Brabantse Wouden - A vision towards a 21st Century Urban National Park in Belgium

Brabantse Wouden A Vision towards a 21st Century Urban National Park in Belgium

Master thesis studio 2020-21 KU Leuven, Department of Architecture Master of Urbanism, Landscape &Planning

© Copyright by KU Leuven Without written permission of the promotors and the authors it is forbidden to reproduce or adapt in any form or by any means any part of this publication. Requests for obtaining the right to reproduce or utilize parts of this publication should be addressed to K.U.Leuven, Faculty of Engineering Science Kasteelpark Arenberg 1, B-3001 Heverlee (Belgium).

Telephone +32-16-32 88 94 Email: laura.calders@kuleuven.be A written permission of the promotors is also required to use the methods, products, schematics and programs described in this work for industrial or commercial use, and for submitting this publication in scientific contests.

MASTER OF HUMAN SETTLEMENTS MASTER OF URBANISM, LANDSCAPE AND PLANNING

Brabantse Wouden: A Vision towards a 21st Century Urban National Park in Belgium Master thesis studio 2020-21

VOLUME_1 COLLECTIVE RESEARCH VOLUME_2 DESIGN INVESTIGATIONS

Darina Andreeva, MAULP Rana Bachir, MAULP Anja Billion, MIRA Zhihan Liu, MAULP Pengyang Luo, MAULP

Master Thesis to obtain a degree of Master of Urbanism, Landscape and Planning for the year 2020-21 Supervisors:

Prof. Dr. Ir. Bruno De Meulder (promotor) Prof. Dr. Kelly Shannon (co-promotor)

Academic year 2020-2021

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Brabantse Wouden: A Vision towards a 21st Century Urban National Park in Belgium

Acknowledgments Presenting this thesis as a group of five students is a very proud moment for all of us after an intense year long process.

We’ve had to collaborate and we’ve had to work individually.

The work happened on campus when possible, but due to Covid measures also often at home. Collaboration then is often restricted a bit by the possibilities or conditions of different video communications software. We could say that zoom is as much loved as it is hated after using it so intensively.

But in both locations and in group as well as in individual constellations we have drawn maps and investigated the territory of the Sonian forest. A special thanks therefore goes out to both of our promoters, Bruno and Kelly, whom we have collaborated intensely with in weekly meetings.

Thanks for their time, for their energy to keep guiding us through the process, their patience, their calmness when panic arose, but also their rigor and strictness when times called for it.

We also want to thanks Khalda for her punctual organisation skills, Laura for everclear communication and all the jury members that have been present during intermediate presentations.

Saying thanks as a group is bit difficult in the written format, but I think I can be certain we all want to thank each other. For being in a group dynamic, for kind words when times got hard and for McDonald’s meals in the studio, because what else are the advantages of working on campus?

This is but the first of multiple books of this quit funny group of students (consisting of four MAULP members and one MIRA student), we hope you enjoy it!

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Brabantse Wouden: A Vision towards a 21st Century Urban National Park in Belgium

table of contents Aknowledgements 5 table of contents 7 Abstract 9 introduction 11 problem statement 19 learning from cases 33

1 2 3 4

national park concept 35 desealing 55 re/a forestation 67 new typologies 83 new collectivities 85 circular typologies 95

proposing the park 111

ecology vision 113

urbanism vision 125

Islands and Slopes. Darina Andreeva 126

Plateau van Beersel. Rana Bachir 130

Sonian interface. Anja Billion 134

Watershed as a Leverage: Designing decentralized water infrastructure in IJse river basin. Zhihan Liu 136

Reconnnecting with Water: Urban water metabolism in Huldenberg. Pengyang Luo 138

conclusion 143 references 145 list of figures 148

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Brabantse Wouden: A Vision towards a 21st Century Urban National Park in Belgium

Abstract Current climate challenges-flood, drought, pollution, temperature rising- can be seen through the frame of challenges and scope of innovations to re-embed the way of settling and interrelationships of biotic and abiotic environments. Belgium, specifically Flanders, is one of the most highly-dense urbanized areas that feed on both forest and agriculture for years and more is yet to happen.

This thesis explores the idea of an urban national park as an alternative mode of adaptive living within the Brabant region stretched from Meerdaalwoud forest in the east along the Dijle valley to Hallebos forest in the west along the Senne valley, having the Sonian forest as a heart of the site. The ambition of the park is trying to bridge the classic perception that aims at the preservation of nature to a more integrated system of living. The proposal will be formed by analyzing four topics: The notion of National Park, Recent Flemish policies to revert climate changes, Forest diversity, and New way of urbanization. To conclude, the project will be a mosaic of elements that will use subtle interventions that have a significant impact on the quality of life for both humans and nature.

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introduction

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Context & Objectives

Brabantse Wouden is a strategic project initiated by the municipalities of the city of Leuven, Oud-Heverlee, Huldenberg, and Bertem, the province of Flemish Brabant, the Agency for Nature and Forests, and the Environment department of the Flemish government. It is a 3-year project aiming at constructing a national park to reinforce the Meerdallwoud and Zonienwoud, with the valleys of Dijle, Laan, Ijse, and Voer, and the uphill agricultural plateau. The notion of a national park for the region builds upon the reasoning of early 20th century American foresters Gifford Pinchot and Benton MacKaye, which combines conservation of the public domain with multiple-use and explicitly links forests and watersheds.

(Kelly Shannon, Bruno de Meulder, 2019) There are 4 clear ambitions of the strategic projects: 1. Reinforcing forests and nature, and questing solutions for climate-vulnerable places.

2.

Reinforcing critical connections of open spaces.

3.

Reinforcing agriculture.

4. Constructing a local public project in the residential center that initiates a transformation to soft, green, and “slow“ paths as the local entry point to the forest.

Based on the former work of the Agency for Nature and Forests, Horizon+ and summer-school students from KU Leuven, etc, this collective project intends to bring a new perspective of Landscape Urbanism into Brabantse Wouden. There are many challenges in the design research area in the upcoming future regards with climate change and housing crises, including seasonal water crisis ( drought and floods) oversealed surfaces, and single-family housing.

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Fig 1.1 Defining the territory of the design research for the Brabantse Wounden. The research territory lies on the upper stream watersheds of the Zenne and Dijle river, covering valleies and plateaus. This is a map shows the current urbanisation overlaid with slope, reinforced valley contour figure and pridicted flood risk in 2100. Modified by the authors. Sources: klimaat.wmm.be; land.copernicus.eu; vlaanderen.be; eservices.minfin.fgove.be

Brabantse Wouden: A Vision towards a 21st Century Urban National Park in Belgium

introduction

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Under the shared ambitions of the strategic projects, the project rethinks the relations between the sealed and the void, settlements and landscape, human and nature through the perspective of Landscape Urbanism. The project envisions Brabantse Wouden as an inhabitable National Park that practices the harmonious way of “living in the forest“ and “living with water“, looking for new ways of understanding the rolling landscape, new synergies of nature and human settlements.

Fig 1.2 The diagramatic setion that shows the relation between valley, slope and plateau across the Zenne and Dijle watersheds. Drew by the authors.

Soil layer source: DOV-Bodemverkenner

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Brabantse Wouden: A Vision towards a 21st Century Urban National Park in Belgium

introduction

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Conceptual Framework

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Fig 1.3 The diagramatic setion that shows the relation between valley, slope and plateau across the Zenne and Dijle watersheds. Drew by the authors.

Soil layer source: DOV-Bodemverkenner

Fig 1.4 National park city project mapping, London.

Credit: Urban Goods

Fig 1.5 Sketch about the idea of forestation in the landscape. Drew by the Authors.

Forest and Water Urbanism

National Park City

Valley, slope and plateau

In the present day, the forest and water systems are highly fragmented as a consequence of expanding urbanization. Human settlement, infrastructure, and agriculture have significantly compromised the connectivity of the landscape and substantially reduced biodiversity. (Kelly Shannon and Bruno de Meulder). Therefore, reconfiguring the ecologies of the territory is the priority of the project. The Forest and Water Urbanism proposes a harmonious and synergic system of the forest, water, and urbanism by reconstructing ecologies about natural segments like climate, soil, and topography, and artificial segments like infrastructure, mobility, and settlements.

London National Park City is a brilliant shared vision initiated by the Greater London Council, which benefits all the citizens by increasing the possibility of nature interaction just in their neighborhoods.

Imagining the greenest London ever, the National Park City aims to make 100% of the population easily accessible to high-quality green spaces, including many categories: Green Space, Play Space, Food Space, Civic Space, Wild Space, and Blue Space. With a concept twist from “parks in the city“ to “city in the park“.

The rolling landscape across the territory is interpreted as a synergic system of valleys, slopes, and plateau.

Brabantse Wouden: A Vision towards a 21st Century Urban National Park in Belgium

Valley, slope, and plateau have distinguished nature to soil condition and sunlight sufficiency regarding its different landscape position and different topographic characteristics. The riparian areas in the valley are within or adjacent to the creeks or surface depression, thus naturally having the wet soil condition and very vulnerable to fluvial erosion. Slope steepness determines the soil’s ability to hold water and the risk of erosion, while slope facing determines the sun efficiency and the wetness of the soil. The agricultural plateaus are at a high risk of wind erosion. Therefore, different strategies could be applied.

Methodology

Brabantse Wouden Inhabitating the National Park

Analysis: problem assessment

Case Studies

Forest degradation

National Park

Cultivated the plateau

Desealing

Fragmented Forest

Re / A Forestation

Disffuse Urbanism

New Collectivity

Car dependency

Circularity

Reconstitute the ecology

Reconfiguring Urbanism Individual Design Exploration Fig 1.6 Diagrame of methodology for the collective work. Drew by the authors.

In this volume of the dissertation, firstly, processing the accessible geographic data from the administrative, we overlap, compare and access the historical and current status of nature and settlements, we calculate and compile the topographic characteristics of the landscape to identify and specify the ecological and social challenges in the territory. Secondly, we learned knowledge from a wide range of cases review that is divided into five themes: National Park, Desealing and Re/A fforestation from an ecological perspective, New collectivity, and Circularity from an architectural perspective. After a good understanding of the territory and its minor texture, an integrated ecological framework is proposed. Under the framework of Brabantse Wouden, each of us digs our project deeper into small sites to refine the ecological strategies and explore the urbanism strategies individually. introduction

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problem statement

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Forest degradation over the last centuries The urban expansion after World War II led to the urbanization of a large number of green areas, of which the forests were greatly affected.As shown in the drawing, many of the forests of the last century have been replaced by settlements and agriculture land. To combat climate change and create a better living environment, we need to reverse this trend.

20 Brabantse Wouden: A Vision towards a 21st Century Urban National Park in Belgium

problem statement

21

Cultivated landscape is “eating” the plateau Agriculture is very well developed throughout the region. Due to the abundant light and suitable soilconditions, most of the plateau is covered by agricultural land, creating a large open cultivated landscape.

Within the context of national park, these areas are considered as potential targets for forest densification to connect the existing forest along the slopes.The concept of Agroforestry could also be applied here.

22 Brabantse Wouden: A Vision towards a 21st Century Urban National Park in Belgium

problem statement

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Fragmented Forest

Echoing what was mentioned earlier, the development of urbanization and the annexation of plateau by farmland has led to a fragmented distribution of forest systems.

According to Statista, only 22.58% of the land is occupied by forest in Belgium. In the valley area, this situation has been alleviated, but most of the forests on the slopes and plateau areas are still fragmented.

24 Brabantse Wouden: A Vision towards a 21st Century Urban National Park in Belgium

problem statement

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Sealed Surface

In 2050, the highly urbanized Flanders will have 41 - 50 percent of the area as a residential area (Poelmans, 2017). The highly sealed ground could have negative impacts on water infiltration throughout the area, while the lack of green space creates a more severe heat island effect in densely populated areas.

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Brabantse Wouden: A Vision towards a 21st Century Urban National Park in Belgium

problem statement

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Car Dependency

According to the public transport study, most of the spaces in this region are well covered by bus or train. However, private cars are still the main mode of travel, especially in the suburbs. It is reported that 23% CO2 emissions in Belgium come from transport (Deloitte Belgium). Public transportation or non-motorized modes of travel should be given priority in the transport planning.

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Brabantse Wouden: A Vision towards a 21st Century Urban National Park in Belgium

problem statement

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flood risk

Based on the study of VMM (2010), there are 15-20% of buildings are in the flooding risk zone in Flanders. Considering more serious flooding problems in the future, measures have to be taken to mitigate the danger caused by flooding. Water management measures were the direct way of dealing with these problems. We eager to find a more sustainable solution to this challenge.

30 Brabantse Wouden: A Vision towards a 21st Century Urban National Park in Belgium

problem statement

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learning from cases

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national park concept

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Evolution of Concept In this part, we are going to discuss how the concept of a national park evolved from merely the idea of conserving nature to the idea of rethinking the naturecity relationship. Carr says that the study of the park design history has been “hindered by uncertainty about what exactly defines a ‘park’ and also about what would constitute ‘design’ in such a setting” (E Carr in Carr, Eyring, and Wilson 2013, 1). The history of the park design is of significance not just because it is a counter ideology of the more recent models but because of the “cogent lessons” that can be extracted from it to have a better understanding of the current practices (E Carr in Carr, Eyring, and Wilson 2013, 4).

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Yesterday

Conservation of nature Carr states that the histories presented regarding parks describe the physical and conceptual transformations of certain places into parks, hence “the park history is primarily a design history” (E Carr in Carr, Eyring, and Wilson 2013, 1). The park landscape is a manifestation of the “cultural construction of nature and history and at the same time they model and comment on society’s place in these grand narratives” (E Carr in Carr, Eyring, and Wilson 2013, 8).

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The concept of a park on the scale of “nation” that aims at preserving the valuable place of nature emerged back in the 19th century in the United States. It was hugely influenced by a back then growing movement of “appreciation of wilderness and wildlife”. These changes in the American perception of nature were a reaction to the outburst of urbanization. The Americans felt the need to go back to nature and preserve what is left, which created sort of a contrast between what is a park and what is a city (Library of Congress n.d.).

The movement produced a national governing body in 1916, which is the National Park Service. National Park Service (NPS) according to its former director Jonathan Jarvis “encourage the dialogues on design and preservation issues” as these parks stand as a collective memory of who the American have been (Carr, Eyring, and Wilson 2013, viii).

1.2

Fig 1.7 1_Grand Canyon (NPS), 2_Grand Teton National Park (NPS)

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Brabantse Wouden: A Vision towards a 21st Century Urban National Park in Belgium

Fig 1.8 Yosemite National Park (NPS)

Today

Rethinking nature-city relationship According to Konijnendijk, the question of “whose nature” was a major factor in the change that happened in the way we view national parks. He adds that the views of nature have been expressed by the urban elite shaped urban green spaces including city forests, and for this, he refers to the example of Frederick Law Olmsted objecting to the dominance of the elite in using and shaping nature in the case of Yosemite National Park, where only very few working-class people had the opportunity to travel to it (Konijnendijk 2008, 70, 120).

Today, the urban approach is inclining towards an alternative concept that works on “enhancing the edges” between nature, specifically forest, and city rather than setting it. National parks now are used as an alibi to steer up the process of urban transformation that rethinks the cities of the future. Konijnendijk says that city forests can “raise awareness” about climate change challenges through contributing to mitigating climate change (Konijnendijk 2008, 155).

Today’s parks need to be inspired by the consequences of climate change and ecological concerns can create “rich interdependencies” between environmental challenges and urbanism (Shannon 2018, 207).

1.3 Fig 1.9 Gateway National Park, showing Jamaica Bay (NASA)

learning from cases

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Flemish Perspective and policy Besides the work that Horizon+ is doing, the ministry of environment was to expand the idea of national parks even further. Back in April this year, the ministry launched an open call for National Parks and Landscape Parks. The entries should be based on coalitions that demonstrate sufficient quality in a concept note. The final phase of this process will be in mid-2023 where the actual recognition of a candidate as Flanders National Park or Landscape Park will follow (Flemish Environment Department 2021). To this day, Brabantse Wouden is the most advanced idea of all, with Agentschap Natuur en Bos (The Agency for Nature and Forest) choreographing partnerships for the project of the three large forest complexes: Zoniënwoud, Hallerbos, and Meerdaalwoud (Ysebaert 2019).

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Flemish Perspective

Existing Brabantse Wouden

42 Brabantse Wouden: A Vision towards a 21st Century Urban National Park in Belgium

Source: EU Forest Figure (GIS) Further info in the next pages

Kalmthoutse Heide*

De Hoge Kempen

*Already a national park on its Dutch side

learning from cases

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Hoge Kempen National Park This park is the highest region of the Kempen, which has a soil type characterized by very poor gravel and sandy nature which paved the way to a type of farming involving the herding of sheep and cows.

This condition required ensuring that there was enough food and litter for the stables so the vegetation would be burnt down and cut down regularly, hence creating a heath landscape (Nationaal Park Hoge Kempen Website n.d.). The appreciation of the natural character of Limburg province roots back to the 1930s, but there was a fear that it might slow down industrialization (Mariotti 2020).

These ideas developed from 2002 to 2020 and the park kept growing to what it is today to include the municipalities of Lanaken, As, Zutendaal, Genk, Dilsen-Stokkem, and Maasmechelen as each of them have their gate to the park and the number is set to grow by four (Mariotti 2020).

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1.6_3

Although the root of the national park here was a classic idea of nature preservation, yet, the goal today is for the park to double in size by 2040, having the eco-ducts and tunnels as the links covering at least ten municipalities (Mariotti 2020). The national parks are transforming the neighboring context and influencing the relationship between people and nature.

Location

Limburg Province Governing Body

Fig 1.10 Map of Hoge Kempen (geopunt GIS)

Year

2006

Fig 1.12 Goats with shaperd in Hoge Kampen (Emile Van Doren, circa 1890)

Area

127 km²

Fig 1.11 Layers of Hoge Kempen: 1_Hiking, 2_Biking, 3_Hollow Roads (nationaalparkhogekempen.be)

Agentschap voor Natuur en Bos

44 Brabantse Wouden: A Vision towards a 21st Century Urban National Park in Belgium

Border Park

Kalmthoutse Heide (NL)+De Zoom (BE) This case is only a national park on its Dutch site, while there are efforts now to make the Flemish side (Ysebaert 2019). According to the park website, the border between Belgium and the Netherlands was only created in 1843, before that the area had a common history. This history was inscribed in smaller boundaries indicated by the local rulers.

Those rulers disputed over water, grazing land, peat extraction, hunting and fishing, tax collection, and justice. Until 2000, this nature area consisted of nature reserves, smallscale agricultural areas, forests, large private domains. Due to the management difficulties because of the area being shared by different regions, the partnership ‘Grenspark Kalmthoutse Heide’ was born where different actors can work together for one nature (Grenspark Kalmthoutseheide n.d.).

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An important lesson from this park is the importance of partnerships in environment and nature management. The absence of an overall vision of forest and water urbanism can create weak solutions that enhance fragmentation. This idea of collaboration is what is happening in Brabantse Wouden and it is both a challenge and an opportunity for involved partners.

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Location

De Zoom, Netherlands + Kalmthoutse Heide, Noord-Braobant Governing Body

Bijzondere Commissie Year

Fig 1.13 Map of Border Park (geopunt GIS+EU Orthoimages)

Area

Fig 1.14 Layers of Kalmthoutse Heide: 1_ Green Terrains, 2_Sandy Terrains (visitbrabant.com)

2001 127 km²

learning from cases

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Global Persective A selection of relevant examples is analyzed in the following part. These case studies present an aspect of the evolution of the national park concept discussed earlier. The case studies here present different solutions that rethink national parks with today’s challenges and perception of relationship to nature management.

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Gateway

National Recreation Area Although being a host of diverse estuarine wildlife, public beaches, historic military forts, navigational facilities, and NYC’s first municipal airport, the Gateway area was also a crutch for aging infrastructure, sewer outfalls, abandoned buildings, degraded habitats, drowned marshes, former landfill and vast asphalt runways (Brash, Hand, and Orff 2011). The design presented here is the 1st prize winner of a competition back in 2001 held by Van Alen Institute to create a vision for the Gateway area with a focus on Jamaica Bay. One of the most remarkable aspects about Gateway is that its heavily urbanized context within New York City, which qualifies it to be an urban park within it. The designers describe the landscape here as a “marginal landscape” yet with a “great biodiversity”, proposing the starting point of the design process under the title “Mapping the Ecotones*”. The project is proposing a “microcosm of shifting habitats, programs and landforms” that was made “static by decades of urban dross, fill and dredging” (Kelly and Wakabayashi 2006).

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*a transitional area of vegetation between two different plant communities has some of the characteristics of each bordering biological community and often contains species not found in the overlapping communities (Britannica n.d.)

Gateway is an example of “the increasingly vital role of urban parks in the 21st century” as it provides “a global model for how diverse natural ecosystems can thrive alongside even the world’s densest and fastestgrowing cities” (Brash, Hand, and Orff 2011).

The designers highlighted the role of climate change in the design process stating that “people should be educated that ecosystems are in necessary flux, a cycle increasingly complex with today’s global climate shifts” (Kelly and Wakabayashi 2006).

1.10 Location

NewYork, United States Governing Body

National Park Service NPS Year

2007 Area

127 km² Designer

Ashley Kelly and Rikako Wakabayashi

48 Brabantse Wouden: A Vision towards a 21st Century Urban National Park in Belgium

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Fig 1.15 Vision for the Gateway Park (A S Kelly)

Fig 1.17 The Littorial Grid (A S Kelly)

Fig 1.16 Climate adaptive design over the years: 1_0 years, 2_40 years, 3_80 years (A S Kelly)

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Fig 1.18 Climate adaptive design by water level rise: 1_0 inch rise, 2_2 inch rise, 3_6 inch rise (A S Kelly)

learning from cases

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Lecce

Provincial Coordination Plan The provincial plan was a combination of research and project. The plan produced situated Salento territory as “a land in the balance between the past and the future, a laboratory of nature, economies, and society that showed interesting clues to start a development model towards postmodernity” (Mininni 2012). According to Studio Bernardo Secchi and Paola Viganò, Salento was growing as “a dispersed city where recent industrial districts are mixed up with ancient Mediterranean villages and towns pattern, characterized by singlefamily detached houses expansion”. These urban challenges threatened the most important quality of the area that is its “uncontaminated” seashores and remarkable landscape (Studio Associato Bernardo Secchi Paola Viganò 2001). Hence, the idea of the project is to transform the landscape into a “meaningful” one that interacts with urbanism. The project uses the “periurbanity” using an agro-environmental policy called “the city-country pact” which is based on a territory project and the re-invention of a landscape (Mariavaleria Mininni 2012).

Salento today is an area of “increasing awareness of its success, in search of an external dimension and a local dimension of tourism” (Mariavaleria Mininni 2012). This was done by harmonizing the rural landscapes with the peri-urban agriculture that infiltrates the urban fringes as an alternative open space to the suburbs trapped in the productive gardens of the houses in the historic centers of Salento. This agricultural landscape articulation was applied over the distance of a short and elongated land forming a peninsula surrounded by the sea and scattered with 98 municipalities (Mariavaleria Mininni 2012).

1.13

Location

Salento, Italy Governing Body

Province of Lecce Year

1st Phase 1999-2001, 2nd Phase 2008-2009 Designer

Studio Associato Bernardo Secchi Paola Viganò 50 Brabantse Wouden: A Vision towards a 21st Century Urban National Park in Belgium

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Fig 1.19 Salento as a Park (Piano di coordinamento provinciale Lecce, 2001) Fig 1.20 Planning over time span:1_urban sprawl challenge, 2_2050 scenario (secchi-vigano.eu) Fig 1.21 Schemetic concept of landscape strategy towards agriulture (secchi-vigano.eu)

learning from cases

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Emscher

Landscape Park With the deterioration of heavy industry activities between the 1980s and 1990s, the landscape was remarkably shaped by the aftermath of this condition, marking traces of industries’ legacy. Dettmar says that “faceless cities”, which are the cities suffering from this condition, influenced a lot of studies and competitions to revitalize and redesign former industrial areas of the region, such as the case of Emscher, specifically the Ruhr area (Dettmar 2005).

The design process focused on bringing out the best of both: the heritage landscape of the area, and the natural landscape shaped by years of the heavy industry described

by Kowarik and Korner as “urban industrial woodlands” (Kowarik and Körner 2005).

An important key element of the project is the Emscher river. The river was an open sewer for a century, but it was transformed into a “diversified waterside natural leisure area” (Regionalverband Ruhr 2013). The river presents a place of not only environmental value but a social one as well. It is embedded in a “new attractively designed parkland stretching from the source of the Emscher in Holzwickede to Dinslaken where the river flows into the Rhine” (Regionalverband Ruhr 2013). Add to that, the auxiliary elements around the river such as the promenades and paths along “quasi-natural redesigned waterways, lined with typical bankside vegetation and dotted with benches and terraces overlooking the water”(Regionalverband Ruhr 2013). One of the interesting lessons of this project is the importance of giving enough space for water and looking at it as a catalyst for social cohesion and development.

Location

Emscher, Germany Governing Body

IBA Emscher Park GmbH Year

1989 – 2010 Area

457 km² 52

Brabantse Wouden: A Vision towards a 21st Century Urban National Park in Belgium

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Fig 1.22 Panoramic view of the industrial part of the park (landschaftspark.de) Fig 1.23 Different aspects of Emscher: 1_Cycle Trail, 2_Living in a park (Regionalverband Ruhr 2013)

learning from cases

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de sealing

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Flemish Perspective and policy With the present trend of expanding footprint and disturbance over natural systems, Flanders, more than ever, facing the consequences of climate change of heat stress and flooding. The Flemish government in order to manage current and coming difficulties, implemented several policies, such as “Stop concrete” and “Blue deal”, to balance settling and natural systems coexistence. Both policies are supplementing each other and intending to reestablish the way how natural systems operate for green spaces or wetlands.

The first policy ambitioned to “stop concrete”, in other words, a ban on consuming open green spaces. In 2011 Flemish minister for spatial planning Philippe Muyters launched a Policy Plan on Spatial Planning in Flanders where the program of “stop concrete” became a part of it for equally urban and rural areas. The policy ideology is to encourage people to “live smaller” with less housing footprint and more concentration. (“The ‘Concrete Stop’ Deal ”)v The second policy “Blue deal” relates to reducing the effects of drought by de-sealing the ground and stabilize natural water systems. The government-subsidized 75 million euros for small-scale projects to stimulate local initiatives to transform and unpave the areas around. Hence, the policy becomes an efficient bridge between the inhabitant’s demands for natural elements in a neighborhood and country’s perspectives of sustainable development. (“Blue Deal Environment Department”) This chapter will review the effectiveness of these two recent policies based on four case study examples from both international and Flemish perspectives to raise inspiration with ideas for vision proposal.

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Integrated water softening in Redingenhof Belgium, Leuven

2020 51N4E, Plant en Houtgoed

Under the umbrella of de-sealing policy in Flanders, a project of public spaces in Redingenhof is one of 44 pilot projects aimed to soft ground from pavement.

Based on the coalition between residents, school authorities, and experts, the project proposes redesigning the schoolyard and two streets in the neighborhood. Some time ago, a renovation of the streets was already planned, however, dwellers were not satisfied with the amount of public green in the project. In 2018 when the Flemish government launched a call for a pilot project for de-sealing, dwellers of the neighborhood in cooperation with design teams 51N4E and Plant en Houtgoed submitted a request for funding to redevelop the area in the concepts of the policy. Through series of workshops and activities, such as car-free days, a new plan for the renovation was established.

Further, accordingly, to set ideas were planting collective gardens, converting the school playground to environmentally friendly ground, and reconnecting the existing water to a rainwater basin - all of the changes expanded beyond the private and public understanding of land use.

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Fig 1.24 Water softening, Redingenhof (51N4E, 2020)

Brabantse Wouden: A Vision towards a 21st Century Urban National Park in Belgium

Fig 1.25 Sealed surfaces of school yard (51N4E, 2020)

Fig 1.27 locals participate on the street renovation (51N4E, 2020)

Outcome for vision Roads and schoolards Referring to the area of Brabantse Wouden, as a mosaic of different urban and nature patterns assembled, a larger framework of de-sealing policy with climate-proof strategies, with small-scale projects and responsibilities, seems like an appealing approach to redevelop pieces of mosaic on a local level. Knowing that there is no universal approach to deal with problems in each neighborhood of the area and that basically, all dwellers are interested to improve the environment around themselves, makes this policy an inspiring tool for everyone.

Besides, locals as experts are the ones who know the area in detail and could identify more precisely how to rearrange elements in a better picture in their street. Thus, the concept of a large framework perfectly works as a guideline for local project initiatives that is evident in the project in Redingenhof. Also, the project shows the flexibility of a schoolyard’s transformation as a part of the learning process for the students. Hence, knowing the demand for more trees in the future, schoolyards could become tree nurseries and study examples at the same time.

Fig 1.26 Vit est et aut pe con eumquistem eos ma de rem aliate eum lam, enem cus vollitat.

learning from cases

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Rabotpark Belgium, Ghent

2017 Michel Desvigne

Rabot is a project of a park in the former train station. In 1970 Rabot train station was demolished due to the decline of Rabot as an industrial district. After the area underwent redevelopment and land-use change, today it is a location of Grand Court House of Ghent surrounded by Rabot park. The characteristic of micro-topography of the site made a terraced pattern as a base on the park planning. Due to the relation of the remarkable building of the court the park represents an abstract composition of green elements and pedestrian infrastructure.

Fig 1.28 Rabotpark plan (MDP, 2017)

Fig 1.29 Rabotpark construction (MDP, 2017)

60 Brabantse Wouden: A Vision towards a 21st Century Urban National Park in Belgium

Outcome for vision Industries The essential part of Senne valley in Brabantse Wouden consists of industries on the natural alluvial part of the floodplain.

Today and in the coming years, these industries tend to become obsolete.

Hence, these massive landform patterns of industrialization will possibly become a vacant place for new functions. Turning the thing from abiotic to biotic environment, as in Rabot park, could become steppingstones for the ecological fabric of the National park Brabantse Wouden and bring back a room for water in Senne valley. Making a vision for 2100 industries are clues and apparent space to de-seal.

Fig 1.30 Rabotpark construction (MDP, 2017)

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Global Persective

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Wuhan Sponge city programme China, Wuhan

2014 Arcadis

China is a country experiencing one of the most rapid urbanization expansions in costs of natural processes degradation. Wuhan Water Authority with the consultancy of Arcadis designed a proposal of the Wuhan Sponge city programme, where problems with water pollution, flooding, and water scarcity will be tackled by providing infrastructure to purify, drain, and store water within the city. In 2013 Chinese government announced the program to develop a water magnet system of cities, Wuhan one of the first cities to implement changes in water management. The project will result into a special vision of water-sensitive design and change the image of districts along with the water bodies in Wuhan.

Fig 1.31 Wuhan Sponge city (Arcadis)

Fig 1.32 Wuhan residents cross a flooded street on a row of tables (AFP/Getty, 2012)

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Brabantse Wouden: A Vision towards a 21st Century Urban National Park in Belgium

Outcome for vision Water urbanism Water defines the landscape of Brabantse Wouden. Two main river’s valley of Dyle and Senne with several streams shaped the landforms and lined the target this area has been inhabited. The example of the project in Wuhan could help to understand how to deal with the urbanized wetlands along waterways and what are the essentials principles of water system operation in the urbanized landscape.

Fig 1.33 Nanganqu Park transformed into a “sponge site” (Obermeyer)

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re/a fforestation

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2018

Forestation in Belgium

From the late 18 century, series re/aforestation actions have been taken. The Forest cover has been increased from 18.9% (according to Ferraris Map) to 22.4% since the end of 18 Centuries. Most of the reforestation actions are taken place in Wallonia, while in Flanders, forest figure was weakened and fragmented by centuries of diffuse urban growth.

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According to the site situation, afforestation strategies could be categorized as Productive forestry (Orchards), Agroforestry, and Urban forestry. In different sites on either valley, slope, or plateau, different species could be planted.

Fig 1.34 Forest cover of Belgium in 1775 and in 2000.Forest map 1775 modified from E. Clicheroux, ‘L’évolution de la forêt en Belgique’, Bulletin de l’Institut de Recherches Economiques et Sociales (Leuven) 22 (1956), 537–78, with permission. Forest map 2018 modified from CORINE Land Cover 2018 dataset, European Protection Agency.

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Productive / Agro- forestry:

silvoarable agroforestry

silvopasture agroforestry

wood edge,airbuffer, buffer forest farming strips along shoreline

home gardens

Urban Forestry

Street and Boulevard Trees

Traffic Barriers

Parks

Greenbelts

Waste Areas

Water’s Edge

Cemeteries

Freeways

Rooftop Gardens

Domestic Gardens

Fig 1.35 The typologies of forestry. The categories are based on following bookd: The world’s urban forests - Joe R. McBride, and Agroforestry manual Flanders.

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3

Slope & Species Selection The selection of species is highly based on an understanding of the topographic characteristics of the landscape. Valley, slope, and plateau have distinguished nature to soil condition and sunlight sufficiency regarding its different landscape position and different topographic characteristics.

The riparian areas in the valley are within or adjacent to the creeks or surface depression, thus naturally having the wet soil condition and very vulnerable to fluvial erosion.

Slope steepness determines the soil’s ability to hold water and the risk of erosion, while slope facing determines the sun efficiency and the wetness of the soil. Slopes facing south and west get more sunlight throughout the day, and the soil condition is rather dry, which is suitable for Orchards such as sweet chestnut, and wild cherry. However, slopes facing north and east are rather wet but less sun sufficient, which is suitable for deciduous or indeciduous trees.

Fig 1.36 Sketch about the idea of forestation in the landscape. Drew by the Authors.

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The agricultural plateaus are at the highly risk of wind erosion, therefore agro-forestry in the agriculture field is highly needed.

Brabantse Wouden: A Vision towards a 21st Century Urban National Park in Belgium

ET W

Salix caprea (Goat Willow )

re pest e) r cam Ace ld Mapl (Fie

us pad nus rry) Pru d Che (Bir

ia ar m) us a rb be So hite (W

Ace rs (Sug acchar um ar m aple )

N NW Quercus montana (Chestnut Oak)

NE

vium Prunus a y) err h C d il (W

Quercus bicolo (Swamp White oaks)

E

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SW

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a Sativ ) e anea Cast chestnu et e w (S

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Orchard Trees

ia Til

Ever-green Trees

Betula pendula （silver birch）

Deciduous Trees

da igi ) s r ine nu p Pi itch (P

Planting Suitability In relation to Slope Facing

Fig 1.37 Planting suitability in relation to slope facing. The species in the diagram are common seen tree species in Flanders, some of them are specially chosen from “Liste van Inheemse Planten Nuttig voor de Biodiversiteit“. Source: https:// www.brussel.be/lijst-van-inheemse-planten-nuttig-voor-de-biodiversiteit

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ANTWERP’S 20TH CENTURY RING TERRITORIAL MASTERPLAN (BUUR) ANTERWERP SCALE: L YEAR: 2017 DESIGNER: BAULAND CLIENT: Municipality of Antwerp and state of Flanders Description: The project is a metropolitan scale urban transformation project that aims to cover the ring of Antwerp with a green roof, and creating space for the adjacent neighborhoods. The R1 ring road is a very strong landscape figure serving as an important transport and logistic “Aisle“. The nearby neighborhoods have been suffering from air pollution and noise problems. With billion-worth investment, the project aims to reconfigure transport infrastructure, introducing continuous green spaces and productive landscape as mitigation of the transporting system and residential areas.

By introducing a sustainable public transportation system, the project also has a radical vision to integrate the hardware infrastructure with the up-gradation of energy heat networks.

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Takeaways: The major infrastructure projects were assigned homo-functions in the past, however for its nature of high connectivity and efficiency, they can be interpreted and reconfigured as leverage to construct continuous green spaces in the fragmented urban tissue instead of a ‘disease of cities‘.

A continuous landscape has multiple possibilities. The ring not only is an ecological and recreational corridor for both humans and non-human, but also an assemblage of production activities for energy and food.

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Fig 1.38 Master plan. Source:https://bauland.lt/ Antwerp-XXIc-Green-Ring Fig 1.39 Proposal of sub-systems of the project. Source: https://bauland.lt/Antwerp-XXIc-Green-Ring

Brabantse Wouden: A Vision towards a 21st Century Urban National Park in Belgium

TOUR & TAXIS PARK BRUSSELS SCALE: M YEAR: 2012-2017 DESIGNER: Bas Smets Studio CLIENT: Project T&T Description:

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Fig 1.40 Extensive study on Bruseels geograpy features. a. water courses of Scheldt, Zenne and Dyle river basin. b. assemblage of attached open spaces in the riverbeds. Credit: Bas Smets Studio Fig 1.41 Introduced open space structure with illstruation of vegetations of the project.Credit: Bas Smets Studio Fig 1.42 Sections that show the subtle earth transformations for creating slopes to assemble water.

Credit: Bas Smets Studio

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Starting with an idea of the “lost riverbeds“, as an invisible clue or logic of the current open spaces, including agriculture fields, forest, domain, and urban parks, the project started an extensive study of Brussels geography and its natural features. The cumulation of the eight tributary valleys is becoming a new shared vision, which the transformation project is embedded in, - a series of linear park systems for each catchment across 19 municipalities, which could help solve the problem of the river and urban floods. The site lies on the west bank of the Zenne and is part of the tributary of the Molenbeek. Nearby, it was the former industrial site of Thurn & Taxis, and it is going to be transformed into a new residential neighborhood in the center of Brussels. The topography was shaped from flat, ponding ground into slopes, and during the process, new vegetation is introduced.

At the end of the slight earthwork, 300 slow-growing trees and 3,000 fast-growing trees are planted, forming a wonderful landscape that changes, and evolves through time. The slow-growing trees are going to define the parking image in the coming years, while the fast-growing trees will create the immediate image once the park opens.

Takeaways: Ecological features, water, riverbed, and soil associate closely with open spaces in the urban context, but in a very insensible way.

Change of the topographic feature initiates the change and evolution of the landscape. learning from cases

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Contour agro-forestry Heuvelland SCALE: M YEAR:2019 DESIGNER & CLIENT: Natuur en Bos, Llvo & RL westhoek Description: The agroforestry project was recently started in Heuvelland on the flanks of the Rodeberg. Grounds in Heuvelland are partly forest, partly open space, and partly to be developed. Agroforestry is ideal for purifying existing agricultural plots, reducing soil erosion, and re-storing rainwater.

Contour forestry Contour forestry is a system in which agroforestry (forest-agriculture) is done according to a linear design, and in which the lines follow the contours of the landscape or the plot. Compare to agroforestry that is seen on site, which is defined by the administrational boundaries, contour forestry is easier and cheaper to construct; and more importantly, contour forestry often is constructed with a swale, which makes the system performs better from an ecological perspective.

The system is especially suitable for agricultural land that is at a high risk of soil erosion, or in the steep slope.

The relation between contour lines and vegetations was observed along while ago.

James Corner drew a diagram to show the concept of contour farming. The curves, rolls, and turns in the drawing measure the farmer’s negotiation with typology, soil, and weather.

The application of contour agroforestry could be dated back centuries ago, and it is found worldwide. For instance, the indigenous Chinese rice terrace farming.

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Fig 1.43 Intentional interventions. Source: https:// www.jurgenvanlerberghe.be/agroforestry-in-heuvelland/ Fig 1.44 a. It illustrated the construction of a linear contour swale that will be planted trees. b. shows the land transformation approaches (phases) for agro-forestry in slope areas. Source: https://www. jurgenvanlerberghe.be/agroforestry-in-heuvelland/

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11 b

1. Existing Suboptimal Forest

2. Forest Clearing

5. Swale Infiltration

6. Planting

3. Woody Debris Organized

4. Swales cut and shaped

7. Perennial plant succession

8. Grazing and perennial plant succession

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Land transformation To construct a well performed contour agro-forestry, there are several steps to follow. (see in figure 12) Takeaways

Fig 1.45 Construction of contour forestry and swale.

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Contour agroforestry system is easier and cheaper to construct compared to the current agroforestry system, also, it often could be integrated with contour bio-swale.

Thus, the contour agro-forestry not only mitigates the soil condition, water quality, and micro-climate but also acts as a part of the water management system.

Fig 1.46 Concept drawing of Contour Farming, drew

by James Corner in the 20th centuries.

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London National Park City LONDON, UK SCALE: L YEAR:Ongoing DESIGNER & CLIENT: Great London Council (GLC) Description: London National Park City is a brilliant shared vision that benefits all the citizens by increasing the possibility of nature interaction just in their neighborhoods. The National Park City project aims to make 100% of the population easily accessible to high-quality green spaces, including many categories: Green Space, Play Space, Food Space, Civic Space, Wild Space, and Blue Space. With a concept twist from “parks in the city“ to “city in the park“, the National Park City plan imagines the greenest London ever. The project is approached on many scales of course. Small pioneer projects under the framework such as London Urban Forest Plan, Community Gardens Action Plan, and Lea Valley Park are starting to be constructed. The project has stimulated conversation between multiple stakeholders and developers, and most importantly, individuals from the neighborhoods.

Takeaways: The conception of National Park City, by proposing a new landscape reality, intrigues investment and participation from both public and private stakeholders. With a clear goal, this vision is on its way to get support from all stakeholders. The pioneer small-scale projects are keeping the “blood” running. Also, domestic gardens could be seen as potentials for transformation in a bigger ecological or social system.

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Fig 1.47 National park city mapping, London. Credit: Urban Goods

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15 a

15 b Fig 1.48 Afforestation actions in process with in the greater london region. A. London urban forest plan. Planting trees along Linear Transport route and waterways (Canal and rivers) / Parks, nature reserves and informal green space/ along streets/ domestic gardens/ hedges / urban green spaces such as housing estates, school and hospital grounds / urban woodlans/ green belt.

15 c Source: https://www.wildlondon.org.uk/news/ londons-urban-forest-plan-published https://www. wildlondon.org.uk/sites/default/files/2020-12/ londonurbanforestplan_final_0.pdf. B. Calthorpe Community Garden https://secretldn.com/8-secret-urban-gardens-london-might-not-know/ C. Lea Valley Park. Source: https://www.5thstudio.co.uk/ projects/lea-river-park-the-leaway/

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Continuous Productive Urban Landscape: Green and Edible Middlebrough Middlesbrough, UK SCALE: L YEAR:2006-2007 DESIGNER: David Barrie & associates, Bohn & viljoen architects CLIENTS: Council of Middlesbrough Description: Middlesbrough, a former industrial town in the UK, was transformed through the urban farming project radically. The project initiates a year-long series of community projects in Middlesbrough to “explore how design can improve our lives in meaningful ways.“ The design envisions a continuous productive urban landscape that explores the sustainable alternatives for living with 4 themes: energy, schooling, health, and food embedded with the system. Middlesbrough suddenly became a living lab for the flood zone, an example of how, through design interventions, urban agriculture can be integrated into cities, and healthy food can be interwoven into the basic fabric of cities and towns.

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Approaches to make CPULs: 1. Bring your own city 2.Map all the existing open spaces, and connect them through green infrastructure 3. Insert agriculturally productive land 4. Feed your city Takeaways: - Constructing a continuous productive landscape, and integrating the network with communities is a critical strategy toward edible cities.

- The interventions have to be taken in multiple scales: network planning, community participation, portable planting box.

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Fig 1.49 Master plan of “green and edible middlebrough“. The highlighed green patches indicate a connected productive landscape, and the red lined circle marked local community gardens. Source: https://www.ryerson.ca/carrotcity/board_pages/ city/middlesbrough.html Fig 1.50 Draft proposal sketch on the map that mapped all the open spaces in town. https://www. ryerson.ca/carrotcity/board_pages/city/middlesbrough.html

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Fig 1.51 Before and after Visualization of the continuous productive landscape project in the street scale.

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Bencon Food Forest Washington, USA SCALE: M YEAR:2014 DESIGNER: Boeri Studio Descriptions: The Beacon Food Forest plan took off in 2009, aiming to construct a sustainable model to support communities with affordable, organic food, learn planting technics and knowledge of the importance of biodiversity. During the construction process, a sense of belonging grows gradually in the communities.

The project is located on a leisure pubic land in Seattle, and it is built and maintained entirely by residents as volunteers. All harvests are open for picking by any passerby, and work is shared by residents and newcomers as a group. By making the project open to all with a clear code of conduct, the project quickly gathered hundreds of residents from different walks of life, contributing tools, skills, and knowledge that can be gathered and passed down to the younger generation.

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Typical Disposition of Plants in a food forest.

As shown in Figure 3.22. A food forest garden is usually made up of layers of different plants that strategically help each other throughout their life. In good conditions, the plants themselves occupy the layer to which they naturally belong. In an agroforestry system, eight layers of plants usually have to be organized in 8 layers: 1. The Emergent layer is the tree layer that overtops the other trees, forming its crown above them.

2. The Canopy Layer is composed of large fruit trees, nut trees and leguminous species with large crowns that are providing a good amount of shade during the dry and

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Fig 1.52 Arial view of the project in the construction phase. https://www.foodurbanism.org/beacon-food-forest/ Fig 1.53 Masterplan of the project, showing accurately the diverse species choices. https://beaconfoodforest.org/

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hot period.

3. The Understory Layer consists of small fruit trees and nut trees.

4. The Shrubs Layer is composed of trees that need to be protected from direct sun.

5. The Herbs Layer is composed of short herbaceous plants, often annual.

6. The Groundcover Layer contains grasses, creepers, and low growing plants that protect topsoil from erosion and drought.

7. The Vertical Layer is composed of climber plants that grow up trunks and branches of the bigger trees.

8. The Roots Layer is really important because it pulls up minerals trapped in rocks to the plants: it is composed of tubers, rhizomes and bulbs.

Source: (https://criticalconcrete.com/urban-food-forest/)

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Takeaways: - Building food forest: Eight layers of a food forest.

- Productive forestry (food forest) is a social activity container that helps identify communities, intrigues community events.

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Fig 1.54 Typical disposition of plants in a food forest system. Cretical Concrete. https://criticalconcrete.com/urban-food-forest/

Fig 1.55 The Beacon food forest is highly coorperated and well managed by local communities. The picture shows people are planting new vegetaion.

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Collective Living (Co-Housing) Collective Living In Flanders Pilot Projects Collective Living The ‘Pilot Projects Collective Living’ project was initiated by the Team Vlaams Bouwmeester and Flemish government to test possible scenarios for housing in Flanders. As the Vlaams Bouwmeester introduced, it aims to convert urgency into an inviting project for the future by using the critical mass of an immense building task as leverage for improving living and residential environment. The project consists of five reference projects to rethink and recalibrate the collective housing framework.

The New Neighborhood There is a considerable patrimony of social housing estates spread across our site.

These public lands are a strategic lever of and for the government to steer housing policy. The large-scale renovations that are required can be used to achieve an important densification here with new visions and in coalitions with public and / or private partners.

This design proposal provides a number of clear ambitions and objectives for the transformation of this urban fabbric. Firstly, the social mix cound be increased in the relevant neighborhoods through the input of a significant number of market-compliant entities, whether or not developed by the housing company or another developer, private or municipal. Secondly, the spatial qualitative models are sought that can deal with different types of neighborhoods, scales and environments. Thirdly, the new settlements at a higher density can lead to relocation rotations within the neighborhood, which makes the renovation program for these neighborhoods easier.

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Fig 1.56 Building Block Transformation Fig 1.57 New Building Block Model Fig 1.58 Window Perspective

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Vacant Suburb During the 20th century, very diverse residential and neighborhood projects were built around the cities as separate parts of the city. These suburbs are often outdated today, but their private ownership structure makes structured redevelopment difficult.

The proposed method tries to break through this through a win-win. A densification project is used as a means and as a source of financing to tackle the shared problems of these neighborhoods.

In a typical high-rise district, the energetic problems of the residential towers and the development opportunities in the underused open space between the towers are combined in one project. For example, (1) the renovation and modernization costs can be financed through the total development; (2) a process of densification can be made around (3) new and more qualitative public spaces; (4) the ensemble grows into a pool of amenities for the surrounding neighborhoods; and (5) the ensemble is also spatially more closely connected to those neighborhoods.

4.4

These design proposals could be implemented in the suburb to reveal its potential: many of the existing ensembles benefit from densification. Faced with challenges and problems that cannot be solved lot by lot, a collective transformation is necessary. In this way, the neighborhoods around Brabantse Wouden also become places where densification can go hand in hand with shared space, where cycles and urban ecology can shape the settlement of the future in a relevant way. Individual actors can be tempted into a joint redevelopment.

4.5 Fig 1.59 Public Garden inbetween building Fig 1.60 New High-rise building

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Living in a Collective Landscape Increasingly large-scale residential developments are seeking proximity to the landscape along Flemish roads. But within the current planning framework, more housing construction leads to less and less landscape. By slightly changing the rules of the game, the existing dynamics can help build a new alliance between housing and landscape. Compact and collective living thus contributes to a qualitative, collective landscape.

This design study aims at a new alliance between the Flemish landscape and living in that landscape. The landscape is not approached as an abstract or technical fact.

It does not concern open space as an ideal mental construction, nor some ecological or hydrological structure. It is not the openness and the large-scale landscape entities that characterize or structure urbanized Flanders. It is through sensory perception and the low point of view that the Flemish landscape reveals its qualities and potential (Van den Bossche, 2021).

The proposal provides a vision that take place in a simple, small-scale manner. The new developments could be grafted onto the small scale plot that characterizes suburban landscape. The proposed collective housing projects could register themselves in a speculative mechanism and have more space for landscape (forest). Like many contemporary real estate operations, the alternative model targets the lower densities. Large outdated villas, bungalows with large gardens, scraps of free lots, and disused farms could be the starting points for the taking.

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Fig 1.61 Landscape along the street Fig 1.62 Building Blocks Fig 1.63 Transformation Area 4.8

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New Coalitions for Living In order to come to a break in the trend in Flemish housing production, it is also necessary to rethink the status and underlying structure of the commissioning process.

The current dominant model of commissioning in Flanders is that of the individual client: an individual or family is looking for a building plot, finds financing and realizes a home. The client is supported in this by a canon of established housing types, with the 'villa' as the most common example of a form of housing focused on personal benefits. This study abandons the model of the 'individual' client in favor of a 'collective' client.

4.9

Based on a convinced 'win-win' strategy, living is linked to activities that are now accommodated 'elsewhere' and 'sectorally'.

In this way, housing enters into alliances with agriculture, logistics, production, care and nature. The term 'residential collective' is exchanged for the term 'coalition': a collective in which each participant strives for personal benefit, but in which the collective benefit is also assured. Coalitions take the housing collective out of the corner of idealism and bring entrepreneurship and market thinking into the picture.

2

The research will try to place these models of collective commissioning in the Brabantse Wouden context and examines whether they can be deployed immediately or require adjustments. The scale of the examples and the emphasis on private financing are often comparable to those of a traditional development and therefore offer perspectives for this area.

4.10

Fig 1.64 Community Center Fig 1.65 Aerial View of the Proposed Community 3

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LILAC (low-impact living and affordable community) It is a co-housing community for 20 ecobuilt households in Leeds. The residents could manage the houses and territories through a mutual home ownership society (MHOS) to ensure affordability. The community has five blocks, some blocks are made up of six smaller houses, and some blocks are made up of two larger houses. These blocks face each other and into the shared garden. The large play area and a productive garden are located in the middle of the community.

The community is pedestrain friendly, with two parking area on the edge of the neighborhood.

The building and homes are extremely environmentally friendly. The homes on the site were built with a low- carbon method of construction, using timber panel walls insulated with straw bales. This method of construction significantly reduced the CO2 emitted during the Leeds building process.

Members were involved in the building process after the structural timber was assembled, and were able to assist in adding the straw bales. There are solar panels in use in the development too. The insulating materials and design of the buildings store solar heat in the winter and reject solar heat in the summer, therefore reducing the need to have external heating energy.

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4.12

What could be learnt from this project is the way of construction and how the management of the community could change residents' way of living. It encourages low-impact living and constructing. The lowcarbon methond of construction and carsharing system among residents could be learnt when transform the community in our site.

Fig 1.66 Timber were used for construction Fig 1.67 Public Garden Fig 1.68 Public Activity in the community 4.13

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Marmalade Lane The Marmalade Lane project is the first cohousing project in Cambridge. This comes at a moment when custom-build and community-led housing are being recognized by the government as viable and attractive models for future housing. The development comprises 42 homes – a mix of two- to five-bedroom terraced houses and one- and two-bedroom apartments.

Marmalade Lane’s shared spaces and communal facilities, designed to foster community spirit and sustainable living, are integral to the development

Fig 1.69 Diverse Activities in the public garden Fig 1.70 Master Plan Fig 1.71 Different kinds of houses

This project includes shared gardens as the center of the community, with areas for growing food, play, socializing and quiet contemplation, and a flexible ‘common house’ with a playroom, guest bedrooms, laundry facilities, meeting rooms, and a large hall and kitchen for shared meals and parties. A separate workshop and gym are located elsewhere on site. All residents have a stake in the common parts and contribute to the management of the community.

Fulfilling the group’s aspiration for mixed, intergenerational living, the multi-national group includes families with young children, retired and young professional couples and single-person households of different ages This project created a scheme that knits into the wider neighborhood while meeting cohousing’s need for private and shared spaces. The terraces enclose the large shared garden with an open aspect to the south to maximize sunlight. It could also works for the housing on the slopes to meet daylight needs. The communal waste stores also works as a reference for future community near Brabantse Wouden.

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Blueprint for Autonomous Urbanism The Blueprint for Autonomous Urbanism is a comprehensive proposal for transport planning. It identifies decisions that cities, and government at all levels, must make to reach a people-focused autonomous future that is based on safety, public good, equity, and sustainability. It indicates that the autonomous future must be guided by thoughtful, bold, transformative public policy and street design practice that reduces driving and vehicle miles traveled (VMT) and offers mobility and opportunity to everyone, not just those in cars. By implementing proactive policies today, cities can act to ensure that the adoption of AV technologies improves transportation outcomes rather than leading to an overall increase in driving.

Today (Fig. 4.17) Single-occupancy vehicles (SOV) are prioritized. People taking transit, biking, or walking are forced to compete with personal cars, reducing safety. Transit effciency decreases, VMT increases.

Interim (Fig. 4.18) Cities re-organize their streets to prioritize the most effcient modes, increasing mobility options and safety for everyone.

Pricing and transit-priority policies lead to VMT decreases.

Future (Fig. 4.19) Supported by smart street design, AV technologies enable further reductions in emis-sions and VMT and improvements in safety.

Fig 1.72 Today Street View Fig 1.73 Interim Street View Fig 1.74 Future Street View

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People walking, biking, rolling, and resting get frst priority for street space and resource investments.

Building for highcapacity on-street transit is essential for growth without congestion.

Freight and delivery services are consolidated to increase effciency. Vehicles are downsized.

Private vehicles deprioritized.

and

parking

are

By redistributing the street space, people walking, biking, rolling, and resting are gave first priority. With the development of the autonomous techonology, the Brabantse Wouden area could benefit from this and have potential to change the current cardependency situation. Smart street design enables the development of public transport, to better meet the travel needs of residents who live in the scattered sub-urban area.

Fig 1.75 Street Sections

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Moving towards a circular economy is about an efficient use of available resources and closing the loops of production and consumption. Even reversing these loops in some cases. From an urban landscape point of view the question rises how these strategies materialise in an urban landscape.

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regional level

district level

building level

Fig 1.76 different scale levels for circularity according to BUUR, as seen in the Sonian region

contextualising flows

optimising flows

democratising flows

innovating with flows

understanding circularity The notion of circularity in the context of urbanism and architecture can be understood in different ways and on different levels of scale. In the ‘VRP voorjaarscongres Operatie Circulair 2019’, BUUR defined the scale of the building, the district, the city and finally the regional scale, to consider the notion of circularity in Flanders (BUUR architecten 2019). In the same presentation Julie Marin identified “four agenda’s” for circularity in urbanism, four ways of understanding the ambition: optimising flows, contextualising flows, innovating with flows, and democratising flows (Marin 2019). She argues that while optimising flows and innovating with flows are mostly technological exercises, the contextualising and democratizing of flows is where urban landscape design can show its potential. This is because the first two approaches are merely quantitative in nature, adjusting utilities towards more efficiency, while the latter two have attention for context and the power imbalances in society.

And thus she suggests they highlight the emancipatory potential of urban metabolism (Marin 2018).

To understand the ambition for the region of the Sonian forest both interpretations are very valuable and have to be taken into account. The case studies presented here will travel down the scales and try to understand what this emancipatory potential of circularity could mean for the region of the Brabantse Wouden.

Fig 1.77 four agenda’s for circularity (Marin 2019)

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Flemish Perspective and policy Policies on different scale levels increasingly start to take the circular economy into account. For Flanders the circular economy is part of the longterm strategic vision, with its ‘Vision 2050’. The vision from 2016 defines seven transition priorities, that will form the bases of structural changes in society. For each transition priority an initial policy document was created (Vlaanderen 2021).In 2017 such a policy document was created for the transition towards a circular economy (Vlaanderen 2017). These new policies combine and extend the earlier programs for materials: Plan C, SuMMa and Agenda 2020 (OVAM 2021).

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A term thatis often coined in spatial thinking about circularity on the scale of the city is ‘urban metabolism’. The city is seen as a living organism, with flows of energy, material, people... Circularity then, is defined as the (political) choice to make the urban metabolism healthier by closing material loops (Marin 2018).

In Belgium and the Netherlands some studies have been done with exactly this articulation of investigation urban metabolism: first Rotterdam, later Brussel, then Antwerp. The case of Antwerp is the most recent project and an interesting one, because it was directly motivated by the ‘Vision 2050’ for Flanders (Bergers and Van Acker 2018).

Antwerp city of flows Belgium 2018 Team Vlaams Bouwmeester Fig 1.78 design hypothesis for a circular building chain, analysis of existing flows is later tested against this hypothesis

Antwerp, circular city of tomorrow The goal of this research for Antwerp was political first and foremost: to reduce resource use in the city and close material and energy loops (Bergers and Van Acker 2018). We could understand this approach, with Marins notions, as an ‘optimisation of the flows’, a calculation towards higher efficiency. Parallel to this approach however, the project aims to actualise the landuse structure plan of Antwerp (s-RSA), a document of 2006, which at the time was missing clear proposals about climate

change mitigation and renewable energy. It also needed revision and actualisation in the light of recent urban renewable projects, the Ring and the Scheldekaaien (Bergers and Van Acker 2018). The project therefore nicely shows urban landscape designs capacity to integrate these different agendas and bridge different approaches. Knowing this, we can understand there is also an element of contextualisation in the project.

Contextualising flows here means using urban design to unify different approaches to circularity, using the available potential to the maximum and unifying formerly isolated material flows.

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Nine flows are investigated in the research: energy, water, food, air, materials, waste, people, mobility and biota. The project is split in two phases: the first will be an analysis of the existing flows, the second will focus on transportation and try to look at the possibility of implementing a model shift into average neighbourhoods.

The results of the first research will be 4 design briefs: a regional heat net, healthy living streets, sustainable drinking water provisions and a circular building chain (Stad Antwerpen et al. 2018). The latter one wants to incorporate material banks (see also further) and is an interesting case for us.

r-Urban

Fig 1.80 r-urban conceptual overview

Fig 1.81 r-urban gardening

As a countercase, r-Urban is a well know example globally of circular strategies in the city. Following again Marins understanding of the concept of circularity: r-urban democratizes the flows.

The project is a bottom-up urban resilience strategy, that aims to close ecological cycles by linking economy, habitat, mobility, urban agriculture and culture and using land reversibly (r-urban 2021).

The project consists of three test/pilot projects each with a specific focus set.

But important about the project is that is in essence a political ecology project. A charter is made up: the R-urban network, existing since 2008. For a community to adhere to the network, means its initiative to engage in circular activities such as community gardens, composting, rain water harvesting and materials recycling.

Circularity is thus understood here as a production of commons. This project shows how a bottom-strategy can be used to affect the urban metabolism and is therefore a nice countercase next to the largely topdown project of the city of Antwerp. It nicely highlights the emancipatory potential of urban design that Julie Marin aimed at.

R-Urban Colombes, France 2011-2015 Fig 1.79 r-urban overview of shared facilities, conceptual walkthrough

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Houthalen-Helchteren, Centrum-Zuid Brownfields and other polluted terrains are increasingly the subject of design research around circular economy in cities. In these areas urban landscape design has the potential to integrate soil remediation with urban transformation within a circularity approach.

Flanders’s Pilot projects ‘terug in omloop’ (EN: back in circulation) do exactly this: using these ‘blind spots’ (Team Vlaams Bouwmeester 2021) as a space for experimentation.

In Central Limburg is one of the pilot projects. In this area design research has been ongoing researching the remnants of the historic coal track. A couple of intervention sites are defined along this key figure. The first to be developed into a project is the buffer zone, located in between the industrial park, national road (left) and remainders of historical hedgerows (right) (Marin and De Meulder 2018).

The project for the buffer zone is based on using the water and biomass cycles as a spatial framwork for the circularity approach.

Four regional landscape types have their own growth cycles and maintenance types.

The products of the maintenance of the vegetation are seen as a resource for biomass.

This way the green-blue landscape structure forms a robust structure that guides the urban development. The buffer zone becomes a productive park. The green-blue infrastructure also serves as a guide for the time frame of the project. Ecological stepstones are defined, a first mark after three years and then a second after 10 years, to finalize the project.

Fig 1.82 Houthalen-Helchteren regional landscape types

Fig 1.83 Houthalen-Helchteren plan with ecological stepstones 3

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The idea to use the maintenance cycle of biomass productively is an interesting one for the Sonian region, as the research here will be focused specifically around urban and productive forestry. ‘Ecological stepstones’ will be needed as well. It is important to be able to implement landscape changes in this manner. The Limburg projects show the timeframe nicely.

Centraal Limburg Houthalen-Helchteren, Belgium 2018 Team Vlaams Bouwmeester (to translate)

Fig 1.84 Houthalen-Helchteren overview of project

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Building methods retrofitting Retrofitting existing building stock goes beyond mere energic optimalizations.

There’s a large number of vacant or underused buildings, that we can repurpose if we retrofit them smartly.

At the time of writing attention grows for underused office buildings. The estimation is that post-covid we will need 30% less office space (Sels 2021). Office buildings, but also infrastructural buildings are a candidate for retrofitting. While there are little examples of retrofitting these types of spaces as of now, a better know methodology is the retrofitting of apartment buildings. We can draw inspiration from these practices to implement them more often and on a larger scale in the future.

The Tour Bois Le Prêtre in Paris, is one of the 60s and 70s large scale collective housing estates that were built all over Europe to rapidly solve the stringent need for housing after the war. These types of buildings are critiqued for their monofunctional nature and lack of outdoor space. Similar arguments against can be made when trying to repurpose vacant office buildings.

Some of the techniques used to treat these buildings may therefore inspire us to look also at the use of office buildings and industrial buildings.

In this project, from Lacaton and Vassal, a private outdoor space is added to extend the living area. This is a well know strategy for these types of buildings. Interference in the structure of the building is minor, but the impact of it is important.

Fig 1.85 Collage of newly added balconies

Fig 1.86 Tour bois le prêtre. Existing units are retrofitted with a winter garden and balcony. The living area of the original units is enlarged and qualitative outer space is added.

Tour bois le prêtre Paris, France 2011 Lacaton & Vassal

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building reversible in conception A notion that is gaining attention in the context of circularity is ‘building reversible in conception’. This approach, as the term states, sees building as a practice that can incorporate knowledge of the life cycle of the building. It anticipates the demolition of the building and accounts for the reuse or recycling of its materials.

An example of this technique that is at the same time a very nice and tactile project is the ‘Asper’ house from Kaderstudio.

Fig 1.87 Kaderstudio, Asper, zicht vanaf terras

Asper, single family home Gavere Belgium Kaderstudio

The architects were very aware of the rural essence of the area (Gobbato 2021). The intention was thus twofold: On the one hand providing a generous and qualitative space for the dwellers and on the other one considering the quality of unbuilt space as even important to preserve the rural essence of the area (Kaderstudio 2021).

The structure of the unit consists of two frameworks, that work independently of each other. The external structure are brick walls and concrete columns, while the infill structure is a wooden skeleton.

By means of this independency of the external and internal structure the architects create building that is adaptable in the longterm. They intended for the plan to be able to letting its program extend, shrink, change or perhaps revert back to agricultural functions (Kaderstudio 2021).

The structure infill principle is certainly not a new concept, but combined with material passports and material banks can create an interesting setting for transitioning towards a circular built environment.

Fig 1.88 Kaderstudio, Asper, isometrie structuur

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Fig 1.89 Material bank closed loop system

Fig 1.90 Material bank Leuven

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Fig 1.91 Material bank Leuven

1.1 Materials , Materialpassports, Materialbanks On the scale of the individual building, On the scale of the individual building finally, new materials are important to consider when transitioning towards a circular built environment. Production of common stony materials is very polluting for the environment, a lot of waste is generated in the building industry and only a very small percentage, if any, of these stony fractions is currently recycled.

Research shows that the building industry generates about one third of all waste in the EU. Most of this waste is constructions and demolition waste, composed of concrete and masonry (ranging from 40% to 84%), asphalt (ranging from 4% to 26%) and other mineral waste (2% to 9%) (Debacker and Manshoven 2016). This type of waste doesn’t lend itself well to recycling, the use of recycled brickwork is a rarity. This and the fact that the production of the same stony fractions is a large contributor to greenhouse gases (Debacker and Manshoven 2016) makes it imperative to consider new materials in the built environment, as well treat material loops more considerably.

Material passports

To reduce construction and demolition waste some pioneering work has been done with new building systems, as described above. But for these methods to function in a circular economy of the built environment, reliable and standardised information on material flows and material composition of building products and buildings is needed.

To implement this, the notion of ‘material passports’, ‘product passport’ or ‘circularity passport’ is emerging, a digital passport for the material, containing information about its circular aspects.

More precisely they are defined as: Materials passports (MP) are (digital) sets of data describing defined characteristics of materials and components in products and systems that give them value for present use, recovery, and reuse. (Mulhall et al. 2017) Having this type of information available fills an information gap and makes it easier for different actors in the built environment to work together. The notion of the material passports is an important one when designing for a circular built environment, not in the least because the availability of this type of data paved the way for new spatial facilities…

Material banks Spatially, the circular city includes material banks. These are hubs where all the discussed notions come together.

When buildings are disassembled, the components or materials can be collected in a material bank, to be reused elsewhere.

Making use of material passports, all the necessary information is available for the reuse of these materials.

Another notion in this context is ‘urban mining’. Quite literally the circular city is ‘mined’ for valuable building materials to be reused.

In Leuven and Antwerp the first material banks are emerging. The rise of this phenomenon is very exciting for the circular urban landscape of the future. Combining all this with a biomass strategy as discussed before, paves the way for a productive and circular urban forestry approach and is thus definitely worth implementing in new designs.

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Materials Coming back to the statistics given about stony materials in the beginning of this paragraph, it is clear that new materials need to be considered in a circular environment.

Fig 1.92 Gare Maritime Brussels

Fig 1.93 Gare Maritime Brussels

One material that seems to be a frontrunner in balancing ecological aspects with great technical specifications seems to be cross laminated timber, CLT. What all these materials seem to have in common is that they are not new, but their use has in larger projects up till now has been very limited.

CLT Cross laminated timber panels consist of three to seven single wooden, mostly spruce, layers boards that are glued crosswise, to give the material strong structural integrity (Devree n.d.). Components can easily be prefabricated, it’s hardwearing and doesn’t need additional finishing.

It is often speculated to be ‘the concrete of the future’ (Franco 2019), although the material has actually been the norm for years. Building restrictions have prehibited it from being used in larger scale projects, but this is changing. In Flanders there’s the Gare Maritime in Brussel, a combination of a steel structural frame and CLT interior and roof (Block 2020). Internationally now even skyscrapers are being built with the material.

Currently the Mjøstårnet timber tower by Voll Arkitekter, is the world’s tallest timber building (Block 2019). By 2024, Japan’s Sumitomo Group hopes to use CLT to build a 70-storey wood skyscraper in Tokyo, a risky undertaking because the city is very prone to earthquakes (Cecco 2019).

Fig 1.94 CLT skyscraper

hempcrete

Fig 1.96 CLT plates detail

Fig 1.95 CLT skyscraper

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Another natural material that has been used since the 1990s is hemp. Hempcrete or hemplime is biocomposite material, a mixture of hemp hurds and lime, sand, or

pozzolans, which is used as a material for construction and insulation (Schires 2021).

other natural fibers Research is ongoing for new, more natural and more sustainable materials.

Archdaily identifies other materials like cork, recycled plastic, grass, steel dust, wool, ash and even cork (Thorns 2017).

A firm that is researching these types of material is Arup. Their urban bio-loop report identifies multiple ways urban waste can be made into viable building materials.

Examples are sugarcane, cellulose, maize, sunflower, peanut, seeds stalks and leaves, banana, potato, hemp & flax, rice, wheat, pineapple… (Cara et al. 2017) For now, this research remains theoretical.

Their Biobuild project however has gained some recognition and was the worlds first worldwide biocomposite system for structural facades (Arup 2021). The composite material is composed of fast growing plant species like flax, hemp and jute and natural resin derived from residual waste from sugar cane and corn harvesting.

Fig 1.98 Zero-carbon Flat House in Cambridgeshire

Fig 1.99 Regional house Edegem

6 Fig 1.101 hempcrete

Fig 1.100 Arups biocomposite

Fig 1.97 Arup BioBuild Façade system

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water systems forest urbanization alluvial plain agriculture fields

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Key map

The slope systems become the keymap for the project of National Park Brabantse Wouden proposal that works as an inspiration for further site-specific design decisions. This map opens up the potentiality of diversity in design according to the variety of slopes; steep and soft, north or south-facing slopes, and their fascinatingly changing characteristics. This inspiration gives a guideline of effective afforestation and its expected density, species, and distribution.

water systems forest alluvial plain

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Park on Slopes

New forests are different in kinds according to their positions on the slope and the inclination, steep or soft. For instance, on the south-facing slopes, the more transparent orchard forest is mixed with urban tissue. Where on the north-facing slopes the more dense and massive afforestation will take place. The sandy soil on the higher edges of the slopes is good for placing evergreen forests. The floodplains on the valley between the slopes will be assigned with riparian forest. When all these elements assemble, there will be a simple answer to the question, where is the forest of Brabantse Wouden National Park and the answer will be, the slopes, the valley, and everything in between.

water systems existing forest alluvial plain south-facing forest north-facing forest evergreen forest gully forest riparian forest agroforestry domains south-facing urban forest north-facing urban forest upstream ponds

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Counter Figure Plateau

In contrast to the slope forest, the plateau works as a counter figure which has openness as its value. The agriculture landscape on the plateaus becomes a part of the park and enhances the total productivity and viability of the project. These plateaus connect to the slope forest through hollow roads and haha walls. The type of forest on the plateau is agroforestry and it works as a frame to uphold the view of the plateau.

water systems existing forest alluvial plain agriculture fields agroforestry erosion forest hollow roads / haha walls

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Living in a Park

In the proposed national park, the traditional understanding of national park transformed into building a new interpretation of suburbia, where a national park becomes an inhabited space for living. The landscape translates into a link to connect all elements to one bigger picture of National Park Brabantse Wouden. With the inspiration from the slope system, the forest types are contextual and well distributed. The slopes and the floodplains contain specific kinds of forest and give an identity to the national park. The agroforestry works as a counter figure of the slope forest which is much open and frames the exquisiteness of the view. In a time when remote working is becoming a popular option, this concept of living in a park can be the beginning of a new notion of suburbia.

water systems existing forest alluvial plain south-facing forest north-facing forest evergreen forest gully forest riparian forest agroforestry domains south-facing urban forest north-facing urban forest upstream ponds erosion forest hollow roads / haha walls agriculture fields

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Islands and Slopes Darina Andreeva

The golden rule for future urbanization is not to build on the green lands anymore.

(Shannon, 2021) Rather reusing the buildings, adding extra floors, retrofitting to change the function of the space can be more viable solutions. Senne valley is an industrial site filled with big industries in elevated platforms. The proposal for Senne Valley urbanization follows the golden rule strictly. Immediate flood-prone zones will be partially cleared up while the other elevated platforms of previously evacuated industrial zones will be used for new urban growth.

For densifying in the slope areas, balcony urbanization will be introduced following the natural topography lines. Water is the main driving force of strategizing urbanization in Senne valley. The valley has a water system with contrasting features such as a river, canal, drainage, and streams running through the valley. The palimpsest of drainage and forest edges traced from DEM and flood prediction maps gives the sign of a landscape as a system of rooms. By extending these edges the rooms become more definite and turn into a framework for urbanization. On the next page, the drawings will explain the transformation of one such room previously occupied with large boxes of industrial structure into this new idea of urbanization.

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Water

Fig 1.102 Flood Prediction Map / Recognition of Islands

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Fig 1.103 New Settlements Proposal

existing water systems alluvial plain urbanization existing room edges proposed room edges

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Current State - Large-scale sealed surfases - Big industrial boxes - Polluted Soils - Drainage systems for flood risk

First Phase - Capturing water from sealed surfaces - Rooftop water harvesting - Test community - Building room’s edges - Creating constructed wetlands

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Second Phase - Creating drain system toward wetlands - Water capture pitched roofs - Rooftop rainwater harvesting - Urban agriculture - Orchards / productive garden - Public / shared spaces - Sosial infrustructures

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New Domain Collectivities

South facing Slopes

Plateau van Beersel Rana Bachir Plateau van Beersel, with its long history and magnificent landscape, would be a great land for these transformation ideas. The area is the home of over 100-year-old tuberculosis sanatorium and old factories and institution in Molenbeekvallei. The area is an attractive suburban sprawling spot and its landscape its largely consumed by infrastructure and single-family houses. A transformation in the landscape articulation of Beersel that emphasize on the topographic features as a driving factor of urbanism would create a huge impact on the living conditions there.

Approaching this landscape transformation requires a transitional scale reading that highlights how strategic the site is.

The intervention here revolves around how to introduce new synergies that make use of the highly articulated landscape of Plateau van Beersel to create new ways of living and an alternative open space that highlights the therapeutic character of landscape?

I A vision for Plateau van Beersel that shows how new collectivities can coexist with single family houses fabric, and how to unclog the valley from big box developements.

2 urban section showing a stepstone reading of the site as it stands in an intermediate place between zennevallei and zonienwoud

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Sonian interface Anja Billion

While on the East side of the Brabantse Wouden vision, a clear natural forest figure starts to show, the West side looks more dispersed. The highly urbanized West side shows the forest as a collection of sprinkled and highly dispersed patches.

This intertwinement of the urban with the forest, is what lies at the heart of the vision for an urban national park. Drawing inspiration from the Emscher Park, the perimeter of the Sonian forest is investigated within an urban-forestry approach.

Particular for this area in contrast with some of the other approaches presented here towards urbanism is thus that the typological reading of the landscape changes.

Urbanization is no longer juxtaposed to the forest. The forest is the base layer and the urban is embedded within it, the two are in direct synergy.

Strategic interventions are planned, where ill adapted urbanization makes place urbanforest synergies.

Fig 1.104 original typological reading: urbanism juxtaposed to forest

Fig 1.105 original typological reading: urbanism juxtaposed to forest

Fig 1.106 new typological reading: urbanism in the forest, embedded in and in direct synergy with its surroundings Fig 1.107 design investigations towards and embedded urbanism

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Watershed as a Leverage Designing decentralized water infrastructure in IJse river basin Zhihan Liu Belgium is under one of the highest risks of both water shortage and floods among European countries, which reveals the failure of current water infrastructure. On the one hand, water (in many forms) barely circulate in local neighborhoods. Groundwater in Flanders becomes more and more scarce since it has been heavily extracted, transported and polluted.

However, due to ever-increasing impermeable paved lands in Flanders (13% impermeable land according to Valerie Dewaelheyns, 2014), infiltration for groundwater recharge, evapotranspiration balances are cut back. Thus, in recent years, water management policies in Flanders and Europe evovled from downstream, reactive and centralized solutions to a source oriented, preventive and decentralized solutions. (Christian nolf & Bruno De Meulder) On the other hand, (sub)Watersheds are structured by uplands, riparian areas and stream channels, in which system are described as the terrestrial systems, riparian area and aquatics sections accordingly; and (sub-)watersheds as natural territories, historically shapes the settlements, forestation, and cultivation landscape. However, the (sub-)watershed system were disturbed in the last centuries, while urbanization has been dispersing all over the rural Flanders regardless of natural water process and system.

There are also many challenges due to global warming and increasing demand for new housing capacity and typologies. The reality of low-dense and dispersed urbanity across rural Flanders will be shortly challenged when new climatic and social reality taking place.

Fig 1.108 Vision to the sub-watersheds of upstream Ijse, one of the branches of Dyle river that connects the sonnia forest and the heverlee forest.In the framework of Inhabitating the National Patk, a general idea is to give much more space for water and forest. The indivisual vision projects the healthier, more permative future assemblages of watersheds by approaching different strategies to diffrent topologies of watersheds. Drew by Zhihan Liu.

The design dissertation is under the frame of strategic vision on Inhabitating Brabant Wouden.

The chosen object - IJsse river basin is a significant ecological connection of main forest figures: Sonnia forest and Heverlee bos. IJsse basin is distinguished by its topographical characteristics, iconic water figure and historical water settlements. Applying strategical principles, This design dissertation explores in multiple scales, taking (sub-)watersheds, as leverage to design a decentralized, natualized water infrastructure in IJse river basin, to achieve more performative and healthier watershed system, and to new appreciation and settelment of “living with water“. proposing the park 137

AGRO-FORESTRY SOUTH-FACING FOREST EXISTING FOREST GULLY FOREST NEW URBANISM EXISTING HOUSING

Reconnnecting with Water Urban water metabolism in Huldenberg Pengyang Luo Under the conflict of social and environmental demands, the study of urban metabolism provides a method to solve the contradiction between resource shortage and consumption growth in inhabited areas, of which water is a crucial element. Flood disasters, agricultural irrigation, and residential water are all influenced by the associated territory of water.

In Flanders, the spatial distribution of settlements, farmland, and forests can not be understood in seperation of the past water management. Climate change challenges this already disturbed relationship. Existing sub-urban structures are exposed to flood risk from future climate change and it is urgent to think about how they fit into the future needs of sustainability and recyclability. In the context of National Park in the Brabant region, this paper aims at exploring how water-based urbanism can redirect urban metabolism and cope with environmental challenges and population growth within the peninsula area of Huldenberg. It is not only about water management as a solution to climate challenges, but also how water-based design (settlements, water infrastructure and landscape) can shape new ways of living inside the national park.

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Conclusion Jarvis says that we can’t ignore nature’s rhythm, because if we try to do so it will violently remind us of its power by “sweeping our creations downstream in flood or into the air as smoke” (J Jarvis in Carr, Eyring, and Wilson 2013, vii).

Jarvis adds that when use lessons from nature, we would be doing the best job; and the importance of these lessons is reflected in the national parks. These national parks according to Jarvis need more flexibility to accommodate sustainability into the future, and this flexibility can be translated into adaptive and sometimes mitigating design solutions.

Flanders is making an enormous effort to make a change regarding climate change and population needs challenges.

Yet, the speed with our climate and society is changing is way faster. Landscape urbanism interventions are more urgent today than ever. We need daring visions that create potential out of the challenge and that seek different climatic scenarios. Also, scaling up the level of these interventions is important, as a territorial vision will help bring a more coherent design and a proper understanding of the systems multiplications and similarities in the region.

Finally, we must not disregard the impact of other factors, such as pandemics, wars, and economic and natural crises, on the dynamics of climate change. Such incidences can steer up the need for the desired change as we all need to work for a better world to live in not just for today but also for the upcoming generations. It’s a collective responsibility for the sake of the common benefit.

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References Arup. 2021. “BioBuild Façade System, the World’s First Self-Supporting Façade Panel Made of Biocomposite Materials.” 2021. https://www.arup.com/projects/biobuild-facade-system.

Bergers, Jolein, and Maarten Van Acker. 2018. “Het Stedelijk Metabolisme van Antwerpen.” AGORA Magazine 34 (4): 9. https://doi. org/10.21825/agora.v34i4.11669.

Block, India. 2019. “Mjøstårnet in Norway Becomes World’s Tallest Timber Tower.” 2019. https://www.dezeen.com/2019/03/19/ mjostarne-worlds-tallest-timber-tower-voll-arkitekter-norway/.

Block, India. 2020. “Gare Maritime in Brussels Turned into a Timber Shopping Centre.” 2020. https://www.dezeen.com/2020/10/15/ brussels-gare-maritime-cross-laminated-timber-neutelings-riedijk-architects/.

Brash, Alexander, Jamie Hand, and Kate Orff, eds. 2011. Gateway: Visions for an Urban National Park. New York: Princeton Architectural Press.

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List of figures List of figures Fig 1.1 Defining the territory of the design research for the Brabantse Wounden. The research territory lies on the upper stream watersheds of the Zenne and Dijle river, covering valleies and plateaus. This is a map shows the current urbanisation overlaid with slope, reinforced valley contour figure and pridicted flood risk in 2100. Modified by the authors. Sources: klimaat.wmm.be; land.copernicus.eu; vlaanderen.be; eservices.minfin.fgove.be 12 Fig 1.2 The diagramatic setion that shows the relation between valley, slope and plateau across the Zenne and Dijle watersheds.

Drew by the authors. Soil layer source: DOV-Bodemverkenner 14 Fig 1.3 The diagramatic setion that shows the relation between valley, slope and plateau across the Zenne and Dijle watersheds.

Drew by the authors. Soil layer source: DOV-Bodemverkenner 16 Fig 1.4 National park city project mapping, London. Credit: Urban Goods

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Fig 1.5 Sketch about the idea of forestation in the landscape. Drew by the Authors. 16 Fig 1.6 Diagrame of methodology for the collective work. Drew by the authors.

Fig 1.7 1_Grand Canyon (NPS), 2_Grand Teton National Park (NPS) Fig 1.8 Yosemite National Park (NPS)

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Fig 1.9 Gateway National Park, showing Jamaica Bay (NASA) 39 Fig 1.10 Map of Hoge Kempen (geopunt GIS)

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Fig 1.12 Goats with shaperd in Hoge Kampen (Emile Van Doren, circa 1890) 44 Fig 1.11 Layers of Hoge Kempen: 1_Hiking, 2_Biking, 3_Hollow Roads (nationaalparkhogekempen.be)

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Fig 1.13 Map of Border Park (geopunt GIS+EU Orthoimages) 45 Fig 1.14 Layers of Kalmthoutse Heide: 1_ Green Terrains, 2_Sandy Terrains (visitbrabant.com)

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Fig 1.15 Vision for the Gateway Park (A S Kelly) 49 Fig 1.17 The Littorial Grid (A S Kelly)

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Fig 1.16 Climate adaptive design over the years: 1_0 years, 2_40 years, 3_80 years (A S Kelly)

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Fig 1.18 Climate adaptive design by water level rise: 1_0 inch rise, 2_2 inch rise, 3_6 inch rise (A S Kelly) 49 Fig 1.19 Salento as a Park (Piano di coordinamento provinciale Lecce, 2001) 51 Fig 1.20 Planning over time span:1_urban sprawl challenge, 2_2050 scenario (secchi-vigano.eu) 51 Fig 1.21 Schemetic concept of landscape strategy towards agriulture (secchi-vigano.eu) 51 Fig 1.22 Panoramic view of the industrial part of the park (landschaftspark.de)

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Fig 1.23 Different aspects of Emscher: 1_Cycle Trail, 2_Living in a park (Regionalverband Ruhr 2013)

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Fig 1.24 Water softening, Redingenhof (51N4E, 2020) 58 Fig 1.25 Sealed surfaces of school yard (51N4E, 2020) 58 Fig 1.27 locals participate on the street renovation (51N4E, 2020)

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Fig 1.26 Vit est et aut pe con eumquistem eos ma de rem aliate eum lam, enem cus vollitat.

Fig 1.28 Rabotpark plan (MDP, 2017)

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Fig 1.29 Rabotpark construction (MDP, 2017)

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Fig 1.30 Rabotpark construction (MDP, 2017)

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Fig 1.31 Wuhan Sponge city (Arcadis)

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Fig 1.32 Wuhan residents cross a flooded street on a row of tables (AFP/Getty, 2012) Fig 1.33 Nanganqu Park transformed into a “sponge site” (Obermeyer)

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Fig 1.34 Forest cover of Belgium in 1775 and in 2000.Forest map 1775 modified from E. Clicheroux, ‘L’évolution de la forêt en Belgique’, Bulletin de l’Institut de Recherches Economiques et Sociales (Leuven) 22 (1956), 537–78, with permission. Forest map 2018 modified from CORINE Land Cover 2018 dataset, European Protection Agency. 68 Fig 1.35 The typologies of forestry. The categories are based on following bookd: The world’s urban forests - Joe R. McBride, and Agroforestry manual Flanders. 69 Fig 1.36 Sketch about the idea of forestation in the landscape. Drew by the Authors.

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Fig 1.37 Planting suitability in relation to slope facing. The species in the diagram are common seen tree species in Flanders, some of them are specially chosen from “Liste van Inheemse Planten Nuttig voor de Biodiversiteit“. Source: https://www. brussel.be/lijst-van-inheemse-planten-nuttig-voor-de-biodiversiteit 71 Fig 1.38 Master plan. Source:https://bauland.lt/Antwerp-XXIc-Green-Ring 72 Fig 1.39 Proposal of sub-systems of the project. Source: https://bauland.lt/Antwerp-XXIc-Green-Ring 72 Fig 1.40 Extensive study on Bruseels geograpy features. a. water courses of Scheldt, Zenne and Dyle river basin. b. assemblage of attached open spaces in the riverbeds. Credit: Bas Smets Studio 73 Fig 1.41 Introduced open space structure with illstruation of vegetations of the project.Credit: Bas Smets Studio

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Fig 1.42 Sections that show the subtle earth transformations for creating slopes to assemble water. Credit: Bas Smets Studio 73 Fig 1.43 Intentional interventions. Source: https://www.jurgenvanlerberghe.be/agroforestry-in-heuvelland/ 74 Fig 1.44 a. It illustrated the construction of a linear contour swale that will be planted trees. b. shows the land transformation approaches (phases) for agro-forestry in slope areas. Source: https://www.jurgenvanlerberghe.be/agroforestry-inheuvelland/ 74 Fig 1.45 Construction of contour forestry and swale. 75 Fig 1.46 Concept drawing of Contour Farming, drew by James Corner in the 20th centuries.

Fig 1.47 National park city mapping, London. Credit: Urban Goods

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Fig 1.48 Afforestation actions in process with in the greater london region. A. London urban forest plan. Planting trees along Linear Transport route and waterways (Canal and rivers) / Parks, nature reserves and informal green space/ along streets/ domestic gardens/ hedges / urban green spaces such as housing estates, school and hospital grounds / urban woodlans/ green belt. 77 Source: https://www.wildlondon.org.uk/news/londons-urban-forest-plan-published https://www.wildlondon.org.uk/sites/ default/files/2020-12/londonurbanforestplan_final_0.pdf. B. Calthorpe Community Garden https://secretldn.com/8-secret149

urban-gardens-london-might-not-know/ C. Lea Valley Park. Source: https://www.5thstudio.co.uk/projects/lea-river-park-theleaway/ 77 Fig 1.49 Master plan of “green and edible middlebrough“. The highlighed green patches indicate a connected productive landscape, and the red lined circle marked local community gardens. Source: https://www.ryerson.ca/carrotcity/board_pages/ city/middlesbrough.html 78 Fig 1.50 Draft proposal sketch on the map that mapped all the open spaces in town. https://www.ryerson.ca/carrotcity/board_ pages/city/middlesbrough.html 78 Fig 1.51 Before and after Visualization of the continuous productive landscape project in the street scale.

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Fig 1.52 Arial view of the project in the construction phase. https://www.foodurbanism.org/beacon-food-forest/

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Fig 1.53 Masterplan of the project, showing accurately the diverse species choices. https://beaconfoodforest.org/

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Fig 1.54 Typical disposition of plants in a food forest system. Cretical Concrete. https://criticalconcrete.com/urban-foodforest/ 81 Fig 1.55 The Beacon food forest is highly coorperated and well managed by local communities. The picture shows people are planting new vegetaion. 81 Fig 1.56 Building Block Transformation 86 Fig 1.57 New Building Block Model Fig 1.58 Window Perspective

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Fig 1.59 Public Garden inbetween building

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Fig 1.60 New High-rise building 87 Fig 1.61 Landscape along the street

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Fig 1.62 Building Blocks 88 Fig 1.63 Transformation Area

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Fig 1.64 Community Center

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Fig 1.65 Aerial View of the Proposed Community Fig 1.66 Timber were used for construction Fig 1.67 Public Garden

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Fig 1.68 Public Activity in the community

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Fig 1.69 Diverse Activities in the public garden 91 Fig 1.70 Master Plan

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Fig 1.71 Different kinds of houses 91 Fig 1.72 Today Street View 92 Fig 1.73 Interim Street View

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Fig 1.74 Future Street View

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Fig 1.75 Street Sections 93 Fig 1.76 different scale levels for circularity according to BUUR, as seen in the Sonian region Fig 1.77 four agenda’s for circularity (Marin 2019)

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Fig 1.78 design hypothesis for a circular building chain, analysis of existing flows is later tested against this hypothesis

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Fig 1.79 r-urban overview of shared facilities, conceptual walkthrough

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Fig 1.81 r-urban gardening 101 Fig 1.82 Houthalen-Helchteren regional landscape types

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Fig 1.83 Houthalen-Helchteren plan with ecological stepstones Fig 1.84 Houthalen-Helchteren overview of project Fig 1.85 Collage of newly added balconies

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Fig 1.86 Tour bois le prêtre. Existing units are retrofitted with a winter garden and balcony. The living area of the original units is enlarged and qualitative outer space is added. 104 Fig 1.87 Kaderstudio, Asper, zicht vanaf terras 105 Fig 1.88 Kaderstudio, Asper, isometrie structuur Fig 1.89 Material bank closed loop system Fig 1.90 Material bank Leuven

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Fig 1.91 Material bank Leuven

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Fig 1.92 Gare Maritime Brussels 108 Fig 1.94 CLT skyscraper 108 Fig 1.96 CLT plates detail 108 Fig 1.95 CLT skyscraper 108 Fig 1.93 Gare Maritime Brussels 108 Fig 1.98 Zero-carbon Flat House in Cambridgeshire Fig 1.101 hempcrete

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Fig 1.99 Regional house Edegem 109 Fig 1.100 Arups biocomposite

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Fig 1.97 Arup BioBuild Façade system

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Fig 1.102 Flood Prediction Map / Recognition of Islands Fig 1.103 New Settlements Proposal

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Fig 1.104 original typological reading: urbanism juxtaposed to forest 134 Fig 1.105 original typological reading: urbanism juxtaposed to forest 134 Fig 1.106 new typological reading: urbanism in the forest, embedded in and in direct synergy with its surroundings 134 Fig 1.107 design investigations towards and embedded urbanism

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Fig 1.108 Vision to the sub-watersheds of upstream Ijse, one of the branches of Dyle river that connects the sonnia forest and the heverlee forest.In the framework of Inhabitating the National Patk, a general idea is to give much more space for water and forest. The indivisual vision projects the healthier, more permative future assemblages of watersheds by approaching different strategies to diffrent topologies of watersheds. Drew by Zhihan Liu. 137

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MASTER OF HUMAN SETTLEMENTS MASTER OF URBANISM, LANDSCAPE AND PLANNING