This summer 2021, Immobel launched “La Cour D’Henriette[1]”, a temporary installation in a public space, next to the “Lebeau” project near the Place du Sablon. The Lebeau project is one of Immobel’s future developments and aims to transform the area around the Lebeau site into a pedestrian-friendly and lively neighbourhood. This charming little square at the intersection of Rue de la Paille and Rue Ruysbroeck will be brought to life for the local young people, surrounding schools and passers-by thanks to an athletic track, urban furniture, vegetable gardens and graffiti workshops for schoolchildren.

The importance of public spaces

Public spaces are all around us; they are our “open-air living room”. The COVID-19 pandemic has brought about a growing appreciation of urban spaces - city streets, parks and squares where we meet up as neighbours and citizens. Public space is vital to sustainable cities.

Immobel has always considered this to be an important commitment and it will become even more so in our future developments.

Towards a new public area around the Lebeau site

The planned redevelopment of the Lebeau site into a mixed-use project is an opportunity to rethink the surrounding neighbourhood. Rue Lebeau could become a higher-quality, more welcoming and climate-conscious street that connects upper and lower Brussels. Active ground floors connecting directly to open spaces create a relaxing atmosphere for pedestrians and cyclists. With the ground floors of the future, Immobel is developing a programme that adds value to the urban fabric (the “city at eye-level”) and enables pedestrians once again to enjoy a pleasant stroll in Rue Lebeau.

Immobel wants to create places where people can enjoy meeting and spending time together, just like the Place de la Justice, thereby contributing to the dialogue on how to give people a real “sense of place”.

Our development projects are intended to become catalysts of change for the surrounding public space, either by rethinking and adding value to the current public space or by creating new ones. Our buildings and public spaces should offer each other something.

Sven Lenaerts, head of CSR at Immobel

La Cour d’Henriette

The innovative “La Cour D’Henriette” project in Rue Ruysbroeck can be seen as a prototype and a first step towards rethinking the area around the Lebeau site. It aims to contribute to a longer-term debate on changing public spaces.

The project contains not only hardware elements, with new urban furniture, vegetable gardens and an athletic track, but also software elements, with a summer programme of graffiti workshops, organised by the non-profit association Propaganza ASBL, for the children from local schools.

The project has applied a bottom-up approach by listening to the local stakeholders such as the schools and the local associations. Many young people who attend school and live in the neighbourhood often use the space today, but it lacks the facilities necessary to make it pleasant enough to stay longer.

Apart from this local added value, Immobel hopes that this project will be a first step in a structural co-creation process towards high-quality and vital public spaces in Brussels.

La Cour D’Henriette: August - October 2021, Rue Ruysbroeck, Sablon Brussels

Facebook: La Cour d'Henriette

Instagram: @lacourdhenriette

An initiative of Immobel in cooperation with Eole

[1] In reference to Henriette Dachsbeck, a committed feminist who dedicated her life to the education of girls in the 19th century