Casse dalle — Anna Luz Works

I helped the dallas collective with their research on asphalt recycling. They wanted to continue what they had started with their intervention in Poelaert, Brussels in 2021. There, they had drilled holes in the asphalt, allowing nature to reclaim its rights - plants to grow, insects to thrive and water to infiltrate - and using excavated materials for public furniture. But for some reason, the city had filled up the holes again, closing this opportunity to connect with urban soil.

During my internship in 2021, I was in charge of conducting material research for them and designing the scenography for their exhibition about asphalt and city plants. Over the course of three months, I initiated collaborations with asphalt manufacturers and came up with new transformations of the material that could be directly used as displays for the exhibition.

In 2024, the project came back to life as we joined forces with the Gilbard collective, based in Anderlecht. They had identified a parking lot in front of a building that was going to be rehabilitated to host a wood workshop, a wild plant processing workshop, a bakery and a brewery, in the same street as their premises. We called the project “casse-dalle” and organised a series of open workshops for the neighbours to learn about this technique and participate in the creation of a new public space.

See what happened next at Casse Dalle 2025.