La Générale’s Parc des Brigittines featured in the “Bienestar en la Ciudad” exhibition in Madrid

Among the 95 projects from three continents featured in the exhibition Bienestar en la Ciudad, currently on view at Casa de la Arquitectura, is the Parc des Brigittines in Brussels, designed by La Générale. Its inclusion in this international selection confirms the relevance of an architectural approach attentive to use, existing conditions, and the forms of coexistence they make possible.

Transforming an urban leftover into a shared space

The project occupies an urban fragment that initially appears far from welcoming: a residual triangular plot, enclosed between a social housing block and the railway infrastructure of the North–South Junction. Where one might have seen a constraint, the architects identified a potential: to transform an overlooked site into a shared space capable of accommodating different scales of use and varying degrees of intimacy.

The project is structured around four key elements - the slab, the workshop, the wall and the open ground - which organise the site while shaping its uses.

At the corner formed by the housing block, the slab acts as a threshold. This intermediate space, functioning both as a base and an interface, marks the transition between the residential domain and the public realm. It features an intervention by Vincent Glowinski, whose colourful lines extend across the ground, offering a more sensitive reading of the site.

At its southern edge, a shared workshop built from reclaimed bricks immediately expresses the project’s relationship to materiality and transformation. Its roof accommodates community vegetable gardens accessible to residents, introducing a productive dimension at the heart of the scheme.

The wall, meanwhile, ceases to function as a boundary and instead becomes a support. It integrates play equipment, guides circulation, and helps connect the different layers of the project.

Finally, the open ground, facing the city, provides a freer, less programmed space—one that encourages appropriation. Planting and the fluid design of the furniture create a welcoming spatial environment, open to multiple and evolving uses.

An exemplary project of urban wellbeing

What makes Parc des Brigittines particularly relevant within the framework of Bienestar en la Ciudad is precisely this capacity to use architecture as a tool of mediation: between infrastructure and housing, between residents and visitors, and between planned uses and spontaneous appropriation.

Exhibition: 23 April 2026 – 20 September 2026
Venue: C/ Paseo de la Castellana, 67, 28046 Madrid