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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two side notes here, (1) the domestic and international migration pattern
might increase once the Ring project is close to being finished, due to the
improved spatial quality and international allure of the project; and (2) the
building of new family apartments in Antwerp might reattract the families
that have left Antwerp in recent years;
5. Antwerp wants to use the Ring Park to reduce heat stress and increase the
city’s climate resilience, the city is currently looking into how to use the
park in its water management system. The Ring Park is also going to be the
link between the regional nature areas around the city (green fingers), and
the local green in the neighbourhoods (green streets);
6. Antwerp mentions that Linkeroever has no current densification plans; the
trend of making master plans will continue. While it seems, at the same
time, that Linkeroever will become part of the inner-city of Antwerp, with
the completion of the ring, the new P+R, the instalment of a low-emission
zone, and the creation of a defined edge;
7. The extensive plans of the Ring project on the right side are not applied
to Linkeroever, an area that has the potential to be the culmination of the
Ring Park. The connections between the different green areas here is supposedly
being improved, but due to all the earth walls segregation between
the areas might even increase, and the defined edge that guides traffic to
the Scheldt bridge is no longer present once it reaches Linkeroever.
1.2 Historical-Morphological Analysis
1. The ring of Antwerp was built on the same location as the Grote Omwalling,
the rampart that was part of Antwerp’s major defence system during
its time as National Redoubt. The intersections of the ring coincide with the
lunettes of the old ramparts. The ring being in the same place also means
that it runs on a discontinued waterway, and thus has to be permanently
kept dry;
2. The Ring Park will be the next paradigm of defining the city of Antwerp.
With this notion we can define three paradigms for completing, defining,
or enclosing a city: (1) the rampart, (2) the traffic artery, and (3) the park.
With the Spaanse and Grote Omwalling, the highway ring, and the ring
park as their physical application;
3. All three of these paradigms have barrier like properties, but achieve this
in different ways. The rampart quite literally tried to keep people out, only
allowing entrance at specific points. The traffic artery resulted in an urban
environment so unpleasant due to safety, and air and noise pollution that
the environment turned away from it. The park acts as a barrier in the
sense that it tries to define the areas around it, but does so in a way that
creates a pleasant urban environment that people will flock towards.
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