RECLAIM THE VALLEY
How should be worked with a city as Charleroi in a current situation of economic and financial decline? How can we handle the vast wastelands created by the heavy industries? How should we deal with contaminated soil? How can we bring life in an emptying post-industrial city? How can we re-activate voids? A good plan for Charleroi needs a realistic long vision and a time strategy to guarantee the implementation. To change a city thoroughly, it must come from within. In this booklet a bottom-up approach is described. Read it, feel inspired and act!
1
Short Term
.............................................................. To change a city thoroughly, change must come from within. The inhabitants of Charleroi and the surrounding villages, should wake up and rediscover what the valley offers. Its position and location has a lot of potential for further development and already possesses unique places. On the short term, the people themselves should start to initiate an evolution for a better Charleroi. This could be done in a very simple and feasible way. In this project several categories of actions are proposed which can start the revival of the valley. Participation is crucial.
- POP-UP EVENTS -
Events can bring a lot of people in one place. They can serve as a tool to spark curiosity. In the case of Charleroi, pop-up events on unique venues are certain to do so. The initiator can be a community or individuals as well as the municipality itself. The importance lays in the location and the reviving of the site. The implementation can be cheap with upcycled materials, low-cost organization and with the help of local artists. By organizing all kinds of activities in such an unique environment, a community engagement and interactivity will commence to grow. There can be a lot diversity in pop-ups. For example a concert, open air theater or cinema, music festival, dances, discussion platforms‌ Likewise it can be a temporary cafÊ, restaurant, concept store,‌in a vacant lot situated in a strategic part of the city. Furthermore, these events can serve as a test for opportunities of public space. By using the power of surprise they will reactivate new places and the revival of the city.
N채chtvogels x Kop van de Vaart, Roeselare, Belgium
Food & Wine Festival, Melbourne, Australia
- RE-TOUCH -
Visitors nowadays see Charleroi as a grey city, formed by deserted houses and leftovers of the industry shaping the skyline. A very simple way of refreshing this ordinary perception, is to give a colorful makeover, and thus life, to the city. These are very small, cheap, feasible and informal interventions. Nowadays it is already starting to grow in this city. Houses, walls, stairs,‌ can be painted in vibrant colors so they stand out. The grey facades will gain value again by this public art.
Private spaces in public spaces, Berlin, Germany
Merge Invisible, Budapest, Hungary
Les portraits en papier, Gaspesia, Canada
- RE-USE -
In a city where the big industrial buildings are being abandoned and city infrastructure is being underused, there is a big need of re-use. Although the real future development is not for right away, in the short term it can have a temporary repurpose. By preserving for example the original structure, and adding some small interventions, these big leftover can house new programs. They will be designed to transform the perception of the industrial building. In this way they will gain value again and it will be more feasible to be redeveloped. There is a distinction between the reuse of old industrial buildings and old infrastructure. The several abandoned railroads an bridges spread along the Sambre, can serve as temporary parks, bicycle and pedestrian tracks. Some unique buildings, usually because of their incredible unhuman scale, can easily be enlived, by not only preserving the past but making it for the first time accessible for all the inhabitants of Charleroi. In this way the people will be in touch with the heritage of a century old industry.
Zollverein park, Essen, Germany
Side effects, Bat Yam, Israel
Abandoned paper factory, Taipei, Taiwan
- INSTALLATIONS -
The valley consists of many empty spaces, places of flow, unseen by the people passing by. Reactivating these lots can be done with new site-specific interventions. A temporary installation can form a solution to the unspoken needs of the people and a certain situation. At the same time they will trigger curiosity and commitment from the inhabitants. They will taste how public and inbetween-space can live-up. There is wide range of possibilities what these interventions can be. For instance playgrounds, temporary parks, urban furniture, art installations, sporting field, pavilions can energize a certain place. The importance lays in the interactive character and the exploration of opportunities. It temporarily activates vacant lots with artistic projects and services, testing concrete ideas with a low budget and, above all, involving the local community to take part in the city rebuild.
The REAL estate, Bat Yam, Israel
Pod Mostom, Kosice, Slovakia
Himmelbeet, Berlin, Germany
2
Long Term
.............................................................. While there is a need of a short term, bottom-up approach, the sites of the valley also need to be prepared for future developments. These preparations consist mainly of the clean-up of the highly polluted soil. There’s a wide range of techniques that take care of such remediation but there is one specific method that can mean a big difference in the environment of Charleroi.
- ENVIRONMENTAL REMEDIATION Environmental remediation is about the removal of pollution from environmental media like soil, groundwater or surface water. These actions are done to protect the human health of the inhabitants near the polluted area or to prepare a brownfield for new developments. There are different kinds of environmental remediation, but generally the costs of these methods are very high.
Excavation The method of excavation involves the removement of polluted soil or other materials from a site. Because of its simplicity, this method is the most common form of soil remediation. It goes from just removing the soil and replacing it by unpolluted soil to more complex processes such as aeration or bioremediation. Solidification and stabilization The solidification method adds materials to the polluted soil that bind to certain contaminants. This method doesn’t remove the contaminants from the site but makes sure they can not spread to a wider area or can not contaminate the groundwater. Typically cement is added to the soil to form a solid block that prevents the spreading of the contaminants over a wider area. Stabilization helps the removal or containing of the polluted soil by adding materials that react with the contaminants. This method is often used on sites where the soil contains high amounst of heavy metals such as arsenic and mercury.
Pump & Treat This method involves the pumping and purifying of contaminated ground water. Depending on the grade of pollution, different techniques are used. Oxidation By using strong oxidant, which can increase the oxygen content of the soil or ground water. The oxidants mix with the groundwater and soil to break down certain chemicals before being pumped back tot the surface. In some cases the use of oxygen can enhance the growth of bacteria and other microbes that help to break down some contaminants. Soil Vapour Extraction This remediation technique purifies the soil and groundwater at the same time, by injecting air or steam into the ground. The outgoing vapours are then treated as necessary. This method is especially interesting on sites polluted by petroleum products.
- PHYTOREMEDIATON -
Phytoremediation is the onsite method where plants reduce the contamination of soil and groundwater. Thanks to the natural capabilities of plants it is possible to degrade, stabilize or even remove the pollutants present on the site. On the other hand, the method can be an effective approach to reduce the leaching of contaminants through soil or groundwater. In contrary to the strategies mentioned above, this method is low-budget and easily applicable. The implementation of phytoremediation on previous projects showed that cost savings of 50 percent for the extraction of heavy metals and up to 80 percent for the clean-up of petroleum in comparison to the more traditional methods.
Also, the interim presence of a planted area is in general prefered by communities over big truckloads with contaminated soil being transported through the neighborhood. A wide variety of plants can be used for this method, depending on the metals and chemicals present in the soil. The most common ones are the indian mustardplant (Brassica juncea), the alfalfa plant (Medicago Sativa) and the poplar tree (Populus).
- PHYTOREMEDIATON AND LANDSCAPING -
The strategy of the poplar trees is not really about making Charleroi greener but about the purification of the land and about landscaping. Thanks to the specific structure and height of a poplar, they can not only function as a buffer inbetween the cleaned soil and the polluted soil or as a buffer for polluted runoff water, but they can also structure the landscape. By placing them on strategic places along the canal and industrial roads, a scenic coherence for the valley can be created. This structurizing is needed in the strongly fragmented landscape of Charleroi.
- COMMUNITY DRIVEN PHYTOREMEDIATION -
To create awareness throughout the inhabitants of Charleroi for this important task of remediating the polluted land of the valley and recreating a healthy environment, some community-driven actions are asked. Not only should there be some kind of educational format where a good approach to this situation is learned, the people should also be involved into this cleaning. For example the planting of this phytoremediational plants, especially the poplar trees, can be an action of the inhabitants, the schools or youth organisations.
“Whether these spaces are private property or publicly owned, citizens can play a vital role in this process of reengaging abandoned land in the course of daily life.� Brownfields to greenfields, a field guide to phytoremediation, Youarethecity, 2011
- REFERENCE PROJECTS -
Field lab, Youarethecity This urban lab is an experimental garden in New York. Four plants are tested for their ability to decontaminate the soil. Indian mustard, basket willow, sunflower and mugwort showed their effectiveness in the removing of heavy metals. The installation was at the same time garden furniture and an exhibition. Thanks to the research and community-involvement, the project won a mini-grant from City Atlas.
Centrale Werkplaatsen, Leuven, Belgium
Zollverein Park, Essen, Germany
3
Framework
.............................................................. To understand how these interventions could be realized, it is necessary to mention a background framework in which participation can work. This process of involving the community can be divided in different steps. The first step is to increase the people’s knowledge in terms of technical know-how, in order to make the community more capable during the decision making. This kind of activities, such as training and awareness courses, require the presence of experts that can explain the process. Last but not least, the consultation phase has the role of transforming all the proposals and reservations of the community into specific and feasible alternatives. The benefits of a bottom up approach are often underestimated by political attitude focused only on the short term outcomes. For this project to happen, the political frame should allow the valley to evolve in a spontaneous but organised way, making sure that through the purification of the soil and the commitment of the community a better future awaits.
Conclusion
................................................................... The valley of the Sambre needs a reactivation. To do so the abandoned and polluted reality of today should gradually, step by step, prepare for redevelopment. In times of economic and financial decline, a feasible strategy starts with cheap interventions, small but with a big scope. People shouldn’t wait for change happening, instead they should trigger it themselves. Participation is crucial. On the short term the community, together with the municipalities, should by using the power of surprise, rediscover the valley. Voids, leftovers from the industry, brownfields, … their potential should be explored. On the short term a conversation should be initiated about the future. On the long term people should act and start the cleaning process of the contaminated environment. Phytoremediation offers an easy, low-cost and feasible way to activate the community in taking responsibility and helping the valley clean-up. Let’s turn this decay in a productive urban landscape!
SIMONE CONZ SIMONA NIKOVA EMMANUEL VAN OOST STUDIO URBAN TISSUE/URBAN PLANNING 2013