head in three key areas where inter-neighborhood and exterior traffic, together, are most intense: the Place de Molenbeek surrounded by housing (both new and existing), the Place Greenbizz with its economic pole and school over-looking it, and lastly the Tivoli Park. Gathered round the park are sheltered meeting spots, public services such as a daycare center, as well as a weekly open-air market. Water features (ponds, reed-beds, fountains, planted drainage ditches, …) are extensively used, accompanied by exclusively indigenous species. The resulting blue-green trail wandering through the site federates unbuilt space, offering (at least visual) unity.