Antwerp Unearthed

Abstract

The performance of a city is dependent on the performance of its infrastructure. As a result, the surface-level world is inseparable from the subsurface world. However, cities around the world are facing a shortage of available space both aboveground and belowground. The existing urban fabric has over time become unfit for the addition of new infrastructure systems that are required for the future. Spatial conflict problems are arising between necessary urban infrastructures, in Antwerp specifically regarding green, blue, place, and memory systems. Nevertheless, Antwerp has an opportunity: a decommissioned canal network that lies beneath the city as tunnels that can act as a spatial mediator. Establishing this potential, the main research question asks: how can the reappropriation of the decommissioned underground canal system in Antwerp spatially mediate the city’s urgencies regarding environmental and social infrastructure? While the research question calls for the implementation of four infrastructural themes (green, blue, place, memory), an exploration of background theories on urban infrastructure implementation indicates a research gap regarding a systems-thinking approach. In this case, the Environmental Maximization Method (BOOM-Duijvestein, 1998), with its five design phases (inventory, analysis, maximization, optimization, integration), is useful. Together, the four infrastructure themes and the five design phases form a matrix that offers an appropriate design framework in the context of Antwerp. Antwerp Unearthed, as a plan, provides two answers to the research question of this report. The decommissioned underground canal system in Antwerp spatially mediates the city’s future urgencies regarding environmental and social infrastructure by pairing external problems with internal potentials and by forming a singly functioning infrastructure system. Next to this, the plan is embedded in other aspects of the urban fabric. The findings are societally relevant because they show how to work toward adaptivity and resiliency in the context of climate change and densification. The findings are scientifically relevant because they show how to work toward a justifiable and balanced implementation of different infrastructure systems. The findings are professionally relevant because they show how to work toward integral and interdisciplinary design principles for multiple infrastructural themes.