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.
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reduce traffic congestion.
The downside of these types of projects, next to their enormous costs, are that
they require quite some commitment from all parties involved, as they can
easily take more than ten years. The covering of the A2 in Maastricht,
started its planning phase in 2003, constructed the underground infrastructure
between 2010 and 2018, and is currently (2020) still working on the park,
boulevards, and new property on the cap (Avenue2, n.d.).
In terms of financing we see that these projects often run well into
the billion euros or dollars. Funding is often a mix between public and private
investment, and the believe that covering the highway will raise property values
of already existing buildings. Public investment is mostly a mix between municipal
(the city itself) and national funding, with the latter taking account for a
larger proportion. Private investment often means allowing investors to develop
parts of the land adjacent to the capped highway. Regarding the increase in
property value, we see that this is indeed the case. The covering of the A2 in
Maastricht, for example, led to an overall increase in property value of about
220 million euros; almost a quarter of the total investment. The reliance on
increase in property value and improved international allure for the city makes
it difficult to measure the direct profits of these kinds of projects (Stapel, Top,
Hanekamp, & Zandbelt, 2018, p. 35).
Conclusion
From the trend analysis we can conclude that we see that cities around the
world are becoming more populous, over half of the world’s population is
already living in cities, and this is only expected to rise in the future. As a result,
we see an increasing number of cities above 1 million inhabitants. This makes
cities struggle with an increasing scarcity of development space, with overheating
housing markets as result. Leading to cities increasingly redeveloping
brown fields, old harbours or industrial areas, and even relocating highways
underground to add development space. In addition, we see city’s dealing
with climate change in the form of heat stress and flood risk, often resulting
from a lack of greenery which also plays into negative health effects due to air
pollution.
We are currently in a shift from a car dominant mobility system to a mobility
system that is more focused on multimodal transport with a heavy focus on
public transport, cycling, and walking. A shift that is mainly fuelled by a drive
to find more space in the city, crippling traffic congestion that hurts the economy,
and because of growing climate and health awareness.
Along with this modal shift, we see an increase in movements that
rely on reducing the need to travel, making it more efficient, or try to shorten
transport trips, like the 30-minute-city, Sustainable Mobility, or Smart Mobility.
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