The Rampart, The Traffic Artery, and the Park; Designing for the city regions of Antwerp
Through a close reading of Antwerp’s current spatial and socio-economic composition, and the introduction of the interplay between the city’s three defining paradigms – abstracted to ‘The Rampart, the Traffic Artery, and the Park’ – this study tries to sketch a unifying strategy for Antwerp’s metropole. A strategy that embeds residential, economic, cultural, recreational, climatic, and historical motives within the different city regions. Thereby improving the connection between the left and right side of the river; transitioning the suburban region to a more polycentric structure while maintaining a spatial relation to the city; and explicitly manages the horizontal growth of the periphery. But that most importantly, captures the metropole in a single narrative from its inner-city to its outer edges. Graduation thesis prepared for the master’s degree in urban design at the Eindhoven University of Technology.
Through a close reading of Antwerp’s current spatial and socio-economic composition, and the introduction of the interplay between the city’s three defining paradigms – abstracted to ‘The Rampart, the Traffic Artery, and the Park’ – this study tries to sketch a unifying strategy for Antwerp’s metropole. A strategy that embeds residential, economic, cultural, recreational, climatic, and historical motives within the different city regions. Thereby improving the connection between the left and right side of the river; transitioning the suburban region to a more polycentric structure while maintaining a spatial relation to the city; and explicitly manages the horizontal growth of the periphery. But that most importantly, captures the metropole in a single narrative from its inner-city to its outer edges.
Graduation thesis prepared for the master’s degree in urban design at the Eindhoven University of Technology.
You also want an ePaper? Increase the reach of your titles
YUMPU automatically turns print PDFs into web optimized ePapers that Google loves.
Figure 4.27
The concept of the inundation area on
the left bank.
times. This ever-changing inundation landscape can be a driver, and thus help
sell, the densification plans of Linkeroever.
To achieve this, the inundation area is divided into three main zones that correspond
to a certain storm intensity and frequency. The drawing on the left gives
a rough indication of these zones; the darker the colour, the more frequent
the area is covered with water. Designing the system in such a way insures
that visitors of the area experience the workings of it throughout the year, and
not just once every fifty or hundred years. Creating a landscape that changes
depending on the storm intensity, can also improve (if only slightly) the visitor’s
perception of the effects of climate change. The connection to the inundation
area from the city districts, and the connection to and from the Scheldt will be
regulated via a system of locks. A similar system, but compacter is used in the
water system of the green ring on the right side of the Scheldt.
Legend
Legend
The green ring as the city's water system.
T= 0,1 - 1
T= 1 - 50
T= 0,1 - 1
T= 51 - 1000
T= 1 - 50
The totality of this inundation area as described in the previous sections, will
thus create several links. A historic link to the Borgerweertpolder, a climatic
link by using it as a water system, a recreation link due to its ever-changing
appearance, and an ecological link by improving the bird habitats and connection
to the Scheldt river valley.
The green ring as the city's water system.
Two ring boulevards
The inner-city as well as the suburban region will both receive a boulevard that
traces the contours of the ring park on the left and right side of the Scheldt. At
the suburbs, this boulevard will create a better connection between the various
districts, the green ring, and the city. Here the boulevard will have to be built
almost in its entirety. The plan expands the planned bicycle highway into a
boulevard fit for cars and public transport (bus), and will result in a road that
traces contours of the ring park; with buildings on one side, and the ring park
on the other.
For the inner-city most of the boulevard is already in place, and
due to the densification along the ring zone, is also mostly imbedded in the
urban fabric of the city districts. This is the boulevard that in the current plans
receives a concentric tramline, that extends to the left bank via a new-to-bebuilt
Scheldt bridge that will function as a public transport link and bicycle
highway. These existing plans will be scaled-up in the new urban plan. The
public transport and bicycle highway will be extended to go around the entirety
of the inner-city on the left and right. The current end of the public transport
infrastructure at the Blancefloerlaan – the old chaussee to Ghent with the
visual axis to the cathedral – will be extended to the north, to join the already
planned bicycle highway. The continuation of this transport line will be used as
T= 51 - 1000
251
Change language