Towards a Regenerative Approach to Architecture in Wallonia-Brussels

Coordinated by the ICA, Architectures Wallonie-Bruxelles Inventaires #4 2020-2023 showcases about a hundred spatial approaches to the holistic transformation of the built and unbuilt environment in Wallonia and Brussels between 2020 and 2023. Experts in the fields of architecture, urban planning, landscape and sociology have looked at these approaches to identify a variety of avenues for reflection on a number of themes. 

To explore this material, an editorial committee was set up, with combined expertise in the fields of architecture and publishing, based in Belgium and on an international level. At the end of their explorations, their discussions and the selection of projects, the editorial committee sought to position themselves further.

Agitated by the contrast between, on the one hand, the ingenuity and commitment shown by some project developers and designers and, on the other, the lack of interest in architecture and spatial planning on the part of politicians - particularly in Wallonia - the committee set about co-writing a manifesto entitled Towards a Regenerative Approach to Architecture, which proposes, in 29 points, to participate in writing a new narrative that aims to regenerate our territory and, consequently, our planet. To this end, it proposes project trajectories as much as demands to open up the perception of a new way of living and transforming our living environment.

As part of the Réappropriations exhibition, on Thursday 19 October at 19:00, the ICA is inviting Pierre Chabard (architect and architecture critic), Oana Bodgan (co-founder of Bogdan & Van Broeck, member of the Inventaires editorial board), Benoit Vandenbulcke (co-founder of AgwA architecture), Lionel Devlieger (co-founder of Rotor) and Michel Dachelet (Inspector General in the Department of Town and Country Planning of the Walloon Public Service) to meet and discuss the issues raised in the manifesto.