Sidewalk-parking-road-parking-sidewalk.

The typical sections of Rue Émile Féron and Rue Joseph Claes allow circulation but hardly anything else to happen. The project intends to counter the area’s ‘sameness’ by proposing to rethink the streets’ morphology and hierarchies.
Within the inescapable boundaries of the rue corridor, the ambition is to reinterpret the urban space between buildings as both a cohesive public space and a continuous infrastructure for water collection.

The project is structured by three figures: 

Rue Émile Féron
A river-like layout where pedestrians, bicycles and cars can move freely. The densely planted small islands conceal parking spaces, garage entrances and micro public spaces. Their curved shapes serve a dual purpose: slowing and directing traffic while also creating generous entrances for certain buildings when oriented toward the façades. A continuous pit beneath the ground cover collects rainwater that infiltrates through the soil and central gutter.

Rue Joseph Claes
A shared and flexible street encourages appropriation by residents and exploits the topography to implement a cascading system for water collection.

The Parvis
Scattered throughout the neighborhood, the small squares enhance the visibility of public institutions, currently hard to identify. These civic spaces interrupt the linearity of the streets, creating focal points for community interaction.