(un)Urban Architecture: Stadsuitbreiding Beveren (Belgie)

(un)Urban Architecture: Stadsuitbreiding Beveren (Belgie)

Lo-A-Njoe, P.S.

Vermeulen, P. (mentor)
Mihl, H. (mentor)
Fernandez-Maldonado, M. (mentor)

Architecture

2008-03-28

The spontaneous agglomeration of the Vlaamse Ruit(Antwerp, Gent,Brussels and Leuven) in Belgium is compromising valueable open natural landscapes. A vast majority of buildings arise in suburban and rural areas without forms of urban planning. The Belgian government has the intention of centralizing and concentrating urbanization in rural settlements or larger villages. Open spaces within village borders should be considered as new valuable terrain for urban expansions. Beveren is considered to be a sizeable village near Antwerp with approx. 40.000 inhabitants living near and some distance away from the center. The dispersion of inhabitants prevents Beveren to be characterized as a city. This graduation project is situated near the central kerkplein (church square) and can be described as an anomaly in urban logics. The site displays itself as an big open space that in the past decades has been a refuge for important public functions that did not find a suitable home in the existing urban fabric. Four building blocks are the infill between public functions and adress them with clear urban elements such as squares or streets. The variation of angles in the building blocks are orientated by the existing routes and streets and connect with the existing organic urban fabric. Non-monumental streets with shifting focus- points have been main subjects of urban design. The building block closest to the central kerkplein forms the most direct connection between the village center and the new urban infill. The commercial activities at and around the kerkplein are continued in this building block in the form of a commercial plinth at the northside along the N70 infrastural artery. The heart of the block contains a supermarket that has been stacked with dwellings around a semi-public courtyard on top of the supermarket. The outside red brick facades connect with the existing urban fabric. The inside wooden facades materialize a natural softer intimate realm.

(un)urban architecture

http://resolver.tudelft.nl/uuid:bdc2a526-b781-447f-9f86-78c9259aeccd

TU Delft, Architecture, Architecture

Student theses

master thesis

(c) 2008 P.S. Lo-A-Njoe