The park’s development plan aims to diversify the spaces and to offer greater user appeal. The project opens up the park to the city and the surrounding streets.

The development of conviviality areas, quiet zones, a themed play area, water games, a vast esplanade for events and a picnic area contribute to improving the park’s amenity, welcoming different audiences and allowing for a diversity of uses.

The paths have been redesigned to offer visual sequences throughout the route. In this respect, the monument to war victims has been moved, restored and enhanced. New accesses have been created to promote cross-connections in the neighbourhood for pedestrians. The park is accessible to people with reduced mobility.

A genuine element of the city’s green network, the park and the development project contribute to adapting to climate change. It maintains and reinforces the vegetation, which provides freshness in this neighbourhood in hot weather.

The remarkable and interesting trees have been preserved. In botanical terms, the project brings diversity in forms, leaf textures and flowering throughout the seasons. New species of trees with multiple aesthetic qualities are planted in order to flesh out the existing plant structure. Clusters of shrubs, perennials and grasses improve the plant diversity and enhance the landscape interest of the park.

Particular attention has been paid to the management of rainwater and run-off water so as to favour infiltration through grassy knolls and return to the ground, to the trees.

The project was carried out in consultation with the population and the actors concerned.

Location: Dour (Belgium)
Public project owner: Commune of Dour
Commissioned as project designer
In association with Arcadis Belgium
Project Completion: 2013-2021, work in progress