HUY

SCALES — L/S – Urban / Architectural LOCATION — Sainte Catherine district POPULATION — 21,208 inhab. STRATEGIC SITE — 11 ha / PROJECT SITE — 1.51 ha SITE PROPOSED BY — City of Huy OWNER OF THE SITE — Regional Huy Hospital Centre (CHRH) POST-COMPETITION PHASE — Urban study to be carried out of partial realization of the project following the relevance of the proposals

Joseph George — Deputy Mayor in charge of Territory and Urban Planning, City of Huy

1. WHAT ARE THE GOALS OF THE SITE MUTATION? While the city is currently developing along the Meuse River between the new bridge to the West and the nuclear power plant to the East, local authorities want to revitalize the NorthSouth connection. The Sainte Catherine district, in the South of the old centre, is decaying after the abandonment of industrial activities. The objective is to make it an attractive activity hub at the entrance to the city.

2. HOW CAN THE SITE BE INTEGRATED IN THE ISSUES OF PRODUCTIVE CITIES? HOW DO YOU CONSIDER THE PRODUCTIVITY ISSUE? The town plans to redevelop the site (mainly wasteland), legacies of the deindustrialisation of metalwork and papermaking installations of the 19th century. The idea is to develop a residential neighbourhood there while installing economic activities too, and implementing new ones related to the infrastructures of the existing hospital and residential home (under construction), bringing life to this new part of the town. It is therefore a case of reviving the memory of the place and exploiting its intrinsic energy to give the new neighbourhood an authentic identity around productive activities linked to a shared everyday life.

3. HAVE YOU ALREADY DEFINED A SPECIFIC PROCESS FOR THE URBAN AND/OR ARCHITECTURAL DEVELOPMENT OF THE SITE AFTER EUROPAN? The European jury wanted to distinguish 4 projects, each one presenting interesting solutions for the issue on the site, although none of them offers the qualities of a winning project. The choice was based on recommendations, suggesting to set up a workshop with the 4 teams with a view to combining efforts aimed at a new, joint project. We are currently examining the possibility of carrying this out.

Taking Care!

AUTHOR(S) — Fabrice Rossi (BE), Architect; Elisa Baldin (IT), Architect-urbanist CONTRIBUTOR(S) — Bureau d’architecture Henri Garcia

HUY (BE) — RUNNER-UP

CONTACT — Bureau d’architecture Henri Garcia Saint-Georges-sur-Meuse (BE) T. +32 496038746 / +32 468381079 fr@hgarcia.be, www.hgarcia.be

TEAM POINT OF VIEW — The project aims at enhancing the inner characters of the city by recovering the relationship with the Hoyoux, reinterpreting it as the landscape matrix of a sequence of urban events and public spaces, rediscovering water qualities both on the ecological and on the cultural level. The green house, the park and the new living spaces along the Hoyoux are conceived as new pro-ductive (from latin “pro-ducere”) spaces, in order to highlight the territorial features of the site and to reveal to citizens the river landscape and the local production as cultural elements of the city. The design proposal focuses on the renovation of the Thiry industry as a new productive unit for urban agriculture and on the housing reconfiguration in St. Catherine district through some site specific typologies of eco-buildings for an intergenerational community.

JURY POINT OF VIEW — The project tends to highlight the most striking feature of the place’s identity: the backdrop of wood valleys along the meanders of the river. The project’s strength comes from the fact that this enhancement is not just restricted to the aesthetic dimension, but extends the reflection and propositions to mobility options and the accessibility of the site; to a hierarchical treatment of the branches of the Hoyoux River; to a programmed diversity that complements the one of the existing town; on a canvas of clearly identifiable public spaces, enhanced and understandable; and to ecological solutions in the fields of energy, landscape, water and environment.

Initiate Resilience

AUTHOR(S) — Mark Marshall (GB), Architect-urbanist; James Daykin (GB), Francesca Crosby (BE), Architects; Pieter Ochelen (BE), Civil engineers-architect; Muriel Smeets (BE), Mechanical engineer; Wouter Bervoets (BE), Urbanist CONTACT — London (GB) T. +44 2034901727, studio@daykinmarshall.com www.daykinmarshall.com

TEAM POINT OF VIEW — The Thiry site lies near green hills however it is located just a short walk away from the city centre: which corresponds perfectly to a 21st century ‘Garden Suburb’. This area of Huy was founded on the old Hoyoux River, and we propose to reinstate the water to form, what we call, ‘Île de Thiry’. This recreates a sense of place and provides production; hydroelectric power, land bio-remediation, irrigation, wildlife housing and reduced flood risks. The “island” becomes a landmark at the Southern exit of Huy since it would create an attractive new district, linked to the adjacent hospital, generating new employment opportunities, creation of business start-up and general growth of the city. Homes are designed for a range of people with the potential to study, work and produce locally. At the heart of the area sits the historic foundry building, reused as a 24h social hub and productive marketplace.

TEAM POINT OF VIEW — Huy was born from a geographic singularity. A valley dug by a living water river; Huy has been conducive to industries’ development for centuries. The project is inspired by these features to identify development axis and to initiate a resilience phenomenon. The intervention sites tend to underline the importance of valuing the traces of an industrial heritage. The project redefines the relationship between town and valley by revealing the river, preserving voids, and densifying fringes, leaving wide open the evolution process of the site. This leads us to claim that a resilience process needs to be punctual, progressive, and careful to qualities and territorial anecdotes. This is an approach that needs to be initiated but does not have to end.

AUTHOR(S) — Fanny Costecalde (FR), Benjamin Froger (FR), Guillaume Wittmann (FR), Architects

HUY (BE) — SPECIAL MENTION

CONTACT — fbg. coopérative d’architecture, Paris (FR) T. +33 680827393 coop.archi.fbg@gmail.com, www.fbg-cooperative.com

AUTHOR(S) — Antoine Gentil (BE), Jeoffrey Lup (BE), Architects

CONTACT — Liège (BE), T. +32 471724806 contact@collectifabri.com, www.collectifabri.com

TEAM POINT OF VIEW — Like a biotope, a neighbourhood is an environment in which a certain number of actors evolve, a balanced place of life that promotes social cohesion and offers the possibility of interacting with its environment. Here, it is about developing a space on the border between rural and urban, productive, source of employment and creator of wealth. The creation of South and North plot makes it possible to compose a central public space. These plots make it possible to value the different entities present on the site: industrial hall, mill, and river. In the North, there is the beginning of contact with the city and in the South there is the beginning of the rural character. The project is structured around a functional mixture of housing, shops, offices, culture, and education, re-qualifying the public space and offering collective spaces.