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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Problem definition
In the upcoming years Antwerp is going to implement two large structuring
plans. The first is the capping of the ring and its transition to ring park – the
Grote Verbinding; the second is the densification and subsequent polycentric
development of the suburban region, and thereby create what the city is calling
a Network City.
Both of these projects, although different, are densification strategies
that are comprised of the same three elements. The first (1) is that they are
both looking for a way to densify in the existing fabric of the city, and try to
do so in a way that stimulates economic progress. The ring project, with its
improvement in mobility and living environment tries to increase the domestic
and international allure of the city in order to attract new business. The
polycentric development in turn tries to focus densification around strategically
placed economic hubs, to strengthen their economic weight. The second (2)
element is the appointment of densification zones to get a grip on the growth
of the peripheral region; the edge of the suburban region and the villages
beyond it. While simultaneously creating a stronger definition of both the
inner-city and suburban region. The third (3) element is the stimulation of a
modal shift towards more cleaner sources of mobility like public transport and
cycling, to improve the health conditions and climate resilience of the city.
The ring project does this by capping the ring to take away the noise and air
pollution, and by adding an important concentric public transport and bicycle
connection on top. The polycentric strategy in turn tries to limit movement
altogether, by striving towards a short-distance city through the creation of
autonomous hubs. Thereby also putting some pressure off the transport system
in the inner-city
Within these projects we also see a slight contradiction. The ring project,
with its densification plan to create a defined urban edge, is catering to a
paradigm shift in the way the inner-city and suburbs are visually connected to
each other. From turning away from each other, the entire ring area will, when
the urban edge is complete, transition to facing one another. However, with
the wish of stimulating a polycentric development in the suburban region in
which the city is almost going to resemble an urban village model, we find the
opposite of what the ring project is trying to achieve. Admittedly, the ring project
also has a separating quality, however in light of the effect the highway is
currently having on the urban environment, the ring park is going to stimulate
a better connection.
As of yet however, both of these plans are still in their development stages.
The polycentric strategy is still missing a spatial plan. The city is currently only
suggesting that strategic densification hubs could be formed along multimodal
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