Leie-Scheldt confluence park

Leie-Scheldt confluence park Design Explorations 2, International Center of Urbanism, KU Leuven (Belgium)

Ghent 2100 Landscape as a driver for social change

Periphery as a new front New Balances: Re-Naturalization and Urban Transformations

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HISTORICAL READING OF THE CONTEXT

Ferraris map Ghent and surroudings - 1779

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URBANISATION AND CLIMATE CHANGE ADAPTATION

Urbanisation and climate change adaptation Still today, Gent can be understood as a complex patchwork of domains, particular spatial entities, often delimited by water and mostly with their own centralities. Since the structure planning of the 1980s, the recalibration and reconstitution of its ecological structure is on the agenda, as well as the elaboration of a complementary soft mobility network. However, the economic success and growth of the city over the last decade(s) led to harsh pressure on the housing and land markets. At the same time, climate change is forcing the city to radically strengthen and rebuild its strong natural structure.

In short, both the city and nature require a lot more space.

roughly the 19th century belt, the growing city (groeistad) i.e. roughly the 20th century belt, and the outer area (buitengebied). As the name suggests, the growing city is the area where the rising number of inhabitants are to be settled, while the focus in the outer area is to preserve unbuilt space.

The predominant mode of densification is through the development the few open spaces left in these neighbourhoods, at a slightly higher density than the surrounding residential areas. In the outer area, the existing urban fabric is consolidated.

For places with good access to amenities, such as the Leie Valley south of the city, this means restricting new development, while for places with little access, this means trying to reframe the meaning of a village in the 21st century. Whether talking about the growing city or the outer areas, development originated within a local landscape structure, steering clear of valleys and floodable marshes (where agriculture took place), and instead settling on (even slightly) elevated places, such as ridges and hillocks, for example on so-called donken (i.e. an old name for a sandy elevation in a marsh, which often became part of village names).

Today’s urban landscape has mostly lost this direct link between settlement patterns and the underlying landscape.

Gent, as so many cities, needs to define a new equilibrium between (an intensified) built and natural environment.

Recent planning policy and strategic projects of the city focused on the city center and the notorious 19th century belt generated in the wake of the Industrial Revolution. Today, the 20th century belt requires attention.

This periphery is the evident front to test new balances between nature and the built environment while simultaneously absorbing the predicted growth of the city.

In the case of Gent, climate change impacts are very evident, particularly in the water system.

The city and surroundings are significantly affected by both flooding and droughts, disrupting not only water distribution and access, but also other related systems including agriculture, open spaces, industry, housing etc. The urban heat island is aswell a challenge.

Gent is growing, and is expected to keep doing so. The spatial policy plan of the city makes a distinction between the (historical) inner city (binnenstad), the central city (kernstand) i.e. photo’s by the students

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However, with climate change at the forefront of urban challenges, even more so in a growing city, the reconnection of the two has become a pressing design challenge.

The studio focused on innovative ways of thinking— and designing—for climate change adaptation and urban growth. There is a need to develop housing hand-in-hand with socio-ecological justice. The studio investigated 1) strategies to address climate change adaptation at a systemic level and across scales; 2) new urban tissues that respond to the need for new ways of settling, meeting, working, moving and recreating. Focusing on developing new natural, human and non-human ecologies while addressing issues of inclusion and the development of just environments.

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PERIPHERY AS THE NEW FRONT

Periphery as the new front Metropolitan parks

The Leie and Schelde How can landscape urbanism strengthen synergetic social and ecological relationships between Ghent and the Schelde and Leie Meanders?

The high ecological value of the Marshes and Meanders of the Schelde and the Leie are being threatened by processes of urbanization and high use of its riverbanks.

The value that both have not only comes from their rich biodiversity but also from places of cultural, historical, and social value.

The strategy in both rivers is to alleviate the pressure of the existing and potential urbanization, and the high use of its riverbanks, by defining park figures that integrate different levels of accessibility, that ensures the protection of its ecological

values, providing the city of Gent -and its metropolitan urban areas- with rich open natural spaces.

Those not only serve as healing and recreation spaces for people but also for climate change mitigation.

Both strategies in the Leie and the Schelde floodplains work as living ecologies able to host water in times of flooding and contribute to reducing heat stress.

Metropolitan parks are used in this case on the border between protectors of ecological processes and inhabited parks, where certain protection is necessary - through accessibility - to alleviate the effects of excessive use, urbanization, and the effects of climate change.

Their primary role is to reinstate blue and green ecological networks that have

Vision map of the Schelde Marshland. Authors: Ermioni Chatzimichail | Carlos Morales Dávila | Sebastián Oviedo | Tien Huu Tran

been damaged by urbanity and restore natural systems.

They are places where urban and nature meet, that provide opportunities to rethink the coexistence between nature and culture, between human beings and non-human.

The Metropolitan park figure defined in the Schelde river responds to soil types, flooding and drought risk, biodiversity value and topography.

And proposes a modification of the basin that

transforms it into a tydal system in the gateway of the city, to recover the marshland floodplain.

innovative ways of inhabiting the city and redefine what a growing city means. With the premise of no consuming more land, the population growth is absorved by urban transformations of existing urban fabrics and sealed surfaces.

Those urban transformations predict a form of living the city - or the peri urban citythat engages with its natural surrounding ecosystems, where self-sufficient archipelagos re-shape living, working and recreaing conditions.

vision section of the Schelde Marshland. Authors: Ermioni Chatzimichail | Carlos Morales Dávila | Sebastián Oviedo | Tien Huu Tran

New forms of living

Authors: Ermioni Chatzimichail | Carlos Morales Dávila | Sebastián Oviedo | Tien Huu Tran

The urban development dominated in Flemish cities by the car-driven culture, the expansive city model and the monofunctional zoning of the last century offers irrefutable evidence about the need to critically reflect on the way we inhabit the territory.

Proposals investigate new urban tissues that respond to the need for new ways of settling, meeting, working, moving and recreating.

While providing with space for water and nature in views of climate change alleviation in urban sprawl areas- where heat islands effects and floodings are increasingwe transform the sprawl model of development to generate new ways of living that understand the land as a communal good.

Interventions seek to create

Authors: Imraan Begg | Cécile Houpert | Raya Rizk | Jennifer Saad subscript

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PERIPHERY AS THE NEW FRONT

The collective and coproduced housing strategies dominate the scene through mixed buildings, where monofunctional car driven senarios transform to become slow movement self sufficient neighborhoods.

Based in collective forms of sharing and managing, the periphery of Gent is thought as the place to respectfully inhabit the land.

From the definition of self sufficient archipelagos to the insertion of

collective/transformative apparatus in urban sprawl neighborhoods, to urbanrural thresholds, the studio revealed diverse and exciting forms of inhabiting.

The proposed interventions not only re-shape the urban land and its occupation, but also re-shapes individual experiences of living to become more aware of the collective, creating a sense of responsibility towards the common and solidarity among the community.

Image on the right: sections along the canal in Wondelgem where new collective aggroupations are proposed.

Images bellow: sel-sufficient cells of collective living along the Donkens in Kanaaldorpen.

Authors: Daniela Cobo | Agnese Marcigliano | Letlhabile Shubane | Lucie Van Meerbeeck

Self-sufficient cells. Authors: Camille Hendlisz | Haifa Saleh | Véronique de Pauw | Yentl Wulteputte.

Re-commoning The commons can be defined as user-managed initiatives and actions in land not user owned. (Re) commoning practices, then, as socialities with spatial implications, run coun-ter to processes of individualization and privatization. They hold the possibility to address the fragmentation and commodification of landscapes while reweaving social and ecological tie.

It is believed that recommoning actions, where the residents are liable for taking care of a land, can help mitigate and adapt to climate change.

Belgium and Flanders, in particular, have been associated with a variety of

recommoning initiatives over the years. In line with these tradition the proposals for the city of Gent mostly concentrate around climate change and deal with future challenges, by taking into consideration the soil, water, topography and urbanization.

Re-commoning strategies go from transforming existing domains, re-coding the water fornt

and re-shaping exisitng cul-de-sacs and oversized straeets into places for Community gardening, Communal kitchens, culture activities and coperative housing.

The practices of recommoning proposed not only use the commons as a form of sharing but as a way to foster common engagement and interest as strong elements in the everyday life of the communities.

Authors: Imraan Begg | Cécile Houpert | Raya Rizk | Jennifer Saad

2021

Orchard

Re-wild garden

Play Forest

Authors: Daniela Cobo | Agnese Marcigliano | Letlhabile Shubane | Lucie Van Meerbeeck

Authors: Yidnekachew Yilma Seleshi | Md Rafiqul Islam, | Cecilia Alejandra Quiroga Zelaya

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Vision Ghent 2100 Existing Urban areas New Ribbon settlements New archipelagos settlements New desealed public space New Social infrastructures Railway system Soft mobility Desealed streets WATER Existing waterbodies New waterbodies New water management system Recovered marshlands NATURAL ENVIRONMENT Existing Agriculture Grassland Agriculture fields (monoculture) New agriculture Agroforestry New Orchards Existing Vegetation Existing forest Gardens New green areas New Dry Forest Ne Wet Forest New green roods Noew bioremediation fields New Reclaimed green publice spaces New tree line

Author: Agnese Marcigliano

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VISION

Vision During the last decades the city of Ghent focused in recovering the ecological structure of the City landscape to contrast the urgent flooding and drought issues the City is facing, especially affecting the water presence and management within the city and in particular in its surroundings (Blondia et al. 2021, 2).

Recent projects have focused mainly on the city centre and the 19th century belt, but what we are considering here in this exercise is the role of the 20th century belt into the consolidating process of urban horizontal polycentric expansion of the City (Blondia et al. 2021, 2).

Today, the opportunity to reshape and articulate the relationship between the City and its natural environment lays in the periphery’s rural-urban interplay, which accommodates future urban growth, while respecting and recovering the fragmented existing landscape.

The restructured and consolidated forest figures form now an intricate system of wild dry and wet natural public spaces, shaping the territory of the Ghent Metropolitan Park and reclaiming space

Navigating the archipelagos. Author: Agnese Marcigliano

for nature and water.

In 2021, water was viewed more as a commodity that as a structuring element of the landscape. In this scenario 2100, however, extended de-sealing strategies are applied at the metropolitan and local scale to increase the presence of water within the neighbourhoods.

Particular focus is given to the recovery of the ecological value of the Marshlands environments, which are part of the landscape heritage of the territory and the main preserved natural system.

Rainwater is stocked for everyday use in systems of water retention ponds and capillary channels, which are implemented throughout the new settlements and integrated within the different water environments. Meanwhile, water-cleaning cycles are activated in proximity of each new settlements to reach the maximum level of autonomy.

The reconfiguration and naturalisation of the fluvial environments of the two rivers, the Leie and the Scheldt, leave space for the biodiversity to thrive in protected or semi-accessible areas, which are created to avoid an excessive touristic

Healing the productive landscape. Author: Agnese Marcigliano

pressure on these fragile areas.

Users’ affluence is re-directed towards more public water spaces in proximity to new expansions projects, re-activating the banks of the rivers, which were once ruptures in the landscape and now are elements of conjunctions and encounters.

The vision for Ghent 2100 is therefore driven by following principles - restructuring water and forest - healing the productive landscape -navigating the archipelagos -expanding the public realm

In this Studio Vision for Ghent 2100 Landscape as a driver the Horizon 2100, Ghent establishes itself as a polyfor social change Facing in an active way the current climate challenges is a fundamental step towards designing more liveable and inclusive cities, but on top of the already established future environmental issues, the Covid-19 crisis is showing the limitations and deficits of our cities support systems and infrastructures. Moreover, the pressuring economic and social issues currently emerging during the pandemic, urge us to put at the centre of the International debate the evolution of our inhabiting culture and the necessary transformations of our urban environments. These transformations are more than ever necessary in the peripheries of European cities, which are too often forgotten and left out of the local territorial dynamics.

centric horizontal system of metropolitan parks in which the outskirts of the City are not anymore the unregulated background of the urban tissue but its new active front. By unveiling the possibilities that this future model has to offer in term of new living common practices and renovated ecologies, we, as young practitioners and researchers, accept its challenging not-urban nature, engaging ourselves in a quest for alternative urbanism practices that “dismantle the ideological bias of the urbanism of compactness. In the context of planetary urbanization, it is more urgent than ever to think urbanization beyond the polarity of center vs. periphery, compact vs. distributed, nuclear vs. decentralized”.

(Dehaene 2018, 280) At the Horizon 2100, the City is everything and everything is the city.

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NEW BALANCES

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New Balances Reclaiming space for nature While the impacts of climate change in the city of Gent are increasing, the Flemish territory is at the same time, increasing its sealed surfaces to an exceptional point.

Flemish territory is the second most sealed region in Europe, in 2018, 16% of the surface area of Flanders was sealed and since then, almost 300ha of sealed surface has been added every year, which is an equivalent of 600 football fields of impermeable surface added every year.

In addition, Flanders is amongst the lessforested regions in Europe, with a forest cover of about 140.000 ha or 10,35% of its total surface area, being one of the most urbanized regions of Europe.

Authors: Daniela Cobo | Agnese Marcigliano | Letlhabile Shubane | Lucie Van Meerbeeck

The need to find ways to increase the quantity and quality of Nature is urgent.

The proposals for the Gent peripheral areas

Self-sufficient cells. Authors: Camille Hendlisz | Haifa Saleh | Véronique de Pauw | Yentl Wulteputte.

have been guided by nature as an structuring element, shifting the traditional rationale of open green space is what is left from urbanisation, to

strong landscape ecosystems that become predominant and structure urbanisation transformations.

By re-scaling and transforming the predominant single housing development, new natural areas are available for community benefit.

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NEW BALANCES

Diverse and innovative ways to reintroduce and expand the presence of natural ecosystems have been proposed.

Many sealed surfaces are understood as potential surfces to become soft, able to infiltrate water, contributing to restore the water system of the city

and to minimize flooding effects.

Sealed surfaces as parking lots, oversized streets, cul de sacs and industrial platforms become part of a system of soft surfaces that abosorb water runoffs, drain water to be collected and clean it to be re-used. Those new soft

surfaces not only provide with space for re-wilding and enhancing natural ecosystems, but also for new communal activities like orchards, children recreation and places to stay.

Reforestation strategies are also present, understood from a systemic and

integrated perspective.

Forest preservation and afforestation in areas of high ecological value, like the alder swamp were considered. For the areas dominated by industry and agriculture, expanding the tree lines that serve as sun and wind barriers to cool down the

agricultural fields was the primary strategy.

An ecosystem services logic across scales that benefits nature and humans implemented.

Desealing over-dimensioned streets in Wondelgem is proposed as a re-wilding strategy to increase space for nature.

Authors: Daniela Cobo | Agnese Marcigliano | Letlhabile Shubane | Lucie Van Meerbeeck

Potential natural vegetation map Existing Proposed Existing Proposed

Dryness Wetness

Alder Swamp

Alder Swamp

Alluvial Forest Alluvial Forest

Biodiversity value in Schelde river is enhanced by allowing a tydal scenario and re-introducing new natural elements.

SandySoil Soil Forest Forest Sandy Agroforestry Agroforestry Agriculture Agriculture

Greenfi elds Greenfields

Authors: Ermioni Chatzimichail | Carlos Morales Dávila | Sebastián Oviedo | Tien Huu Tran

Swamp forest

Sandy soil forest

Delayered Vision: Rythms of Soil Use 0

Authors: Camille Hendlisz | Haifa Saleh | Véronique de Pauw | Yentl Wulteputte.

1km

2km

N

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NEW BALANCES

back the notion of intergenerational collaborative community to which the inhabitants belong and feel safe within. Based on collective living principles, the interventions for the periphery of Gent are grounded on socially ethical values of sharing over ownership while respecting levels of individuality, privacy, and anonymity as qualities of the city and its dwellers.

Transforming the existing urban fabric allow for the potential of creating live, work and play environments within

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walking distance. Such transformations provide opportunities for new urban centres which support local neighbourhood supply such as agriculture, local markets etc. and provide an opportunity of ecosystem restoration.

Authors: Ermioni Chatzimichail | Carlos Morales Dávila | Sebastián Oviedo | Tien Huu Tran

Transforming Urban Tissues

The transformation of Exiting urban tissues to avoid open land consuption gives the opportunity to re-think new modes of land occupation, management and inhabitation.

The premise was, why to add if we can transform? transforming the existing fabric by simultaneously increasing density, reducing foot-prints and al-

lowing for more nature.

In the specific context of the periphery of Gent the interventions are thought from a very contextualized perspective, acknowledging specificities of the landscape that have shaped the urban development of the city.

So, the wetlands, the donkens (top of large dunes that provided safe space for settling), the dries (old communal village square for agricul-

tural land) and the Meersen were understood as development elements to be considered for urban transformation.

It provided with a diverse range of transformations that enable: water-housing reconciliation, restored dune eco-systems or enhanced dries moments for community activities.

The resulting settlement proposals actively respond to deep psycho-social needs, as they bring Authors: Camille Hendlisz | Haifa Saleh | Véronique de Pauw | Yentl Wulteputte.

A more sustainable and beneficial relationship of industry and human settlements is defined by re-shaping water management, use and re-use.

COLOFON

students

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Raquel Colacios Carmen Van Maercke Kelly Shannon Bruno De Meulder

Daniela Cobo Agnese Marcigliano Tlhabi Shubane Lucie Van Meerbeeck

Peter Vanden Abeele Matthias Blondia Eva Naessens Carl De Jonghe Josefien Matthys Peter Lambrecht Jitse Massant

Cecilia Quiroga Yidnekachew Yilma Md Rafiqul Islam Tien Huu Tran Sebastian Oviedo Ermioni Chatzimichail Carlos Morales Cecile Houpert Raya Rizk Jennifer Saad Imraan Begg Haifa Saleh Camille Hendlisz Véronique De Pauw Yentl Wulteputte

DEPARTMENT OF ARCHITECTURE FACULTY OF ENGINEERING SCIENCES

MASTER OF HUMAN SETTLEMENTS MASTER OF URBANISM, LANDSCAPE AND PLANNING

ISSN: 2795-6032