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See U extended!

Société d'Aménagement Urbain (SAU) has decided to extend the temporary occupancy of Usquare.brussels, the conversion project for the former Fritz Toussaint barracks in Ixelles, until March 2022. The approach of the first renovation works on the site means that activities will have to be redistributed over the extra 15 months.

Called Usquare.brussels and piloted by SAU, the conversion project for the former Fritz Toussaint barracks in Ixelles, which has made significant progress in recent months, aims to transform the site into a new district that is open, mixed and dynamic, urban and convivial, university and international, sustainable and innovative. The aim is to meet the needs of the people of Brussels, and in particular those of local residents, particularly in terms of housing and public spaces, while at the same time hosting an ambitious project of international scope jointly developed by ULB and VUB. 

The SAU, the Region, the universities and the commune of Ixelles wanted to take advantage of the preparatory phase of the reconversion to develop a transitional occupation, called See U. Objectives: to make temporarily unoccupied spaces available to citizens, associations, cultural initiatives, etc.; to contribute to the liveliness of the site; to begin its gradual opening-up to the neighborhood; to avoid the problems associated with abandoned sites.

See U: 100% occupancy, over 350 activities, more than 125,000 visitors

In order to realize these ambitions, SAU implemented an innovative and very open temporary occupancy procedure, on the one hand to appoint a transitional manager for the entire site (the Creatis / D-Side Group / Troisième consortium) via a public contract, and on the other hand to select the first temporary occupants of parts of the site via a Call for Expressions of Interest (AMI).
Once the necessary permits had been obtained, See U temporary occupancy was inaugurated in April 2019 .
The See U team developed an ambitious program, reaching acruising speed of around one hundred initiatives and a 100% occupancy rate.
Since the opening, over 350 activities have been organized or hosted on the site, attracting more than 125,000 visitors and ensuring the success and reputation of this temporary occupation. In fact, the SAU and the See U team won a Visit.brussels Award.

Spatial redistribution of activities on the site

In view of this success,the SAU has decided to extend the temporary occupation, which should have ended at the end of 2020, by a further 15 months, as the departure of the Federal Police from the last building on the site will free up space for See U that will partly compensate for that lost from next autumn onwards, with the start of the first renovation works.
The SAU and the See U team have carried out an objective assessment of all the projects developed to date under the temporary occupancy scheme, and have met with all the promoters individually. This was done, on the one hand, with a view to carrying out the necessary spatial reorganization of temporary occupancy activities on the site, given that the total surface area of the buildings available to See U has been reduced from 35,000 m2 to 30,000 m2. And, secondly, to focus See U's overall dynamic on those projects that best encourage the involvement of local residents in the ongoing transition linked to the eventual conversion of the barracks.

Gilles Delforge, Director of SAU, is "delighted with the excellent collaboration with the See U team and the quality of their work, which transformed SAU's innovative approach to organizing a temporary occupation into a real popular and media success, inspiring other operators and earning See U and SAU a Visit.brussels Award. I would like to extend my warmest thanks to all the See Users who actively contributed to this success, and especially to those who are currently supporting us in the participatory process we have launched to design the site's future public spaces. I'm delighted to see that See U's temporary occupation has enabled a number of fine initiatives to get off to a flying start, some of which are now leaving the site because they need larger spaces . I'm thinking in particular of Billy Bike. And more broadly, I'm delighted that the SAU can contribute to making the region's land heritage available to the people of Brussels through temporary occupancies, each with its own specific features: See U in the former Fritz Toussaint barracks since April 2019; MolenWest next to the West Station since September 2020; "L'Été à Josaphat" on the site of the former Josaphat marshalling yard last summer".

Edouard Meier, head of the Creatis / D-Side Group / Troisième Pôle consortium, is "delighted to be able to continue the adventure of Belgium's largest temporary occupation. The long-term nature of the project will enable us to further strengthen ties with the neighborhood and local residents, support the arrival of the Usquare.brussels project, and continue to uphold the values of social cohesion and sustainable development that motivate all the site's occupants. During the additional 15 months granted by the SAU, we'll be working in particular on the positive dynamic initiated with local residents by See U, with projects such as Kinograph, Haut les cœurs, Pousse et vous, Hors Catégories, Place aux plantes, etc."

Emblematic projects and a neighborhood-focused program

Among the flagship See U operations that have raised the profile of the site are the Velodroom, inaugurated to coincide with the start of the 2019 Tour de France and now an emblem for the people of Brussels; the U See Festival, an urban festival organized in partnership with the European Commission, which saw the creation of 24 monumental frescoes on the site; the U Beer Bazar, a festive gathering of Brussels microbreweries; the Grand Marché Durable et Créatif; and Brussels' first Maker Faire .

Of course, the coronavirus pandemic and periods of confinement have not spared See U's occupants. Many activities were interrupted for months on end, like Kinograph, for example, which ceased all screenings from March to July 2020, then had to adapt its activities since last autumn (online sessions, exhibition...). Temporary occupation has proved extremely resilient, and a number of projects have contributed to the outpouring of solidarity in these times of crisis. Billy Bike, for example, offered free minutes on its shared electric bikes to nursing staff and other heroes in the fight against Covid. Happy Hours Market, which supplied unsold meals to Brussels hospitals. Or Hors Catégorie, which delivered medicines to pharmacies.

As for the See U team, it has devised a new program to adapt the project to this new situation and further increase the positive impact of temporary occupation. This program, Meet U, has been developed as a label for all See U activities organized for the neighborhood surrounding the site. It is also symbolically the name of the space that will be made available to local residents, as soon as possible, inside See U.More info onCaserne- Usquare.brusselsDevelopmentsCaserne- Usquare.brusselsSites