Bubbles and open moments in Brussels-north and Schaarbeek.

Bubbles and open moments in Brussels-north and Schaarbeek.

In Brussels the north area and Schaarbeek in general stands out as a bubble on it's own, but when looking closer to the area surrounding our school we emediatly find smaller bubbles within the bubble. 

The first example we stumble upon just exiting the station, where we are confronted with the Brussels main red-light district "Rue D'Aarschot". Here you have people looking to solicitate aswell as people just passing by. These two groups never interact so in a way the public involved in the prostitution buisness form a bubble on their own.

Moving further along we come into the

"Rue de Brabant" which is sort of a shopping street mainly used by people with a foreign etnic origin and again there are outsiders passing by and maybe using one of the stores but rarely visiting this bubble just for the shopping possibilities that it offers, eventhough there are some pretty good bargains to be made. 

We come across squares like "Liedtsplein" were during the day there is a big variety of activities:

from the local grocery shop, a baker, a video renting store, a couple of lunch places and cafes to a hardware store. But again we notice that this square is almost exclusively used by the people living in the  neighbourghood.

 When arriving a the school, having crossed various bubbles, we come to the conclusion that both departements of Sint Lucas are the most separated bubbles of all! Not only are the people attending classes here forneign to the neighbourghood and it's inhabitants, to make in worse we litterly ban people who don't belong. We just arrive at the time we are supposed to be in school and leave emediatly afterwards not spending any or very few time in the area around the school, almost anxious to get away from there.

To conclude i have an example of what i think is an 'open moment/place' connecting a few of the bubbles found in the surroundings of our school.
The sandwich bar "Best Wandwiches" (probably well know by everyone studying at Sint Lucas) is for me the only place where almost every group of the area comes together. It is frequented by local inhabitants, students, kids of the local highschool and people working in the area. It's a place where everybody is welcome and is served with a smile.