Bockstael - Pocket Park

POCKET PARK RUE CHAMP DE L’ÉGLISE • KERKEVELDSTRAAT is one of the four pocket parks realized within the framework of the sustainable Bockstael neighborhood contract. Together with Park L28, these pocket parks have been programmed as part of the development of a green network connecting Laeken with Tour & Taxis. Today the pocket park is not in use. A fence makes access impossible. It had a difficult start, and the collective space was appropriated by youth who showed little interest in the idea of gardening.

Moments of spacious stillness define its urban sound space. A trembling fence adds texture and dynamics. Shifting drone swells from swooping and sliding trains contribute to its eeriness. Sounds from trains arriving from a distance dissolve in loud and sharp sliding and cracking sounds. The far and slowly arriving trains introduce a controlled static growing sound field so loud it eventually overrides all other sounds becoming a wall of sound before before fading and disappearing out of the sound space.

Recording (2021)