Buildings for a park
Transforming the Urban Block through Opening, Connecting, and Grounding
C.I. van Vlaanderen (TU Delft - Architecture and the Built Environment)
S. Stalker – Mentor (TU Delft - Architecture and the Built Environment)
E.P.N. Schreurs – Mentor (TU Delft - Architecture and the Built Environment)
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Abstract
When you walk through a city or a building, you’re often not aware of it, but architecture has a direct impact on people’s well-being. You don’t have to do anything at all, you just have to be. It is precisely this that means architecture carries a responsibility: how do you, as a designer, deal with that influence? At the same time, the built environment is never a blank canvas, but always the result of a layered process over time.
In the current urban context, this layering is under pressure. The growing demand for space and housing often leads to demolition as a solution, with the risk that history, and with it the identity of the neighbourhood or city, will disappear. This project, therefore, stems from the conviction that architecture should not be based on demolition, but can instead build upon what is already there.
This project focuses on the transformation of a plot with two existing buildings in the Heyvaert neighbourhood in Brussels. A neighbourhood with a dense urban fabric where living and working are intertwined. In this neighbourhood quality of life is under pressure, whilst at the same time a new linear park is being introduced along the route of the former Petit Zenne. This park calls for openness and accessibility, whilst closed and inward-facing blocks characterise the existing urban structure.
Through research into Deep Space, the historical layering of the building block and fieldwork conducted on site, the spatial and social structures are made clear. These insights demonstrate that Deep Space possesses both risks and qualities, that historical layers can guide new interventions, and that existing social structures are valuable to preserve and strengthen.
This research has led to the following question:
How can a closed urban block be transformed through architectural strategies of opening, connecting, and grounding to create a safe public park?
These findings are translated into a architectural design centred on strategies of opening, connecting and grounding. By transforming two existing buildings and adding two new volumes, an ensemble is created that opens up to the park and makes the previously closed block accessible through the introduction of new public entrances. The design demonstrates that existing spatial and social structures can not only be preserved but actually strengthened.
In doing so, the project reinforces the belief that architecture, by working with what already exists, can have a direct, positive and tangible effect on human well-being.