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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1.4
Towards an overarching
strategy for Antwerp
How the interplay between three paradigms is going to
shape Antwerp's future
The previous sub-chapters set out to explore the past, present, and future of Antwerp.
It did so by analysing the city’s current large-scale projects – the ring project
and the strategic spatial plan; by reading the city’s historical-morphological
development; and by analysing the past and present effects of trends relating to
the future of mobility in relation to a city’s urban form. The following pages will
present the main findings of these analyses as a way to gain an in-depth picture
of Antwerp’s current situation; to define missing elements or missed opportunities.
Subsequently, this chapter will formulate a vision for the metropolitan
region of Antwerp, and define a main research question and sub-questions to
achieve this vision.
1.1 De Grote Verbinding
1. Antwerp is striving to become a multimodal, short distance, polycentric city
with a model split of 50 percent car-use, and 50 percent public transport,
bicycles, and walking. It tries to do this by (1) switching from the current
radial city model to a radial-concentric model, by adding tangential connections
(like the ring road and Scheldt bridge); (2) by adding multimodal
transport hubs at the existing P+R’s in the city and by adding new ones;
(3) by adding strategic densification hubs along multimodal transportation
hubs (like train stations or P+R’s) or large amenities (like hospitals or theatres);
and (4) by separating through and freight traffic from city traffic via a
bypass through the harbour;
2. With the Ring project, Antwerp wants to shift the growth of its metropolitan
region from the periphery to the areas on both sides of the current ring
highway, and to strategic densification hubs in the suburbs on the other side
of the ring. With the densification of the area along the ring, Antwerp wants
to change the relation between city and suburb; from turning their back, to
facing each other;
3. Antwerp strives to attain a healthy cross-section of society in their city. However,
they especially want to keep families in the city, by adding affordable
apartments suited for them;
4. With the current population projections, it seems that Antwerp will have
enough homes to keep up with population growth. However, there are
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