When the Malmar metallurgical company closed its factories in 1997, a piece of medieval land was abandoned on the outskirts of Ghent, Belgium. The old factory deteriorated over time and urban artists began to paint its walls.
After the paintings, the inhabitants of the neighborhood began to gather near the ruins. The vegetation began to grow and the neighbors themselves asked for the ruins to be reconverted 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 landscape architects Ney&Partners, the engineers from VK and the architects from Landschaparchitecten, Greenspot&Bogdan, saved part of the factory and also transformed it into a park.
Today Bijgaarde is therefore a public garden serving the new houses and 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, paths and preservation of some animals – such as the colony of bats that existed and is essential for keeping mosquitoes away – and strengthens 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 fenced, by old factory walls that display graffiti and allow climbing plants to grow. The landscapers were inspired by a fern garden because those were the ferns they found there. After decades of abandonment, a biotope of rare fern species existed which was recovered and replanted.
Part of the factory basement has been consolidated as a hibernation space for bats. Rainwater is collected in three cisterns to irrigate the garden and a community garden. The result is a sustainable space, with historical memory and future project. A verdant place of coexistence. A fruitful dialogue between public and private, an initiative by the residents of the neighborhood which expands the green area of the neighborhood and transforms it into a public space.
