La Baraque, an inhabited landscape

Abstract

For more than forty years, the inhabitants of the Baraque district have been negotiating with the authorities of the city of Louvain-la-Neuve in order to defend alternative housing methods. The tools of the architect and urban planner have played and continue to play a central role in these negotiations. The inhabitants of the district have thus developed a great familiarity with the urban planning regulations in force, but also a mistrust of them. Faced with successive attempts by the authorities to 'regularise' the neighbourhood, the inhabitants try to maintain a certain autonomy in terms of how they live and develop this territory. This text retraces the collective presentation at the colloquium, a unique moment where different points of view on the history and future of the Baraque neighbourhood were brought together. Starting with a selection of documents and representations of the district (old maps, urban plans, photographs, drawings, plans made by the inhabitants, vegetation surveys, etc.), the various invited speakers commented on, explored and recounted the traces of these documents and the questions they raise. This presentation was, among other things, an opportunity to make the link between the Baraque and other situations aspiring to different ways of living. At a time when alternative housing or "light housing" is attracting more and more people and has recently obtained legal recognition, there are still many obstacles to its development. This text outlines ways of mobilising the tools of architecture that manage to take into account the specificities and characteristics of the "inhabited landscape" that constitutes the Baraque district.