Eau de couture is a temporary installation in the Akarova Garden, at the foot of the Brigittines social housing towers, as part of the 2020 Sustainable Initiatives promoted by the City of Brussels. Built by Latitude and the Dallas collective in a participatory approach and almost entirely from reused materials, this collective garden scenographises water. The humble manifestation of its ambition encourages us to think of this project not in terms of its plastic and finished character, but as a device for activating a generous urban project, imbued with the freshness of a summer evening.

She doesn’t know what drives her, on this particular day, to cross the thorny boundary between the forecourt and this forgotten patch of greenery. Perhaps it was her walk through the overheated city, the glare of the cobblestones or the welcome shade of the trees that attracted her. She made her way through the tall stems and pushed aside the claw-like branches, guided by a wisp of cool, humid air. She plunges into the dense vegetation, crosses a twisted fence and discovers a tiny clearing, fragrant and green. Here and there, she notices the remains of a human structure that she struggles to decipher: a curved, bare metal frame adjoins an old brick shack. Worm-eaten benches, old plastic chairs eaten away by moss.