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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We see that morphology and the dominant means of transport are inextricably
linked to each other, acting and reacting to each other. The car becoming
mainstream during the 1950s and 1960s, among other factors, allowed
for unprecedented urban sprawl. Currently with the shift to slower modes of
transport in inner cities, we see the emergence of more high-density, polycentric
urban fabric. There are three types of polycentric city models; (1) the
urban village, (2) the random movement model, and (3) the mono-polycentric
model. The first one has never been realised in the real world, as it would contradict
the raison d’etre of cities. Trips in polycentric cities are often longer as
they tend to show a wider dispersion of origin and destination. The emergence
of polycentric cities is often the result of the natural evolutionary process of a
growing metropole. No city is however, ever completely mono or polycentric.
The availability of mobility in a certain area has effect on the number
of amenities, and subsequently on the property value of a certain area. With
the suburbs only being available by car, was probably one of the reasons why
they were so affordable. This resulted in a gradual decline of the distance
decay model of a city. Now with the emergence of more transit-oriented development,
we see multiple spikes in property value around the city, changing the
decline of the distance decay model.
Many cities around the world are removing their city highway or are burying it
under the ground. The main motives behind this are (1) lifting often hard barriers,
(2) solving space related issues, (3) health related issues, like air and noise
pollution, (4) climate related issues, (5) adding green space for recreation,
and (6) as means of establish the city as a forward-thinking modern city, using
the highway project to attract new talent. The projects by themselves seem not
to solve congestion related issues. As we have seen that putting down more
asphalt only leads to more congestion.
The projects often run into the billion euros or dollars, and rely on
a mix of public and private investment and funding. Profits are measured in
talent attracted to the city, and in terms of increases in property value along
the capped highway, which makes it difficult to measure. With these massive
investments that are still happening today, it seems doubtful that the car will
disappear any time soon. The projects can easily take more than ten years.
However, the rewards in terms of improvement of spatial qualities and property
value are quite large.
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