About this event
Please join CSU as we welcome our guest speaker Yannick Vanhaelen on Wednesday, December 18th from 12 - 1p for a special Green Books virtual event: The Public Space Manual
Talk Abstract:
Urban professionals around the world are rethinking public space to build healthier, more inclusive and resilient cities. The need to re-equilibrate space allocation to accommodate a diversity of functions beyond mobility is clear. Yet, achieving qualitative public spaces is a challenge for many public authorities and designers faced with an ever-growing complexity of sometimes contradictory ambitions to consider, integrate or solve in a constrained space. The recently launched Public Space Manual by the Brussels Capital Region offers a new approach to these challenges by providing a clear, structured guide to prioritize the use of public spaces for diverse urban needs.
The manual was created by ORG through a systemic approach that includes advanced analytics and strategic stakeholder management to inform an innovative design process. The manual proposes a coherent, shared vision for its diverse territory, one that addresses contemporary urban challenges, and integrates existing resources while providing concrete solutions for designing public spaces.
An interactive webtool further facilitates its use and navigation, allowing users to explore customized solutions, adapt to new policies and evolve with regional goals.
The talk will highlight the complexity of designing qualitative public spaces today, while the ideas and recommendations that will be shared can inspire public authorities and designers alike.
Speaker: Yannick Vanhaelen
Yannick Vanhaelen is an architect-urbanist and a partner at ORG, a New York and Brussels-based office that focuses on solving complex projects across scales to address the many social and environmental crises of our times.
Yannick is leading complex multi stakeholder public space, mobility, infrastructure and urbanism projects like the transformation of the E411 highway entrance to Brussels into an urban boulevard, the "Image and Quality Plan" for the Brussels Canal area and the Public Space Manual for the Brussels Region. His work focuses on qualitative public space, humanized infrastructures and helping private and public authorities realize ambitious and well supported, transformative plans. Before joining ORG in 2017, Yannick combined academic work with a career in practice. He has published several articles on the development and the appearance of the Brussels metropolis and its transport infrastructures.
