Brussels has just opened a mid-city beach, far from the water, but next door to the Palace of Justice, occupying a sloped site that was, for years, an illegal parking lot.
The project, a collaboration between a local youth group and the city of Brussels, is intended to create urban life in the area and give the space back to residents of the Marolles neighborhood.
Unlike Paris’s now traditional “Paris Plage” along the Seine, this is a low-key project. The installation includes a climbing frame, graffiti mural, recycled furniture and a bar. Ans Persoons, Brussels Alderman for Urbanism, told The Brussels Times that “The intention is to highlight the slopes as a public area, and this is a first step towards the activation of that very large space. He added that the projects are initiated by locals rather than professional organisations.
