Brussels ecosystems in space. Solving the paradox between non-spatial eco-system and design distance criterion

Some transdisciplinary ‘metropolitan laboratories’ created to improve the global transition by renewing concepts, analytical tools and project approaches have demonstrated a certain vivacity and capacity for experimentation. Metrolab in Brussels, for example, has joined the ‘Eco-Century Project’ programme launched by the Braillard Foundation in Geneva to develop a synergy and confrontation on the subject1; the interdisciplinary Habitat Research Centre of the EPFL and the Urban School of Lyon2 pursue scientific objectives of fundamental and general importance by cultivating a privileged relationship with the urban regions where they are based. All these initiatives share the urgency of a systemic understanding of urban phenomena and use the category of ‘metropolis’ less to designate a hierarchical role in the territory (from this point of view, the function of the ‘capital’ of Brussels is an exception in the face of Lyon, Geneva or the Alpine and Lake Geneva metropolis), but more to stress the various and transversal components and processes of the urban realm that are indissoluble from the present global socioenvironmental conditions. It is about the ‘urban of the Anthropocene era’, as the distinctive formula of the Urban School of Lyon expresses it so well.