In recent years, the practice of setting up expert panels to oversee the selection process for designers of projects relating to public-sector architectural commissions has become more widespread in the Wallonia-Brussels Federation. Unfortunately, this is not yet the case for contracts relating to urban planning and landscape design studies. The process of selecting a multidisciplinary team to carry out an urban planning study and a masterplan for Courcelles town centre can be regarded as exemplary in this regard.

There are, of course, precedents, as the development of the open spaces in the upper town of Charleroi was, two years ago, the subject of an ambitious competitive tender, won by the team led by landscape architect Bas Smets.