ARCHITECTURE OF EXTR-A-CTION

Under the guidance of willow-artist Yvonne Knevels, we will build a series of 'living'-pavilions to create shaded meeting places at the ParckFarm site.

This workshop targets primary school students and people from the surrounding communities. Participants of this workshop will be introduced to the concept of sustainable and circular building materials while playing with local soils from Tour & Taxis. We will explore earth use as building material and its origins for construction. By learning the processes to produce an unfired earth brick and its benefits, we can contribute to the knowledge of our future builders and designers.

Together we will celebrate the start of the festival at Parckfarm. This event is the first of many activities that the BBB action group have organized in the following month to share our knowledge, research, believes and hopes. We'll start by having a lecture by Gideon Boie with Q&A afterwards to give a sneak peek of the topics that will be addressed. Together with great refreshments, music and interesting people this night sets the tone for the upcoming festival.

The BBB team will build a foldable easy-assembly canopy for the Parckfarm community. Proposed with low-tech concepts and reused materials, the project will create a new exterior meeting space for the local community.

A community-centered workshop at the green garden of Parckfarm, Nature is a Playground invites children of 10 years or older and their parents for a day of creative and playful endeavor. Led by prof. Yvonne Knevels, the participants will learn the possibilities of designing and working with natural materials in building furniture and designing paths in the garden. 

During this workshop the concept of sustainable and circular building materials will be introduced, as well as gaining an understanding in different soil types and the different building products which can be made using these soils. We will make a decent amount of earth bricks which will later be used for constructions at Parckfarm. By making these bricks together with the participants, they both learn about the state-of-the-art, as well as contribute to the transformation of Parckfarm. 

Parckfarm stands for its service to the community and the city through open activities and collective effort. With the same spirit, we will design and build the new storage shelves of the greenhouse as a refreshing touch for the new season. Based on salvaged and repurposed materials, the new design will follow Parckfarms principles on cultivating awareness of the local resources and their afterlife. 

During this lecture Nicolas Coeckelberghs (founder of BC Materials) and Denis Samyn (geologist) will share their experience and knowledge about earth as a building material in the urban context of Brussels. First, Denis will dive into the typology and geology of Brussels to understand what the earth of Brussels looks like and where and how it can be found. Then, Nicolas will share how this raw material can be transformed, in a vey low-tech and sustainable way, into beautiful building materials. This lecture is also an opportunity to learn more about the long history of raw earth architecture.

Molenbeek's communities and associations come together to celebrate 'earth' in our different cultures through music, design, food, dance and much more. 

The BBB team is joining the Fête de Quartier Terre C.R.U.E in Molenbeek to show the work and research we have been doing this year, both in the 'Same Same but Different' exhibition at Z33 and at Parckfarm, during our open participatory construction festival. 

During this workshop Stef Lemmens, Elke Cuppens and Milan Gillard invite the visitors to build various constructions using mostly bamboo and the red plastic boxes which have been a characteristic element within Parckfarm for the last years. We will document some of these constructions and publish them in a zine with illustrations and instructions on how to build them. At the end of the day participants can take a zine with them and we will leave plenty of copies at Parckfarm to inspire future visitors. Our goal is to give people a first low-key experience in construction to increase their skills and confidence to take on future projects.

Do you have old socks at home and you don't know what to do with them? We will transform them in no time into a nice rectangular block to take home. Together we create a piece of art for your home! 

In this lecture Myriam Dumortier talks about the importance of biodiversity. Besides the climate crisis we are also heading for another, less known crisis: the loss of biodiversity. The vast majority of the people are already convinced of climate change and its impact. However, many people are insufficiently aware of the immense loss of biodiversity that we are now experiencing. It has been called the sixth mass extinction. Biodiversity has an enormous impact on all aspect of our lives: climate, agriculture, health, economy, nature… The more (bio)diverse an ecosystem is, the stronger it is. The opposite is also true: the fewer species, the weaker the ecosystem, the more likely it is to be affected by diseases, pests and disasters.

Don't know what to do with your old clothes? Always wanted to learn to sew? Or just interested in creating your own pillow to take home? This workshop will teach you how to make your own pillow from recovered textile in no time. We will be using both pre- and post-consumer textile waste. Pre-consumer textile waste consists of materials generated during industrial processing of textiles such as scraps, damaged materials, samples and more. In this case we will be using tarpaulin leftovers for the pillowcases. The shreds are from recovered post-consumer textile waste. Post-consumer textiles include end-use products, such as items returned or discarded by consumers. 

“What if every single act of design and construction made the world a better place?” The International Living Future Institute, ILFI, is a non-profit organisation that operates the Living Building Challenge: a tool that empowers a future based on regenerative way of building. It is the world’s most ambitious, advanced, and holistic performance standard for green, resilient, and healthy buildings. The Living Building Challenge is a philosophy, advocacy tool and certification program that promotes the measurement of sustainability in the built environment. It is based upon healthy workplaces, thriving communities, beautiful buildings and inspiring products. Carlo Battisti, president of Living Future Europe, will elaborate more on the Living Building Challenge and the other visionary programs that support the transformation toward–and provide a compelling vision for a living future accessible to all.

The BBB-team will work on the transformation of Parckfarm and make the base for a shelving system with earth blocks around the core of Parckfarm. These blocks are previously fabricated during the 'Initiation to Adobe Making' workshop.

This activity is the result of a beautiful collaboration between Natuurpunt, Parckfarm and Building Beyond Borders on the theme of diversity. As part of Natuurpunt's "Nature in the City of Brussels" course, participants will have to carry out a nature conservation project.  The course participants will execute a design by the Building Beyond Borders team. That design consists of a number of small interventions around Parckfarm that will improve water infiltration and increase local biodiversity. Come along and see what we want to achieve with these interventions.

The evening will start at Parckfarm with homemade pizzas by Collectif Building Social Resilience. They use products by Casalina, a social farm in Puglia, south of Italy, which fights exploitation of seasonal migrant workers. At the same time Rebel Up Sebcat will be playing  some awesome music. The projection of the documentary The True Cost, raising awareness on social and ecological issues linked to the fast fashion industry will follow after sunset (22:00). 

A guided cycle tour with Gaspard Geerts from RotorDC, exploring the city as a mine for construction material.

The team of BBB will be at Parckfarm, making an earth mortar and assembling earth blocks into a bench. These blocks are previously fabricated during the 'Initiation to Adobe Making' workshop.

Join expert Stephan Kampelmann for a guided walk in Duden Park. In the heart of the city, we visit the remnants of the Sonian Forest. This will allow exploring a series of questions related to the sourcing of usable lumber. What is the difference between a tree in a forest and a tree in a park? How to see whether a tree is usable as lumber? Who takes the decision to fell a tree and how is this done responsibly? What are the main species of trees available locally and how to distinguish them in the field? 

An Claeys guides you in the footsteps of women builders in Brussels, from Elisabeth Park to Tour & Taxis. In diverse neighbourhoods (Koekelberg, Jette, Laken & Molenbeek) along railway line 28, neighbours roll up their sleeves to create projects for sustainable city development in collaboration with experts and local authorities. You’ll get a taste of old and new public spaces where women keep the fire burning, you’ll discover ingredients and exchange recipes to co-construct Brussels melting pots. 

One last time all together! Join us for our closing party to celebrate the end of the BBB festival and collaboration between the BBB action group & Parckfarm. We'll be dancing to the magic world tunes of: Sebcat Rebel Up, DJ Mukambo Afro groves & T.Rie to celebrate the end of the festival.

Collaborative design workshop with pre- and post-consumer waste with Sep Verboom.

Our contemporary urban landscape is divided into different typologies. Mostly into monofunctional types such as housing, industry, leisure, economy, forestry, agriculture... These subdivisions have their reason. However, forest and agricultural areas, which are important to us as humans, are mainly located outside the city center. This creates a large physical distance between the need, use and benefits of agriculture and forestry. What if the functions of agriculture, ecology, urbanisation and recreation could be brought together in one concept: the so-called food forests?  These edible forests can be developed close to or even in the city. Small-scale, inclusive and ecological food projects. A place for meeting, playing and learning. Come and discover during this lecture by Anke Desender the many possibilities of food forests and their positive impact on the local community. You will also get to see many examples of food forests from home and abroad.