Challenging The City Scale. Brussels

In Brussels, the thermometer rarely climbs above ten degrees in the winter. All the same, on this particular day a group of people is bathing in one of the public fountains in the Belgian capital. After a while, two police officers turn up and order them to get out of the water. Are they Siberian tourists who miss their morning ice bath? No, they are activists doing what they call “guerrilla swimming”: braving the elements – and municipal prohibitions – to protest. A few months ago these water guerrillas revealed the name of their organisation: Pool is Cool. But what are they fighting for? “The problem is pretty clear: there is no outdoor swimming pool in Brussels, which is extraordinary for a city this size,” explains Paul Steinbrück, architect and co-founder of Pool is Cool. It is true that there are many cities with fewer inhabitants and some times a colder climate–Helsinki, Zurich, Oslo–that don’t have this problem. “For us, an outdoor pool is much more than a place to swim,” Paul Steinbrück says. “It’s a social place where people can gather and be connected to nature. It’s an urban feature that can change the face of the city.” One of Pool is Cool’s most recent actions was a petition to the city of Brussels to demand public open-air swimming. But that is only one of many tools the collective has been using since 2016 to mobilise fellow citizens and pressure politicians of the Brussels region. The members of Pool is Cool have been using design, masterclasses, happenings and civil disobedience in the public space to campaign for a public pool. And since there still isn’t one in Brussels, they have even built some themselves!

• Tipo de recurso: Article of journal
• Fecha de publicación: 2018
• Institución: Universidad de Bogotá Jorge Tadeo Lozano
• Repositorio: Expeditio: repositorio UTadeo
• Idioma: eng
• OAI Identifier: oai:expeditiorepositorio.utadeo.edu.co:20.500.12010/17168
• Acceso en línea: https://www.degruyter.com/document/doi/10.1515/9783035618013-012/html; http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.12010/17168; https://doi.org/10.1515/9783035618013-012
• Palabra clave: Arquitectura; Comunicaciones; Ciudades Humanas; Ciudad
• License: Abierto (Texto Completo)