Design Studio: Let's talk about Belval

Fall Semester 2022

All We Need?

by Mohammed Zanboa, Arturas Certovas

Tutors: Markus Miessen and César Reyes Nájera

Documentary film poster. The documentary tackles the question of governance in Belval, and reflects on the spatial, social, economic, and political dimensions of the place through moving images. Mohammed Zanboa, Arturas Certovas, 2023.

ALLWENEED? is a documentary that combines materials shot on location in and around Belval. The visual investigation reflects the aspects of governance and margins, radical maintenance and infrastructure, public space, and its appropriation in the newly built district. By observing everyday processes in the area, some of the happenings start to draw a thin border between fiction and reality, where artificiality of the contemporary world plays a significant role.

While subtly scanning environments with our camera, we reflect social and political dimensions through moving images. The poetic reading of the district is complemented by the raw sonic layer that comes from public talks about Belval and the process of its making. We wanted to draw a parallel between the spoken word and the physical realm of the building environment that we are in.

Our documentary film deals with the spatial dimension of Belval by unbuilding the environment and showing its intense vulnerability and nakedness.

Forum C

by Kristina Shatokhina, Michelle Soares De Sousa, Ivan Dmitrievich Badiarov, Michel Da Silva Ferreira

Lecturer: Florian Hertweck, Marija Maric

Southern View of the project Forum C, a proposed building, using two underused spaces in Belval (Namely the Socle C and the two white steel frame structures ) and combining them into a dedicated space for the various student communities. The building was designed to be as low tech as possible hence the reuse of material and easily accessible resources. Using two underused spaces in Belval (Namely the Socle C and the two white steel frame structures) and combining them into a dedicated space for the various student communities. The core of the building is an open atrium with a view through the whole
building height.

Born from two fears of the territorial recession and pollution burden, the site of Belval was transformed and set on track to land valorisation. The University was chosen as a booster tool to achieve these goals under the brand of the knowledge society. In the run of commodification, Belval was frozen in rules and limitations to ensure that nothing jeopardised its investment attractiveness. The spaces are set to bring the maximum revenue or remain empty.

No room is left for simple, humane exchange in such a framed place. The students, workers and inhabitants require a new Belval! The imperfect Belval, that enables the communities to flourish. These communities need spaces of their own, where they are welcome and where they can and should leave traces. These communities need a space for informal encounters.

Three of the vacant spaces were chosen to be transformed to host these communities. Three floors, created from the white structures from the campus, placed on top of the Socle C, give common and individual spaces for numerous clubs and associations. The socle itself grants the space for the public forum, where the discussions are encouraged, and the city can be transformed in a new, participative way.

Interior View of the project “Forum C” a proposed building, using two underused spaces in Belval (Namely the Socle C and the two white steel frame structures ) and combining them into a dedicated space for the various student communities. The core of the building is an open atrium with a view through the whole building height.

The Forum C is made of these main structures depicted here, the Socle C acts as the foundation of the building and its first space, the public forum. Above it is the main structure made by reassembling the nearby white steel structures. The whole is then closed up using low tech panels creating the in between spaces.

4 Elements of a Living Environment

Tutors: Carole Schmit, David Peleman

8 students were distributed in three groups, working on the fauna, flora, and soil/water of Belval. The map marks the areas that students took samples from or captured evidence photographs.

In this studio project, the students undertook a comprehensive analysis of how Belval currently manages its urban spaces as a "living environment."They started from the assumption that urbanity is not only about human beings — and how to provide housing, labour, and leisure for them — but it is also about creating a place for a complete and complex biosystem including plants, animals and insects, water, and soil. How do these four elements exist (or not) within the perimeter of Belval? Do they belong to a connected infrastructure (or not) and do they relate to the outside world, beyond Belval? How does the current design of Belval try to confine the elements of a living environment, and how do they nevertheless escape this confinement?

Those questions were at the core of this studio and in order to answer them, the students scratched away the surface of Belval (literally and figuratively). The soil and the infrastructure that is present under the bricks, concrete, and asphalt that covers most of Belval’s surface play a crucial role in the management and development of the city. “Scratching away” the surface helped them to gain better insight into how to improve the city as a « well-tempered environment » and open up new perspectives on the future of Belval. The fact that various elements of a living environment remain hidden also obstructs the people who live and work in Belval from becoming engaged ‘citizens’ instead of mere ‘users’. It deprives the urban experience of its tactile and bodily component, turning it into a mere rational event where efficiency and conventions prevail over sensibility.

The students' investigation revealed that many elements of the living environment in Belval were managed "out of sight" or "out of touch" for its residents and users.

While there were aesthetic features like pools and sparse trees in the central area of Belval, they seemed to serve primarily an aesthetic role and did not encourage interaction. The water management largely remains invisible and rainwater runoff from the vast artificial surfaces disappears underground. In order to touch the earth with your feet, you have to go to a park or leave town. Such as archeologists searching for the treasures of an ecologically inspired urban life, the students aimed to disclose what is hidden under the surface in order to reframe some of the potentials of Belval. Their observations and understanding of the interaction among these elements led them to propose alternative scenarios and changes that could enhance the presence of each element within a more balanced urban ecosystem, potentially reshaping the perception of Belval as a whole.

As an experimental exercise, students put similar seeds in the soil samples that they collected from different locations of belval to see if there are differences in the plants' growth regarding soil pollution.

In each session, the students were coming together, sharing their findings, and organize future works among themselves.