A Thesis About Repair, Connection & Collective Resource by Adam Cowan

This project responds to the potentially claustrophobic density of Brussels’ historic territory, Marollen. The thesis focuses on how integrating institutions into the city can both repair damaged urban fabric and tackle the systems issue of climate change. This drove the design of a climate campus – an international hub for institutions and activists that draws on Brussels’ geopolitical position in Europe.

Unpicking the patterns of Marollen, from the urban scale to the city block, down to the block interiors informed how to densify a challenging site, re-knitting the urban crust, and repairing the wounds of Brusselisation. The new block uses thresholds, sight lines and meandering routes between interior and exterior spaces, retaining the intrigue of the historic blocks while creating a dense yet permeable block interspersed with quality public spaces.

It is not possible to talk about repair without acknowledging the precarious social, political, and environmental landscapes we live in. A city where citizens are increasingly apathetic and helpless at the declining state of their future is not an ethical city. Existing frameworks to tackle the climate emergency have proved unfit in the past and present. This thesis responds to the invisible presence of transparent public institutions in Marollen, proposing a civic campus housing three new institutions.

These will be a People’s House, a Climate Union and a Manufacturing School. The synergy of these institutions will instigate holistic ethical responses to the climate crisis, mobilising vast sections of society in education, negotiation, protest and collective action. The resultant campus will be a hub of palpable activism which empowers and creates activists, our generators of change, stimulating exponential progress against the complex climate emergency.