Co-Creating Brussels !
Marchand Juliette
Pery Paulo
Alive is a Brussels-based socio-spatial design practice founded by Dr. Petra Pferdmenges, a socially engaged urban designer with a background in architecture. Since 2012, Alive has been dedicated to transforming public spaces through collaborative, low-tech, and high-impact interventions that empower marginalized communities.
A key milestone was Parckfarm (2014–ongoing), an urban commons on a former railway site in Brussels. Initiated from grassroots activities and the Parckdesign 2014 biennale, Alive co-designed and co-produced this vibrant community space, setting a model for participatory urban transformation.
Between 2016 and 2022, Alive led multiple socially-engaged urban interventions in the public space of Brussels such as BXL. Vous. Nous. (2019–2021), fostering intercultural dialogue along the Brussels Canal; The Crack (2019–2022), transforming an underused tennis court into a garden of curiosities in forgotton social housing district; Place de Houf' (2019), transforming an abandoned façade into a vertical playground in Schaerbeek; and Dardaar – A Happy Place (2021–2022), creating joyful, inclusive spaces in the Marolles district.
Since joining the Creative Europe network, Alive has engaged in international collaborations including Public Space 4 Her (2023–2026), empowering young women to co-design public spaces, and Waterside Voices (2024–2026), enhancing access for communities to waterways across multiple cities.
Currently, Alive is preparing a third Creative Europe project via the Civic Urban Repair Network to regenerate vulnerable neighborhood across three European Capitals, including Querelle in Brussels.
Alive’s interdisciplinary team of architects, social designers, and spatial practitioners works with local communities through empathetic, participatory processes. Committed to cultural creativity and ethical urban transformation, Alive fosters spatial justice and resilience by empowering marginalized voices to shape their environments.
At Alive, public space is a living fabric shaped by social, cultural, and ecological dynamics. The practice was initially founded under the name Alive Architecture, reflecting a belief in the discipline as a co-created and evolving environment.
It began as a one-person initiative, without a team or funding, through small-scale, tactical interventions like Sweet Flowers (2012), which aimed to improve livability in Rue d’Aerschot, a street in Brussels’ red-light district. These early efforts laid the foundation for what is today Alive — a creative and innovative socio-spatial practice rooted in empathy, participation, and equity.
Over time, our work has evolved into an interdisciplinary approach blending cultural production, spatial transformation, and social engagement. From transforming a disused railway site into the civic commons Parckfarm (2014–ongoing), to participating in European collaborations that explore spatial justice, our projects foster civic agency, ecological awareness, and collective care.
What defines our method is its low-tech, high-impact character: we use playful, inclusive tools to support dialogue across linguistic, generational, and social divides. Our recent involvement in Creative Europe collaborations has further strengthened our ability to co-create experimental and culturally grounded projects with peers across the continent.
Looking ahead, we envision Alive as a translocal knowledge exchange hub, connecting grassroots practitioners on a European scale to co-develop and circulate creative tools for regenerative spatial culture. Joining LINA would allow us to deepen this vision—by reflecting on our methods, amplifying cultural impact, and contributing to a more just, imaginative, and resilient urban future.