When the Malmar metallurgical company closed its facilities in 1997, a piece of land of medieval origin was abandoned on the outskirts of Ghent, in Belgium. The old factory deteriorated over time and they began to paint its walls.
After the paintings, the residents of the neighborhood began to gather next to the ruins. It began to grow and the neighbors themselves requested the reconversion of the ruins into a garden, the public park into which they themselves, the passage of time and the nature of the vegetation had converted it.
Two decades later, a project was born to make a residential area coexist with that park and the landscapers, the engineers from VK and the architects from Greenspot&Bogdan, saved part of the factory and also converted it into a park.
Today Bijgaarde is thus a public garden that serves the new homes and the old residents of the neighborhood. It also joins an existing park in the neighborhood designed by Renê Pechère and Jean Pierre Paus in the 1950s. It adds 2,000 square meters of garden, trails and preservation of some animals – such as and which is essential to keep mosquitoes at bay – and reinforces the integration of the new neighbors into the neighborhood.
For the architects it was essential to maintain the industrial character of the place. The park is surrounded, not enclosed, by old factory walls that display graffiti and allow climbing plants to grow. The landscapers were inspired because it was ferns that they found there. After decades of abandonment, there was a biotope for rare species of ferns that they recovered and replanted.
Part of the factory basement was consolidated as a hibernation space for bats. Rainwater is collected in three tanks to water the garden and. The result is a sustainable space, with historical memory and a future project. A leafy place of coexistence. A fruitful dialogue between the public and the private, an initiative of the neighborhood residents that expands the neighborhood green area and turns it into a public space.
