Settling the Brabant Woods by MaHS-MaULP

settling the brabant woods

Design Explorations 1, International Center of Urbanism, KU Leuven (Belgium)

the prospect of an inhabited national park

21st century issues & prospects 2

settling the brabant woods

the ecological crisis. dealing with climate change impacts

Climate change impacts will drastically deepen the ecological crisis that has been induced by the vast industrialisation processes of the past two centuries. An increase in the number of more extreme flooding in combination with drought is only one of the tangible symptoms of climate change. Too intensive occupation and over-exploitation of the territory, combined with exaggerated extraction and pollution of resources such as water and air accelerate the ecological crisis and the advancing exhaustion of the productive capacities of the territory.

More than a century of intensive suburbanization has to take a turn. Too much territory is simply consumed and, in the meantime, the resulting housing stock is a mismatch with current dwelling needs and expectations. At the same time, urban qualities are absent and the dominant car-based mobility only generates inefficiencies and poisonous congestion. In Brabant, the suburbanization is literally strangling the last relicts of ecological structures as the Sonian Forest. A radical (re)settling with the suburban is urgently needed.

vzw ‘de Rand’

R. Schuiten

vzw ‘de Rand’

the urban crisis. settling with the suburban

21st century issues & prospects

vzw ‘de Rand’

The Senne and Dijle watersheds, the Heverlee, Meerdaal, Zonian and Haller forests are simultaneously monumental ecological assets and at the heart of the ever-expanding metropolitan area that literally envelopes them. The valleys, forested slopes and agricultural plateaus and diffuse settlements are in dire need of a shared vision, strategic operations and a variety of actions and measures to guarantee their mutual sustainable development. Their relationship urgently requires clarification and reconciliation of contradictory conditions: accessibility with conservation, urban development with ecological restoration, new programming with stewardship, consumption with reproduction. Brabantse WoudsSTEden conceptualizes an inhabited national park to address both the ecological and urban crisis and define a new settlements.

vzw ‘de Rand’

the metropolitan park. Brabantse WoudSTEden

settling the brabant woods

elements of identity 4

settling the brabant woods

Belfius-Banque-Académie royale de Belgique

By the end of the 17th century a dense network of cities along the rivers developed in the Flemish lowlands (already then without major forest complexes). On the fertile loam plateaus of Brabant, substantial forest domains alternate with agricultural lands. Both the Flemish lowlands and the Brabant plateau were occupied with dense sequences of settlements along tributaries of the main rivers, the Demer, Senne and Dijle. From the 18th century onwards, rigid forestry systems are introduced (such as the Zimmer plan for the reconstruction of the Sonian Forest). Later, a number of parts of the forest were converted into parks for the growing bourgeoisie.

Belfius-Banque-Académie royale de Belgique

Atlas Minor Sive Geographia Compendosia, Amsterdam

J. Zinner

forest, settlement and productive landscapes.

elements of identity

settling the brabant woods

belgique-insolite-et-occulte.blogspot.com vlaamsbousmeester.be

delcampe.net

The territory is dotted with historic domains. Most of them, such as the Tervuren Park and Arboretum have layred histories with dramatic changes in use, while each epoch continues to add new domains. The 20th century saw the introduction of campuses, sanatoria and other health facilities, recreation areas, school domains, retreats, etc. They are emblematic forms of settlement that embedded the built within a substantial natural environment. As such they are perhaps one kind of pars pro toto of what an inhabited national park potentially can become?

dolcelahulpe.com

Images et histoires du patrimoine

Bibliothèque Nationale De France

reuse of historic domanis & creation of new domains.

elements of identity 6

settling the brabant woods

D. Van Alsloot

J. Harrewyn

a multitude of historical domains.

1609 painting, La Cambre Abbey

Ferraris

The abbey’s location on the edge between forest and fields allowed it to benefit from forest and agricultural land.

XVII c. engraving, La Cambre Abbey

The Abbey of la Cambre is an old Cistercian Abbey founded in 1201. It is one of the seven main religious edifices of that time which were located in the ‘Forest of Soigne.’ The abbey became the center of a cultural landscape embedded within the surrounding forest.

XVII c. engraving, Auderghem Priory

1657 engrving, Groenendael Priory

Founded in 1343 by Augustinian monks, the priory was located in the forest itself, next to one of the natural water sources. The development of the priory goes hand in hand with the domestication of the landscape into orchards, gardens, ponds, agricultural lands and managed forest.

I. Lamation Ferraris

Ferraris

I. Lamation

The Auderghem priory of Val Duchesse was founded in 1262 as a convent of nuns. It was anchored on large water ponds, which were created in the flood plain of the Woluwe River in Auderghem. It became a state property in 1930.

elements of identity 7

Ferraris

A.Sanderus

R. Blokhuysen

settling the brabant woods

Ferraris

1727 engraving, Boutendael Monastery

The Franciscan Monastery of Boetendael was built in 1463. The ordering of the landscape within the estate contrasts with the natural landscape of the surrounding fields and forest edge. It was sold in 1796 after the French revolution and became prey to suburbanization in the 20th century.

1659 engraving, Tervuren Castle

The castle of Tervuren was built in 1190 and remained one important residences of the dukes of Brabant and, consequently, one of the most important castles in the Sonian Forest. This importance resonates in the structure of the park (including monumental lakes, ‘warande’ and hunting forest) surrounding the castle.

1659 engraving, Groenendael Horse Farm

1580 engraving, Cloister van Zevenborren

The 16th century engraving by J. Grimmer depicts the castle, the monastery, and hamlet. Together they articulate aa settlement the edge between the forest and the landscape brought in culture with its structured gardens, cultivated fields and meadows.

I. van der Stock

Ferraris

A. Sanderus.

Besides castles, nobles also set up horse stud farms in the forest. Horse hunting remained a major activity in the ancient regime and impacted the forest management. Built in 1630 by Antoine de Bourgogne, only a few ruins of the stud remain today.

local characteristics as opportunites for nature 8

settling the brabant woods

hollow roads and ha-has.

Molenberg

Den Hagaerd

Hertswegen

Oude Waardhoef

Heverlee

St. Genesius - Rode

Hollow roads, created centuries ago, form a system of thousands corridors (perpendicular to the topography) carved out of the soft sandy loam soil. They were for the movement between the open agricultural plateaus and settlements in the valleys. The dense constellation of scars provides the territory with quite particular ecological stepstones that simultaneously are major assets for qualitative soft mobility. Centuries of agricultural exploitation of the plateaus resulted in a multitude of hahas, small and larger cuts of steep slopes (parallel to the topography) which define landscape terraces.

local characteristics as opportunites for nature

settling the brabant woods

garden mosaics & domains.

vzw ‘de Rand’

The systematic deforestation and intensive occupation of the territory resulted in a dense settlement network. A constellation of domains, historic and some more recent, is today embedded within a monumental mosaic of gardens. More than a century of continuously advancing suburbanization results in an extensive patchwork of garden mosaics forms and sizes. Taken as a whole, the constellation has the largest occupation of the territory. Understood as a system, it evidently holds the key for any sensitive ecological restructuring across scales.

Molenberg

Duisburg

Heverlee

Wolfhagen

Summer School 2018, OSA with Horizon+ 10

sonian forest urbanism Workshop brief 20th International Landscape Urbanism Design Workshop

3-14 September 2018, Brussels www.mahsmausp.be/Sonianworkshop

20th International Landscape Urbanism Design Workshop 3-14 September 2018, Sonian Forest/ Brussels workshop directors Prof. Bruno De Meulder (OSA-KULeuven) Prof. Kelly Shannon (OSA-KULeuven) Roselyne de Lestrange (UCLouvain) Jo Decoster (Horizon +)

intertwining of forest and urbanism.

How to reconcile the safeguarding of an essential component of nature with increasing pressures of urban development? During the course of the last decade, OSA has intensively explored forest urbanisms in various contexts. OSA is excited to coorganize with the three Belgian regions its 20th International Landscape Urbanism Design Workshop from September 3rd until 14th on the Sonian Forest, the largest remaining forest and UNESCO world heritage in the vicinity of Brussels, Belgium. The Sonian Forest is simultaneously a monumental ecological asset and at the heart of the ever-expanding metropolitan area that literally envelopes it. Both forest and city are under intensive stress and in dire need of a shared vision, strategic operations and a variety of actions and measures to guarantee their mutual sustainable development. Their relationship urgently requires clarification and contradictory conditions to be reconciled: accessibility with conservation, urban development with ecological restoration, new programming with stewardship, etc. The design workshop will investigate the Sonian Forest and develop projects and scenarios that couple ambition with applicability, range from regional to micro scales, and combine ecology with urbanism and forestry with urban design. The workshop is organized in close interaction with all relevant stakeholders. The landscape urbanism design workshop is intended as a catalyst for rethinking the region’s fundamental nature/ culture relationship and how various stakeholders can reimagine future relationships of forests and urbanism while finding new ways to cooperate. OSA wholeheartedly invites young and energetic graduates in architecture, landscape architecture, urbanism, urban design and town planning, and forestry to participate in this international workshop. Candidates are invited to send a cv and motivation letter to mahsmausp@kuleuven.be (application deadline 20 July 2018)

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Former Sonian Forest Current Sonian Forest

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Suburban fringe Urban core

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5km 5000m Suburban fringe Urban core

The workshop is directed by Bruno De Meulder and Kelly Shannon (both OSA-KULeuven), Roselyne de Lestrange (UCL Louvain) and Jo Decoster (Horizon +). It will include guest lectures and feedback from landscape architect Michel Desvigne from Paris and professor Anders Busse Nielsen (University

Summer School 2018, OSA with Horizon+

sonian forest urbanism

mosaic of forest types and urban densities. of Copenhagen) an expert on dynamic vegetation designs. Invited experts from various fields will give punctual inputs and interactions with stakeholders systematically organized. The Sonian Forest is, more or less, equal in size to the Brussels agglomeration. The once much larger domain was originally under the care of the Dukes of Brabant, passed into the hands of the dukes of Burgundy, then was in Austrian custody and ended up as patrimony of the Dutch king. Finally, in 1830, the forest became property of the Belgian state which in turn split its administration amongst the three regions of the country in which it is embedded: Brussels Capital Region, Wallonia and Flanders. Once upon a time, the forest harbored convents and castles, farms and the like. The tenure successions went hand in hand with selling of parcels of the forest and its radical deforestation caused by logging necessary to settle war bills, lucrative agricultural development and by suburbanization that was triggered by rampant speculation. Deforestation and massive reforestation (including the 18th century restoration by the Austrian landscape architect Joachim Zinner that gave it the reputation of a beech cathedral) turned it into both a monumental and richly layered patrimony. It is clear that the forest development, from its earliest days until today, has been closely intertwined with the development of Brussels, and that it functions simultaneously as the central park of the metropolitan region that completely surrounds and grows around it, as a foundation of the (remaining) ecological structure of the region, and as the main spatial structure of the metropole that contains its main crossroads. The Sonian Forest is center and complement of the city and as well functions as compensation of the city. As the Brussels metropolitan region merges into a larger urban territory that covers most of East Brabant, it becomes imperative to consider the Sonian Forest as essential patch of a forest system that inevitably interacts intensively with the urban system. It delivers countless services to the urban system, while being simultaneously self-dependent for its natural reproduction.

Water urbanism Water urbanism expansion Forest urbanism

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Urban trees Broadleaved trees Mixed trees

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nested ecologies of water and forest.

Exis�ng Forest Exis�ng non-forest vegeta�on Parks

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River Floodplain Water landscape

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excerpt from Landscape Architecture Frontiers 12

forest urbanisms

FOREST URBANISMS: URBAN AND ECOLOGICAL STRATEGIES AND TOOLS FOR THE SONIAN FOREST

De Meulder, B., Shannon, K., & Nguyen, M. Q. (2019). Forest Urbanisms: urban and ecological strategies and tools for the Sonian Forest in Belgium. Landscape Architecture Frontiers, 7(1), 18–34. https://doi.org/10.15302/J-LAF-20190103 1 Episodes of Forest Urbanism, from the Early Middle Ages to the Belle Époque and Later The Sonian Forest (Zonienwoud / Forêt de Soignes) is simultaneously a monumental ecological asset and at the heart of the ever-expanding metropolitan area that literally envelopes it. It is a remnant of the huge coal forest that covered the whole of Western Europe after the last Ice Age[1]. The coal forest was however systematically felled since the Carolingian era. First settlements in the forest (around the year 1000), coincide with the foundation of Brussels in the Senne Valley, for which the Sonian forest appeared an inexhaustible resource (construction wood, fuel, and food). Today, roles are reversed and the remaining Sonian Forest (4,383 hectares) is substantially smaller than the Brussels agglomeration (16,100 hectares). The forest occupies the plateau (65 to 130 meters above sea level) between the interfluvial areas of the Senne (anchoring the cities of Brussels and Halle) and Dijle (to the east spanning, anchoring Leuven and Wavre, respectively in Flanders and Wallonia) tributaries[1]. On first sight, city and forest appear to be one another’s inverse: low versus high, wet versus dry, mineral versus green, flat versus hilly, artificial versus natural, limited versus endless. As well, both worlds were (and remain) subject to different regimes. Whereas the city became the territory of the citizen, the forest remains a seigneurial domain in the best feudal tradition. Where the city is considered to be human-made and governed, the forests were seigneurial domains and as such governed by nobility, as if a God-defined natural order. City and forest appear as parallel worlds that invert one another. In fact, development of city and forest have been closely intertwined. Since the federalization of the Belgian State in 1989, the forest has been divided between the three regions of the country: 56 percent in the Flemish Region, 38 percent in the Brussels-capital region, and 6 percent in the Walloon region[1]. Successions usually went hand-inhand with selling and often radically transforming the forest, including intensive logging as part of settling war bills, agricultural development which proved more lucrative as a

productive landscape, and massive suburbanization triggered by land speculation. As this whole chain of successive ownership, management practices, uses, abuses and transformations unfolded, large parts of the forest turned from sites of resource extraction (hunting, wood logging, wood products harvesting, etc.) to colonization (medieval abbeys largely paved the way to agricultural exploitation of cleared forest pockets) to reforestation and simply consumption for urbanization until finally the remaining relict became a nature conservation site. In reality, the preserved forest functions as a major park of the Brussels region. It is no wonder that nature conservation① and heritage② go hand-in-hand. Quite early, the forest exchanged its status from a savage wasteland into a cultured domain. From the Early Middle Ages onwards, the Sonian Forest harbored abbeys and castles, farms and the like. No less than seven abbey domains were embedded within the forest from the 12th century onwards, carving out settlements and bringing “culture” into forest pockets and clearings. The forest itself soon became an object of management. Cycles of logging and planting, de- and reforestation, maintenance and harvesting calendars, access and rights, were all weighed, defined, and enforced. Forest management and urbanism seem to have almost emerged simultaneously, since both the forest and the city staged their parallel complex itineraries as cultured domains, each with their own rhythms, cycles and waves of development. In Dutch (the local language), forestry and urbanism translate as “bos-bouw” and “stedebouw,” literally the “building” of forest and “the building” of city. The more they are constructed, the more they both host complex multiplicities. One could argue that the abbeys created a dynamic interplay between settlement (abbey and hamlets and villages that emerged in their wake), forest (natural forest, managed forest pockets, cleared forest patches, plantation forests, and domesticated wasteland), and that the cleared forest brought in culture by way of agriculture. The interplay was archetypical as a fragile form of forest

urbanism: a consciously reasoned spatial development where forest and settlement (including agricultural fields) were intertwined as complementary or at least interacting domains. A variant of this form of forest urbanism also originated from the numerous castle domains that inserted themselves within the once endless forest, and developed, besides the castle itself, homesteads and outbuildings, initiated hamlets, and founded villages, while bringing in “culture” patch by patch. This early form of forest urbanism, intertwining forest and settlement (development) was, at the same time, related to the development of the cities (and their markets) in the river valleys. The once unlimited “coal forest” that was systematically felled from the Early Middle Ages onwards, became a fragmented sequence of relict forests that maintained close relationships with adjacent cities: Hallerbos and Sonian Forest respectively with Halle and Brussels (both on the Senne River) and Meerdaalwoud with Leuven on the Dijle River. Despite the fundamental and multiplicity of relationships, interactions and flows of goods, animals and people between the city and forest, the dependency of the city on the forest also proved to be an Achilles heel. Ultimately, the forest remained an easy and fast source of income. Extraction and logging for the ever-growing and consumptive demands of cities (Halle, Leuven, Wavre and particularly Brussels) exceeded both natural self-renewal and reforestation. In the turbulent 18th century, the forest was substantially reduced as it was plundered by the population and logged by the nobility (which was short of funds). Deforestation occurred at such a large scale that the Austrian regime (1714–1795) was forced to undertake a massive reforestation program to supplement the remaining pieces of remnant forest. Joachim Zinner (1742 1814), who elaborated the “restoration” scheme, conceived it an as massive as monocultural beech production forest, applying modern forestry principles (yet ecologically inappropriate) which were developed during the Enlightenment. It is this episode that turned the forest into an immense cathedral. Slender and high beeches, often more then 200 years old, still dominate the Sonian

forest landscape today (although during the last decade, forest management induced a process of ecological diversification to obtain a more naturally mixed forest). Anyhow, the hundreds of thousands of slender columns of the Zinner plan established, without doubt, the largest and most monumental construction of the Brussels region. The Sonian Forest has a layered and living patrimony. In 1830s, the sudden abundance of “vacant” land in the vicinity of Brussels initiated a suburbanization process. At first the process was quite timid, with the development of small and large (but always exclusive) castle domains for the nouveau-rich nobility and elites of the new national regime. With time and following close in the heels of the exponentially increasing acceleration of vehicular mobility, the forest and its surroundings were massively encroached by villas and later bungalows. Since World War II, the largest part of the residential (and in its wake services) development in the region has taken place around the forest, and — whenever unguarded moments occurred — in the forest (fringes). In ecological terms, the systematic occupation of the fringes has been catastrophic since the transition areas between forest and open land are the areas of richest biodiversity. The whole suburban belt around the forest is one mega wildland urban interface (WUI)[2]. Until today, the city catapults itself into the (wild) forest, into the previously considered “wasteland” with infrastructure and facilities that the city needs but does not want to accommodate. The Sonian Forest is on the receiving end of NIMBY. Sport complexes, telecom and electricity transfer stations and the like inhabit the forest. You name it, it is there. In the 1960s, the city ring road of the city was dumped in the forest and it literally hosts the central (highway) crossroads of the region. The east ring road (R0) crosses the major highways to the south of the country (direction Mons/ Luxembourg/ Paris). More and more, the forest becomes the (functionally empty) center of the metropole’s development. It is both the turntable of the region and its crossroads. However, nothing happens inside, or more correctly, no primary urban

excerpt from Landscape Architecture Frontiers

forest urbanisms

activities take place inside the center, crossroad, turntable. The Sonian Forest has been simultaneously turned into the empty heart of the contemporary metropole and the central park of the metropole. It is an ecological structure and an expansive recreational area. It is simultaneously the region’s dumping ground and its jewel. King Leopold II (1835-1909) understood, as no other before him or since, the potential of the forest as the recreational armature of the metropole-in-the-making. He not only extended the domain by replanting the Kapucijnenforest (in Tervuren, 1875-1880), founding the astonishing arboretum of Tervuren, adding the Marnix Forest (also in Tervuren), but also embedded major metropolitan leisure infrastructure within the forest. The Sonian Forest (as a patchwork of remnant forests, newly planted domains and monumental parks) suddenly accommodated monumental hippodromes, a golf course, “tennis chalets,” and the Koningsvijvers (the Royal ponds), amongst other amenities. The forest became the natural environment of elite leisure — to play a round of golf, bet on horses, walk around the lake, picnic with friends and family, or have a Sunday tea and cake in the Brasserie des Etangs Melaerts (the salons of the Melaerts ponds). A network of tramways, railways, bridal paths and scenic roads delivered access to forest and the services it hosted. The forest became the armature of the pleasant city — a forest city, a city built in and around the forest. Last but not least, during the Leopold II era, majestic links between the forest and city were created: sequences of spaces where nature penetrates in the city and simultaneously transforms from natural to urban forms, from forest to park to boulevard and avenue to square. At the end of his life, Leopold II projected a whole new (and new type of) city within the forest. Tervuren would be one of the poles. It transformed the interlocked bipolar city-forest complex into a truly revolutionary multipolar constellation of forests (the patchwork of forests and parks that the Sonian is known for), various centers (Brussels and Tervuren to begin with) and amenities of all kinds (golf courses, racetracks, clubs, etc.). The Brussels World Exhibition of 1897 — that took place in the Jubelpark and in Tervuren (in the fringes of two opposite sides of the forest)—functioned as a rehearsal for the building of the city-forest

of the future. Long after his death, the vision of Leopold II resonated in numerous schemes for a World City and Mundaneum in Tervuren. They all revive the idea of a new form of forest city in Tervuren, while resonating the urbanistic paradigms of their times. Although the capacity for forceful action and structuring interventions might have faded with the death of Leopold II, the taste for a new form of urbanity that re-engages with the forest was awakened. Leopold II articulated a form of forest urbanism through his energetic (and always speculative) operations; in other words, more by clear action and directed realization, than by explicit discourse or theory. Leopold II’s theory of forest urbanism was as implicit as its practice was explicit. However, the post-war paradigm of forest urbanisms, both as a discourse and practice, remains diffuse and unarticulated Nevertheless, postwar forest urbanisms were propelled by an incredibly strong image of residing in the forest — as if it was natural. The 1950s villas built in the forest have become very strongly imbedded within dwelling culture, but remain implicit regarding an approach to forest urbanism since their occupation lack cohesion and simply consume the forest, without producing an overall qualitative new environment. The now normalized practice parasites so much on the forest that it is on the precipice of collapse as a complex ecological system, as an interesting spatial setting, and as a landscape structure. All this makes the situation today highly problematic. The generic inhabitation of (previous) forest sites, diffuse urbanization and lack of deliberate articulation results in spatial fragmentation that, in turn, generates impossible mobility challenges (as everything is dispersed and lacks density), produces a highly monotonous and diluted form of sub-urbanism and causes, as biologists warn, ecological collapse. The multiplicity of both forest and city is exchanged for thinned-out simplicity. A reversal of this process is urgently required. 2 Contemporary Challenges Presently, the forest functions simultaneously as the central park of the Brussels metropolitan region that completely surrounds it, as base of the (remaining) ecological structure of the region, and as the main spatial structure of the metropole that contains its main

crossroads. It might function as central park, it has however, never consciously been given that status, let alone being equipped to perform that role efficiently. As mentioned above, many paths and roads cross the forest. There are 17 kilometers of roads open to motor vehicles, 152 kilometers of roads closed to motor vehicles, 84 kilometers of footpaths, 30 kilometers of bicycle paths and 50 kilometers of bridle paths[4]. Today, the Sonian Forest is renowned for its cathedral aspect of beech (Fagus sylvatica) areas, consisting of old beeches with slender trunks and an almost non-existent underbrush. Beech tends to dominate in forests because it grows well in the shade and itself produces a lot of shade with its broad leaves, suppressing the growth of other young trees. It presently covers nearly 65 percent of the forest acreage[3]. In addition to beech, there are six other major tree species, in order of quantity: oak (Quercus sp.), coniferous Scots pine (Pinus sylvestris L.), larch (Larix decidua Mill.), Corsican pine (Pinus nigra Arn. subsp. laricio (Poir.) Maire var. corsi-can), and Douglas ﬁr (Pseudostuga menziesii (Mirb.) franco) and spruce (Picea abies L.) [3] . In keeping with contemporary management trends, there is a desire by foresters to increase the diversity of tree species in the forest. As the Brussels metropolitan region merges into a larger urban territorial entity, it becomes imperative to consider the Sonian Forest as essential patch of a forest system that inevitably interacts intensively with the urban system. It is clear that both forest and city are under intensive stress and in dire need of a shared vision, strategic operations and a variety of actions and measures to guarantee their mutual sustainable development. Both the urban as well as the forest are fragmented, diluted, diffuse and weak. Both need radical requalification. Above all, their relationship urgently requires clarification and contradictory conditions have to be reconciled: accessibility with conservation, urban development with ecological restoration, new programming with stewardship, etc. The design exercise that follows investigated the Sonian Forest from that perspective and developed projects and scenarios that couple ambition with applicability, ranging from regional to micro scales, and combining ecology with urbanism and forestry with urban design.

3 Design Research Workshop towards a National Park In September 2018, an intensive international two-week design workshop was organized in close interaction with a number of important stakeholders, including the Flemish, Wallonian and Brussels Agencies for Nature and Forest. The 35 participants from 15 countries worked in the Groenendaal Castle. The workshop was a catalyst for rethinking the region’s fundamental nature/ culture relationship and how various stakeholders can reimagine future relationships of forests and urbanism while finding new ways to cooperate. The design research created awareness of the particular and pressing issues of forest urbanism, namely a multitude of forestry issues (ecological in the first place), urban problems and questions concerning their interplay — all that require urgent action. The design research also gave way to visions for the territory, which focused on eyeopening propositions through the lenses of mobility, settlement and ecology. The problem formulation of the design research was co-developed with the Flemish Brabant project, Horizon+, which seeks “to create natural connections that, as green foothills from the forest, carry through the surrounding municipalities. This way different nature areas can be better connected, both with each other and with the core of the forest. These compounds are of unmistakable importance for numerous plants and animals”[4]. A long-term ambition of Horizon+ is to develop the Sonian Forest as a national park — a relatively recent designation and not yet widespread in Belgium, with merely one that opened in 2006 (Hoge Kempen National Park, 57.5 hectares). The idea of a Sonain Forest national park in the Brussels region would as well encompass Hallerbos (to the west) and Meerdaalwoud (to the east) and stretch until Wavre in the southeast. 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. They spearheaded the concept that not only the State apparatus is custodian of the collective landscape, but also inhabitants and users are themselves stewards[5]. The parks existing settlements are restructured to lessen their footprints and municipalities

Summer School 2018, OSA with Horizon+ 14

sonian forest urbanism

reconstituted ecologies & new urban intensities.

participants Marlies Aerts, Belgium Rayan Al Ghareeb, Lebanon Marija Beg, Croatia Jolein Bergers, Belgium Francesco Bortolato, Italy Nicolo Croce, Italy Giulia Crotti, Italy Matteo J. da Lisca, Italy Marine Decléve, Belgium Ernest Diez, Spain Meryem Canan Durak, Turkey Goran Erfani, Iran Andrea Fantin, Italy Thao Huynh, Vietnam Koba Kiekens, Belgium Peter Loewi, USA Xuan Ha Vu Luu, Vietnam Melinda Martinus, Indonesia Dieu Nguyen T. Minh, Vietnam Rui Olivera, Portugal Hongxia Pu, China Bindi Raditya, Indonesia Raquel Santos, Portugal Daniel Siemsgluss, Germany Teodor Ioan Staicu, Romania Hanna Stynen, Belgium

Domains Water urbanism Yuying Sun, Ridge urbanism

Forest se�lements Urban �ssue China Ribbon urbanism

Maria Tsatira, Greece Giulia Vergassola, Italy Minh Phuoc Vu, Vietnam Xinyu Xiao, China Mariia Zakharova, Russia Alberto Zaragoza, Spain

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Agro - urbanism Exis�ng forest River mid-review jury Floodplain Garden city Non-forest vegeta�on Anders Nielsen (U. Copenhagen) Forested industrial estate Busse Parks Water landscape

guest lecturers Anders Busse Nielsen (U. Copenhagen) Michel Desvigne (M.Desvigne Paysagiste) guest tutors Etienne Aulotte (Environment Agency) Bjoke Carron (KU Leuven) Sven Debruycker (Perspective, Brussels) Evelien Janssens (Agency for Nature/ Forest) Jeroen Reyniers (Flemish Land Agency) Frederik Serroen (Brussels Bouwmeester) Jan Zaman (Department of Environment) Oda Walpot (Flemish Bouwmeester) Kristiaan Borret (Brussels Bouwmeester) Lodewijk De Witte (Gov. Flemish Brabant) Leo Van Broeck (Flemish Bouwmeester)

Steven Delva (Delva landscape architects) Michel Desvigne (Landscape architect, Paris) Ward Verbakel (Plus Office, Brussels)

final jury Etienne Aulotte (Environment Agency) Damien Bauwens (Environment Agency) Sven Debruycker (Perspective, Brussels) Patrick Huvenne (Agency for Nature/ Forest) Frederik Vaes (Environment Agency)

Summer School 2018, OSA with Horizon+

sonian forest urbanism

fieldwork, stakeholder meetings and final exhibition.

local stakeholders Platform Zoniënwoud Werkgroepen poort Groenendaal Werkgroepen Poort Jezus-Eik Werkgroep Poort Middenhut Werkgroep Poort Tervuren Werkgroep Groene Verbindingen stakeholders Damien Bauwens (Environment Agency) Fabien Genart (Environment Agency) Tim Houben (municipality of Overijse) Patrick Huvenne (Agency for Nature/ Forest) Erik Kumps (Hoeilaart) Maarten Moers (Omgeving, Antwerp) Katrien Putzeys (Flemish Brabant) Shana Sevrin (Tervuren) Marina Singule (municipality of Tervuren) Maëlle Thueux (Department of Environment) Frederik Vaes (Environment Agency) Tine Van Daele (municipality of Overijse) Rémi van Durme (Plus Office, Brussels) Els Van Loon (Flemish Brabant) Rolf Van Steenkiste (Sint-Genesius-Rode) Jelle Vercauteren (The Work Company) Ward Verbakel (Plus Office) Luc Wallays (Omgeving, Antwerp) Katty Wouters (Flemish Brabant)

Special thanks to the policy makers Jan De Broyer (Overijse) Inge Lenseclaes (Overijse) Bram Peeters (Tervuren) Joris Pijpen (Hoeilaart) Ann Schevenels (Vlaams-Brabant) Anne Sobrie (Sint-Genesius-Rode) Tim Vandeput (Hoeilaart) Special thanks to the organizations that made this 20th International Landscape Urbanism Design Workshop possible: OSA-KULeuven, UCLouvain, Metrolab, Province of Flemish Brabant, Natuurinvest and all involved administrations in the three regions.

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and citizens are considered caretakers of the park. It is clear that by stretching the envisioned National Park from the Senne to the Dijle Valleys and from Brussels and Leuven until Halle and Wavre, the design not only enlargens the area of the “Sonian” drastically, but simultaneously the broadens notion of the National Park, since it would be inhabited by hundreds of thousands of inhabitants. Multiple use in this sense also includes a new notion of dwelling. As much as the envisioned National Park might be an inhabited park, it remains in the first place a park: a natural environment and recognized as its primary structure. Whatever happens in it, is embedded within it, and does not replace it. 4 Forest & Water Urbanisms The first strategy towards realizing the vision was therefore to reconstitute the territory’s ecologies. The presentday, highly fragmented forest and water systems have fallen victim to the perils of modernization and urban growth. Human settlement, infrastructure and agriculture — all three extremely diffuse, spread out and simultaneously present— have significantly compromised the connectivity of the landscape and substantially reduced biodiversity. An important component in recreating robust ecologies was the profound reconfiguration of the mobility system that creates numerous barriers for ecology. Three densities of mobility were identified — the dense urban mesh, saturated urban periphery networks and larger scale connections with other parts of Flanders and Wallonia. In many instances, the latter two cut the forest, whereby it ultimately becomes regulated as a mere crossroads. Four concrete interventions are proposed to usher in the coming transportation revolution. Firstly, highway and local systems are decoupled, including the national road Luxemburg-Brussel (N4) which is restored and reduced to a local level. Secondly, highway infrastructure is, where possible, strongly reduced and eco-ducts restore necessary connections. The penetration of highways deep into the fabric is reconfigured into parkways with urban (instead of interregional) capacities. Viaducts such as Herman-Debroux (a penetration into the city of the A4 highway) is dismantled. Drastically “changing lanes” allows for the guidance of the mobility transition while at the same time allocating more space for ecological systems to weave into the urban structure. The incomplete

east highway ring structure (R0) is partially decommissioned. In the proposed vision, it is simultaneously physically decoupled from the landscape (running on viaducts and in tunnels through the strongly undulating landscape, but never “on” the landscape). In this way the reduced R0 is no longer an ecological rupture. Thirdly, the public transportation network — particularly with a regional express network, extended system of tramways and carpooling/ car sharing schemes — is enhanced (in line with present policies). Finally, bicycle infrastructure is intensified through recuperating decommissioned vehicle infrastructure and introducing autonomous e-bike highways. The reconfiguration of infrastructure allows for critical connections of ecological systems to be re-established and latent connections to be accentuated. The forest is not something to cross. It is not a crossroad. One goes around a forest or eventually enters it and get lost in. It is a place to wander. The new ecology importantly repositions the Sonian Forest as a counterfigure of the city, and not its garden. Ultimately, through an understanding of the intertwinement of water, soil and plateau conditions, the complex regional valley structure — structured by the multitude of tributaries of the Zenne and Dijle Rivers — was proposed to be restored and serve as the connectors of forest enclaves. A greatly more extended figure than the conventional relict forest figure of the past is generated. The generous scale of it (the vast extent and width of connecting ecological systems) is meant to initiate ecological recovery which is necessitated by the strongly urbanized region and, at the same time, forms a base structure for the urban that is embedded within it. Its frames and steers the restructuring of the urban. The radical expansion provides relief to the overused existing relict forest. In the Forest & Water Urbanisms proposition, the robustness of forest, water and urbanism are simultaneously strengthened. The reconstruction of ecologies, in relation to new mobility, goes hand-in hand with the rethinking of settlement. The territory has a number of environments that can already be recognized as garden cities — including the remarkable heritage of Le Logis and Floréal and Kapelleveld (both designed by Louis Van der Swaelmen in 1919) — while others could be called forest urbanism (as in St. Genesius Rode and Uccle

where residences are carefully positioned on large and explicitly landscape-designed plots) — which are characterized by extensive canopy, environmental quality and a qualitative interplay between forest and urbanism. At the same time, there are also a host of other settlement types (including ribbon development, scattered sprawl of one-family houses, and low-quality allotment and dormitory settlements without sufficient services and access to public and other shared transport networks) which do not capitalize on the landscape assets (and often, on the contrary, destroy the pre-existing landscape qualities). While the substandard housing represents an enormous patrimony, the investment of hundreds of thousands of inhabitants since the end of WWII, it is also clear that the patrimony requires an urgent re-investment cycle since current technical standards (particularly thermal insulation, heating, electricity and water) have substantially changed, as has social evolution and significant diversification. The dominant singlefamily houses are ill-adapted to current housing demands. Therefore, the rather stereotypical and space consuming single-family house types are, where possible, transformed into more qualitative morphologies and typologies. The notion to move from the consumption of space to production of space is an essential concept. A number of environments are proposed to transition from banal residential landscapes into forest urbanism — as new, 21st century garden-cities and agro-urbanism — while others are completely deurbanized, allowing nature to reclaim sites. 5 Transformation Principles In order to incrementally, but nevertheless steadily, transition to the Forest & Water Urbanisms vision, a number of design strategies and principles were developed which could be realized on the immediate turn and at the scale of concrete projects. The policy tool of pooling (of both plots and assets) and transferring of development rights was recognized as a powerful compensatory and regulatory regime, not only from an economic perspective, but also, and more importantly, from a “commons” or public goods perspective. The clever implementation of the transfer of development rights (TDRs) — which decouples development rights from ownership of a property itself — can steer where to (re)

build/ not (re)build and densify/ de-urbanize. As explained by Shriar and Akins in their study of the transfer of development rights, growth management and landscape conservation in the US, “the owner is thus compensated for restricting land use on his property, and the transferred rights make it possible to develop elsewhere at a higher density, and thus with greater profit potential, than would otherwise be possible under the existing, baseline zoning. Ideally, the property from which the DRs have been severed is protected in perpetuity through a conservation easement or restrictive covenant”[6]. The transformation of low-quality and low-density settlement types with such an incentive system could drive the creation of both renewed ecologies and new urban morphologies (and densities). It would allow for an and/ and condition, with high quality (and potentially more) urbanization while simultaneously creating new nature. As in the overall vision at the territorial scale, radical transformation of infrastructure at the local scale (the scale of urban design) is considered essential in order to restore ecologies. The shift towards the post-petrol era must necessarily focus on the combination of public transportation, car-sharing and car-pooling of electric vehicles, in addition to e-bicycles, scooters and other forms of individual mobility (particularly to address the so-called first and last mile). At Sint-GenesiusRode, a test to re-activate the train station was tested and in Overijse (in the Brusselse Steenweg) the street profile was redesigned to embrace diverse new mobilities, while turning the oversized plain of asphalt into an interesting and more ecological public space. The coming modal shifts literally give way to space for ecology where reforestation and reclamation of asphalt are possible. In the transformation of settlement morphologies, the pooling and transferring of development rights affords the creation of new ways of living with nature, the forest and water. In Hoeilaart, the singlefamily housing, farms and landscape of greenhouses is re-developed into a 21st century agro-/foresturbanism. New models of collective living and higher densities are developed hand-in-hand with new productive landscapes and forest pockets. Meanwhile, in Auderghem, a renewed form of water urbanism was conceived by “unclogging” a lowland from big-box development and allowing the restoration of

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water bodies. Again, reforestation is a major opportunity allowed by redesign of settlement systems.

scenic and pleasant soft mobility routes and framing future water and forest urbanisms.

Finally, strategies to renew ecology reinforce not only more ecotones and biodiversity, but also the hybridization works to simultaneously make the territory more productive, adapted to climate change, and visually pleasing. An exercise in La Hulpe locates inappropriate land-use in order to bring back water and a scheme for Rue des Cedres in Watermaal-Bosvoorde experiments with urban agriculture. Other strategies were developed for transforming suburban lawns into self-sustaining fields and orchards, for replenishing reservoirs and for intensive agro-forestry.

In the area of Hoeilaart and JesusEik, a series of alternating landscape stripes reframe development. The existing greenhouses parcellation structure in Hoeilaart is mutated into alternating stripes with forest patches, agricultural fields, greenhouses, open spaces, stables and new, more aggregated housing typologies. In Jesus-Eik, the highway decoupling revives its center and a large eco-bridge re-connects disturbed ecologies. Dormitory allotments are phased out and make place for the extension of the Sonian Forest. While transforming the residential landscape and extending the forest and ecologically restored areas, the project reestablishes strong (and varied) links between the Sonian Forest and the Ijse Valley.

6 Strategic Pilot Sites A number of strategic zoom-in areas were also developed that straddle the scale of the overall vision and the sites where transformation principles were tested in three sites . In the transition space between Brussels and the Sonian Forest nature was reconfigured to invade the city; previous ecological systems were restored and urbanism was restructured. Projected flood risk was the underlying premise for creating more space for water in the Woluwe Valley. East-west connections for soft mobility, ecology and an expanded public realm punctually restructure the dense urban tissue, while the existing highway entering the city is transformed into a parkway. More trees are planted in the city, strengthening the existing forest urbanism, improving micro-climates, healthiness and pleasantness of the environment. The historic settlements of La Hulpe and Gaillemarde are located in the IJse and Laan Valleys, tributaries of the Dijle Valley. The area also hosts a succession of large domains (Solvay, IBM, SWIFT, Argenteuil — companies that have occupied historic domains of castles) situated on the plateau of the forest. Between these two worlds are expanses of marvelous agricultural landscapes. The proposed transformation accentuates the qualities of enclosed domains, while simultaneously turning them from exclusionary to inclusionary, while underscoring indigenous cultivation strategies. The open agricultural landscape is punctuated with woodlands, hedges and patches. The IJse and Laan Valleys are strengthened as main connectors providing alternative

7 Forest Urbanisms Forests are self-regenerating ecosystems and for that reason as well, a renewable and eternal resource. For centuries, forests have been planned, managed, systematically exploited and maintained; often this management was more extensive and sophisticated than the town planning of the same time[7]. In the case dealt with here, one could argue, as attempted earlier in the text, that forestry and urbanism developed in parallel and in some instances, during certain episodes, they actually developed hand-inhand, hence, as forest urbanism (by the abbeys, the castles, Leopold II, etc.). While forestry and urbanism respectively manage their own domains, forest urbanism represents an additional interesting, synergetic and complementary interplay between the forest and the urban. As is evident in the case of the Belgian Sonian Forest, forests were from its earliest days a counter-figure of the city. Both figures complement each other. They are also countermodels when it comes to (urban) development: self-regeneration versus continuous self-destruction, (self-)renewable resource versus continuous consumption of production goods. In a certain way, forests stand for witness as timeless ecological archetypes. Forest Urbanisms were an indelible part of the Brussels region’s historical development and need to become as important for its future. This requires the rather implicit and weak forms of forest urbanisms of the

postwar period to be blended with more explicit and forceful forms of forest urbanisms — ones which are capable of clearly re-articulating and requalifing the intertwined forest and urban domains of the region. This starts with the strengthening and expanding ecologies. The “natural” frame for settlements that is reconstructed this way can as well address the contemporary ecological crisis — providing necessary carbon sequestration, improved microclimates, increased biodiversity and pollution mitigation — while generating a more beautiful cities and landscapes. NOTES ① Natura 2000, a network of nature protection areas in the territory of the European Union made up of Special Areas of Conservation and Special Protection Areas designated respectively under the Habitats Directive and Birds Directive. There are 2066 hectares included in the designation. See http:// natura2000.eea.europa.eu/Natura2000/ SDF.aspx?site=BE1000001, accessed February 2019. ② In 2017, UNESCO World Heritage status for Ancient and Primeval Beech Forests of the Carpathians and Other Regions of Europe was granted to 400 hectares of the Sonian Forest (UNESCO ID 1133ter-023). See https://whc.unesco. org/en/list/1133, accessed February 2019. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS The work presented here is based on an intensive design research workshop (September 2018) directed by Bruno De Meulder and Kelly Shannon at the Research Group OSA of the Department of Architecture, Faculty of Engineering Science, University of Leuven with Jo Decoster of Horizon + and Roselyne de Lestrange, MetroLab, Université Catholique de Louvain. Participants included: M. Aerts (Belgium), R. Al Ghareeb (Lebanon), M. Beg (Croatia), J. Bergers (Belgium), F. Bortolato (Italy), N. Croce (Italy), G. Crotti (Italy), M. J. da Lisca (Italy), M. Declève (Belgium), E. Diez (Spain), M. C. Durak (Turkey), G. Erfani (Iran), A. Fantin (Italy), T. Huynh (Vietnam), K. Kiekens (Belgium), P. Loewi (USA), X. H. V. Luu (Vietnam), M. Martinus (Indonesia), D. N. T. Minh (Vietnam), A. Moretti (Italy), M. Q. Nguyen (Vietnam), R. Olivera (Portugal), H. Pu (China), B. Raditya (Indonesia), R. Santos (Portugal), D. Siemsgluss (Germany), T. I. Staicu (Romania), H. Stynen (Belgium), Y. Sun (China), M. Tsatira (Greece), G. Vergassola (Italy), M. P. Vu (Vietnam), X. Xiao (China). M. Zakharova (Russia), A. Zaragoza (Spain). REFERENCES [1] Godefroid, S., & Koedam, N. (2003) Identifying indicator plant species of habitat quality

and invasibility as a guide for peri-urban forest management. Biodiversity and Conservation. (12), 1699–1713. [2] Silvis Lab. (2019). Wildland-Urban Interface (WUI) Change 1990-2010. Retrieved from http://silvis.forest.wisc. edu/data/wui-change/ [3] Carleer, A. P., & Wolff, E. (2004) Exploitation of Very High Resolution Satellite Data for Tree Species Identification. Photogrammatric Engineering Remote Sensing, 70(1), 135–140. [4] Horizon+ website (https://www. v laamsbrab ant.b e/wonen-mi lieu/ won e n - e n - r u i mte l ij ke - ord e n i ng / projecten/gebiedsgerichteprojectwerking/horizonplus/index.jsp, accessed January 2019 [5] MacKaye, B. (1968) From Geography to Geotechnics, Urbana: University of Illinois Press. [6] Shriar, A. J. & Akins, A. (2018). Transfer of development rights, growth management, and landscape conservation in Virginia. Local Environment, 23(1), 1–19. [7] Bridel, J. B. (1798). Manuel pratique du forestier. Paris: Baudelot & Eberhart. [8] Meulder, B. D., & Shannon, K. (2014) Forests and Trees in the City: Southwest Flanders and the Mekong Delta. In D, Czechowski. Editor, T. Hauck. Editor, G. Hausladen. Editor (Eds.), Revising Green Infrastructure: Concepts Between Nature and Design, (pp. 427-449). London: CRC Press. [9] Godefroid, S., & Koedam, N. (2004). Interspeciﬁc variation in soil compaction sensitivity among forest ﬂoor species. Biological Conservation. (119), 207–217. [10] Roland, L. C. (2012). When you can’t see the city for the trees. A joint analysis of the Sonian Forest and urban reality. Retrieved from https://journals. openedition.org/brussels/1101

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interweaving city and forest figures.

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Three zooms, in very different contexts reveal design potentials of forest urbanism. A: In Southeast Brussels, the forest penetrates the city. B: The site in La Hulpe and Gaillemarde is representative for the current border condition between forest and (heavily urbanized) countryside C: The restructuring of agricultural and urban tissues in Hoeilaart and Jesus-Eik allow to expand the Zonien and reconnect it with the valley of the Ijse (tributary of the Dijle).

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The transition space between Brussels and the Sonian Forest is restructured by restoring its ecological systems. Radically downsizing the highway that penetrates the city allows nature to reinvade the city. Projected flood risk is the underlying premise for creating more space for the water in the Woluwe Valley. New urban morphologies are created which build on the legacy of the area’s garden cities and the floodplain as public space. The interventions complement the historical figures that link forest and city, including Ter Kameren Forest Park and Avenue Louise.

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The dispersed settlement morphologies are radically rethought in relation to forest mosaics. In Hoeilaart (southwest in zoom), the existing greenhouses parcellation structure is transformed in alternating forest stripes, agricultural fields, greenhouses, open spaces, horses stables and more aggregated housing typologies. In Jesus-Eik (center and east in zoom) a highway decoupling in the Sonian Forest revives the urban center (which new garden cities and restructured ribbon development) and re-connects disturbed ecologies.

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Transformation of the historic settlements of La Hulpe and Gaillemarde accentuates the qualities of enclosed domains (castels and corporate campuses), while simultaneously turning them from exclusionary to inclusionary, and underscores indigenous cultivation strategies. The IJse and Laan Valleys are strengthened as main connectors providing alternative mobility routes and framing future water and forest urbanisms.

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studio brief context & challenges Post-Covid19 Forest & Water Urbanisms in the Senne watershed and Dijle watershed will develop urban design research for a new reality. The present crisis has accentuated a number of tendencies and strongly articulated a number of problematic issues concerning urbanization. It is clear that structural changes are necessary in the built environment. In that sense, the crisis also offers a moment of radical new thinking and innovation. Necessity has always been the mother of invention. The Senne watershed and Dijle watershed, the Heverlee, Meerdaal, Zonian and Haller forests are simultaneously monumental ecological assets and at the heart of the ever-expanding metropolitan area that literally envelopes them. The valleys, forested slopes and agricultural plateaus and diffuse settlements are under intensive stress and in dire need of a shared vision, strategic operations and a variety of actions and measures to guarantee their mutual sustainable development. Their relationship urgently requires clarification and the reconciliation of contradictory conditions: accessibility with conservation, urban development with ecological restoration, new programming with stewardship, consumption with reproduction. Existing green and blue systems need to be reinforced and new ones created in order to develop tangible connectivity of the Heverlee, Meerdaal, Zonian and Haller Forests. In short, the main question could be how to reconcile the safeguarding of essential components of nature and their regeneration where depleted, with the increasing pressures of urban development? As said, it is clear that a radical new approach is urgently required. Neither urbanization, consumption, nor production can continue as they have for the last decades. Systemic changes are required. The Sonian Forest is, more or less, equal in size to the Brussels agglomeration, while Heverlee Forest and Meerdaal Forest are together a few times larger than Leuven. In the west, the Haller Forest is larger than the city of Halle. The once much larger domain of the Sonian Forest (as with the Heverlee and Meerdaal Forests) was originally under the care of the Dukes of Brabant, which passed into the hands of the dukes of Burgundy, then to Austrian custody

and ended up as patrimony of the Dutch king. Heverlee and Meerdaal Forest ended up as a domain of the Dukes of Arenberg before it became a public domain in the 20th century. A large part of the Sonian Forest was transferred to the Societe Generale during Dutch occupation, as a kind of guarantee fund of the financial holding that would finance the industrialization of the region. At the end of the day, the Societe Generale allotted and sold out its guarantee fund, which catalyzed the urbanization of Uccle, WatermaalBosvoorde, St. Lambrechts-Woluwe, etc. In 1830, the remainders of the Sonian Forest became property of the Belgian state which in turn split its administration amongst the three regions of the country in which it is embedded: Brussels Capital Region, Wallonia and Flanders.

also applies—same same but different—for Leuven and Heverlee and Meerdaal Forest and for Haller Forest and Halle. The government of the Flemish Region plans to restore the ecological connections between the Haller Forest, Sonian Forest and Heverlee and Meerdaal Forest and turn this reconnected forest domains into a national park ‘Brabantse Wouden’. It is evident that the ‘Brabantse Wouden’ would become the main ecological structure of the heavily urbanized province of Brabant in which the urban forms one—be it formless—continuum. The studio will investigate how the interplay between forest and city, nature and culture so to say, can be restructured sustainably and equitably. In short, the studio is on the outlook for new forms of urbanity of the 21st century.

Once upon a time, the forest harbored in its clearings convents and castles, farms and the like. The tenure successions went hand-inhand with both the selling of forest parcels and radical deforestation caused by logging necessary to settle war bills, lucrative agricultural development and by suburbanization that was triggered by rampant speculation. Deforestation and massive reforestation (including the 18th century restoration by the Austrian landscape architect Joachim Zinner that gave it the reputation of a beech cathedral) turned it into both a monumental and richly layered patrimony. It is clear that the forest development, from its earliest days until today, has been closely intertwined with the development of Brussels, and that it functions simultaneously as the central park of the metropolitan region that completely surrounds and grows around it, as a foundation of the (remaining) ecological structure of the region, and as the main spatial structure of the metropole that contains its main crossroads. The Sonian Forest is center and complement of the city and as well functions as compensation of the city. As the Brussels metropolitan region merges into a larger urban territory that covers most of East Brabant, it becomes imperative to consider the Sonian Forest as essential patch of a forest system that inevitably interacts intensively with the urban system. It delivers countless services to the urban system, while being simultaneously self-dependent for its natural reproduction. What is true for the Sonian Forest and Brussels,

The on-going crisis has revealed the necessity for new projects concerning mobility (redistributing space for cars to more room for alternative movement, shifting from pure technocratic approaches of infrastructure to more sensitive approaches that have an eye on quality of experience and sustainability), commerce (with various modes of delivery and small scale-short chains that replace current forms of retail facing a crisis in the midst of the pandemic), work (telecommuting as a new normal and the end of industry-zones, a renewed interest in make-industries, etc.) housing (with home-work and important linkages to outside space and in general with sociological changes in household composition and expectations) and recreation. The on-going crisis revealed the necessity to fundamentally rethink urbanity and, in this case also its de facto intertwining with nature. The studio will be structured by two parallel foci: one on the transformation of urban tissues and another on strengthening systems logics at the territorial scale. The goal is to investigate the valleys, slopes and plateaus as potential places of multiplicity and develop projects and scenarios that couple ambition with applicability, ranging from regional to micro scales, and combine ecology with urbanism and water management and forestry with urban design.

organization & relation to ongoing policies The studio is co-organized with Omgeving (the Flemish Department of Environment and Spatial Development) and in close interaction with all relevant stakeholders and is intended as a catalyst for rethinking the region’s fundamental nature/ culture relationship. Important recent programs and policies on the level of the Flemish region that resonate within this nature/culture relationship will be addressed, amongst others the program of 1. de-sealing that aims to restore water balances (level of watertables and their replenishing) that is crucial given the increasing problems with drought, ecological disruptions, etc.; 2. ‘betonstop’ (the policy to radically stop further consumption of greenfields and a transition towards only reuse and restructuring of existing urbanized land, brownfields and others); 3. an ambitious program of reforestation (4,000 hectares in a period of 4 years, while the structure plan of Flanders of 1996 foresaw 10,000 ha of extra forestation). Besides this regional programs and policies, there are of course also policies of municipalities, cities and the province of Vlaams Brabant with which the studio assignment resonates. Surely noteworthy here is the plan of Leuven Klimaatneutraal (climate neutrality).

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Students Senne Valley Leander Baeke, Belgium Imraan Begg, South Africa Sebastian Oviedo Castelnuovo, Ecuador Giulia Geneviève M Devis, Belgium Raquel Jerobon, Kenya Carlijne Lelièvre, Belgium Donglin Liu, China Cecilia Alejandra Quiroga, Bolivia / USA Raya Rizk, Lebanon Tlhabi Shubane, South Africa Xeni Stoumpou, Greece Dijle Valley Elena Giral Alonso, Spain Gemma Annear, South Africa Pebri Try Astuti, Indonesia Ermioni Chatzimichail, Greece Carlos Esteban Morales Davila, Peru Simon De Boeck, Belgium Bing Du, China Laetitia Nour Hanna, Belgium / Lebanon Camille Myriam Hendlisz, Belgium Cecile Marie Daniele Houpert, France Yifan Hu, China Philippa Susan Lankers, South Africa Ying Li, China Agnese Marcigliano, Italy Ariane Millaray Cantillana Maturana, Chile Izzah Minhas, Pakistan Bridget Nakangu, Kenya Valerian Andonis Portokalis, Greece Jennifer Saad, Lebanon Haifa Wajeeh Mustafa Saleh, Jordan Yidnekachew Yilma Seleshi, Ethiopia Sara Semlali, Morocco Arthur Max X. Stache, Belgium Caroline Thaler, Belgium Andrea Daniela Cobo Torres, Ecuador Huu Tien Tran, Vietnam Lucie Van Meerbeeck, Belgium Yentl Wulteputte, Belgium Yang Yu, China

Studio guidance from KUL Viviana d’Auria Bruno De Meulder Kelly Shannon Pieter Van den Broeck Studio guidance from practice Annelies De Nys, Atelier Horizon Nina Reyntjens, BUUR Intentensive studio workshop Amy Chester, Research By Design Cecil C. Konijnendijk, NBSI

Jurors Loes Abrahams, Dept. of Environment Jo Decoste, Horizon + Raquel Colacios, TAAB 6 Julie Marin, KUL Joris Moonen, midi / KUL Elyn Remy, Regional LS Zenne Valley Liesl Vanautgaerden, Dept. of Environment Ward Verbakel, plusoffice / KUL

Guest lectures Loes Abrahams, Dept. of Environment Nils Broothaerts, KU Leuven Geert Bruynseels, Natuurinvest Jo Decoster, Horizon + Annelies De Nijs, Atelier Horizon Gert Van de Genachte, INTOE Federico Gobbato Liva, Kader Studio Julie Marin, KUL Jitse Massant, plusoffice Bart Meuleman, Agency of Nature&Forests Elyn Remy, Vlaams Brabant Nina Reyntjens, BUUR Liesl Vanautgaerden, Dept. of Environment

MaULP / MIRA thesis studio (2020-21) Darina Andreeva, Russia Rana Bachir, Lebanon Anja Billon, Belgium Zhihan Liu, China Pengyang Luo, China

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foresting steep slopes. renaturalizing rivers. cherishing plateaus. embedding settlement in gentle slopes.

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muliplicity of scales & programs. diversity of species. variety of envronment & experiences. intensity of contrasts.

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post covid-19 water & forest urbanisms

urban forestry, forest figures + flooding to 2100. Over the past centuries, the Brabant Plateau, once covered with a monumental coal forest, underwent successive waves of intensive development. Abbeys, castle domains, villages and agricultural domestication were succeeded by urban development in cities such as Brussels and Leuven. In the last century, suburbanization was of such a magnitude that ecological systems became so fragmented, nearly reaching their tipping points. The concept of the inhabited national park Brabantse Wouden radically reverses the current spatially consumptive development paradigm of road-based urbanism. It re-invigorates ecological systems of the Brabant plateau and redefines the spatial structure of the Senne-Dijle interfluvium. The newly configured interfluvium landscape can be read as a triad with 1) a multitude of valleys, short and long, but all, deeply carved out of the soft loam (soil) that in light of climate change and exaggerated deforestation in the past will invariably witness more intensive and regular floods; 2) an intensive sequencing of slopes in all variations of gradients and orientations where systemic additional afforestation is self-evident in view of erosion protection, the restoration of ecological connections and the creation of heat-island effect protected dwelling environments;

3) plateaus of various scales and intactness, peaking out of the landscape where the busy dynamics and varieties along the rivers are complemented with long views, quietness and disconnection, openness and repose. An as marvelous as extended system of hollow roads gives slow and qualitative access to the plateaus. Together with relict forests (Haller-, Sonian, Heverlee forests and Meerdaal woods), the triad of components define a spatial structure that can reframe the urban and give direction to the further (re)development of various types of settlements. Landscape morphology and settlement typologies must better answer to the current understandings of healthy living environment and thriving urbanity. The rich archipelago of domains, historical and recent, that dot the territory, demonstrate how radical shifts can indeed be made from once exclusive and gated estates into common and public domains, such as campuses and recreational facilities. They also demonstrate how the built can seamlessly be integrated in a qualitative landscape that simultaneously has ecological value. As such, domains are one of the models for new settlement approaches, that introduce vitality both within the urban and in ecology in one and the same space. Multiplicity is indeed the key of a successful inhabited national park Brabantse Wouden.

MaHS / MaULP Design Studio, Module 1, 2021

post covid-19 water & forest urbanisms

valley cities, dispersed settlements across the interfluvium.

MaHS / MaULP Design Studio, Module 1, 2021 26

post covid-19 water & forest urbanisms

an archipelago of productive plateaus.

MaHS / MaULP Design Studio, Module 1, 2021

post covid-19 water & forest urbanisms

steep slopes suitable for re- afforestation.

MaHS / MaULP Design Studio, Module 1, 2021 28

post covid-19 water & forest urbanisms

fieldwork notes.

Constellations of open spaces / elements

moments

Contrasting and seemingly disconnected open spaces, rationales and practices are scattered across the landscape of the Lembeek-Lot area. Industrial, urban, agricultural and forest spatialities are juxtaposed. What strategies can harness their structuring potentials to help devise an urban-agroecological reconfiguration of the city-region? Cecilia Quiroga, Imraan Begg, Raquel Jerobon, Sebastián Oviedo

DEPARTMENT OF ARCHITECTURE

rom ns f

within vill ages ure t a to n ges villa

moments within nature

Senne Watershed - S1a + S1b

sitio

MASTER OF HUMAN SETTLEMENTS MASTER OF URBANISM, LANDSCAPE AND PLANNING

ran en t hidd

le y

h t he

va l

juxtaposed rationales Juxtaposed Rationales

moments of discovery on Voer River Dijle Watershed - D4a

r er riv

Moments of discovery scattered along the varied Voer River

ls ea ev

s de hi

o hr ft el s t i

Hidden jewels

How can urbanism strategies maintain the mysterious and temporal moments of discovery while encouraging legibility along the Voer River to create a sustainable urbanism which blends the natural and built landscapes for an enriched experience? Lankers, Philippa

///Insert drawing here///

topography of movements movements in mopography

Dijle Watershed - D3

Topography of Movements — Movements in Topography

(Informal) movements

Historically, naturally and functionally inherent networks of informal paths entrench the semi-urbanised landscape, juxtaposing patterns of soft movements to more or less planned, hard road infrastructure. Can the system of field paths tracing agricultural patterns, foot and bike

DEPARTMENT OF ARCHITECTURE

MASTER OF HUMAN SETTLEMENTS MASTER OF URBANISM, LANDSCAPE AND PLANNING

MaHS / MaULP Design Studio, Module 1, 2021 29

Farmhouse

City center

Public Park

Train Station

Forestry

Agriculture

Forrest urbanism

Forestry

Agricutlrue

post covid-19 water & forest urbanisms

150m Potential movements

100m

Pathways

Lowland

Steep slope

High plateau

Lowland Valley

Lowland

High plateau

Lowland

Steep slope

50m

forested slopes as a backbone Senne Watershed - S3

(Informal) movements

Forested slopes as a backbone

settlement boundaries as opportunities Dijle Watershed - D3

Unplanned fabrics

Settlements Boundaries as Opportunities

The three major settlement logics present on site are producing both qualities and challenges inherent to their situation and development. Are edge conditions opportunities to consolidate and better mediate a territory made of a patchwork of lands shared by settlements and water, agriculture and forest?

Sint-Genesius-Rode’s varied topography has defined its development within the urbanity of the 20th century. The village’s forested slopes, agricultural plateau’s and scattered settlements are key characteristics of the patchwork it has become. As there is a dire need of a shared vision and structural changes, the question arises if the the forested slopes can serve as a backbone to restructure a more qualitative and sustainable embodiment of forest urbanism of the 21st century? Leander Baeke, Giulia Devis, Raya Rizk, Xenia Stoumpou

DEPARTMENT OF ARCHITECTURE

MASTER OF HUMAN SETTLEMENTS MASTER OF URBANISM, LANDSCAPE AND PLANNING

Pebri Astuti, Ying Li, Valerian A. Portokalis, Arthur Stache

DEPARTMENT OF ARCHITECTURE

MASTER OF HUMAN SETTLEMENTS MASTER OF URBANISM, LANDSCAPE AND PLANNING

///Insert drawing here/// ///Insert drawing here///

movement as a public trust Dijle Watershed - D7 Movement as a Public Trust

the border is not a line Senne Watershed - S3

(Informal) movements

Movement is variation/change. How do andscape structures enable and negociate movement in the frm of social, physical, cultural, ecological, economic and political exchange?

Unplanned fabrics

Bing Du, Laetitia-Nour Hanna, Izzah Minhas, Bridget Nakangu

MaHS / MaULP Design Studio, Module 1, 2021

post covid-19 water & forest urbanisms

1 valleys.

MaHS / MaULP Design Studio, Module 1, 2021

post covid-19 water & forest urbanisms

flood as opportunity forest / agro / water urbanisms voer valley

valleys as spines

Settlements are gradually restructured and re-embedded within the landscape defined by agricultural plateaus, a forested steep slopes and valleys. A series of ponds are developed to accommodate future flood waters and riparian vegetation reconstitutes the landscape.

choreographing patch dynamics st. agatha rode Pockets of intensified and new collective forms of urbanity are subtly inscribed within the patch dynamic of the slopes of St. AgathaRode, squeezed in between the wide plateaus and valleys of the Dijle and Laan rivers.

250

500m

MaHS / MaULP Design Studio, Module 1, 2021 32

post covid-19 water & forest urbanisms quilting earthworks voer valley The floodplain is redefined as a water-based ecology, with edges strongly articulated through earthworks. The topographical manipulation simultaneously re-defines the nature / culture relationship and creates an enlarged public realm, as evidenced in the urban balcony overlooking the valley.

figuring the thresholds neerijse & ottenburg

MaHS / MaULP Design Studio, Module 1, 2021

post covid-19 water & forest urbanisms

sculpting water- and forest-fronts senne valley In the valley, the water landscape re-choreographs floods that climate change will make more regular and intensive. The resulting post-industrial patchwork offers opportunities for waterfront developments accommodating new urban fabrics of the 21st century. Reforestation on the slopes restores ecologies and provides a subtle frame for urbanization.

S1a

1777

Ferrari 1777 S1a

250

500m

Flooding 2100

250

500m

S1A

down to the river ijse valley necklace In the Ijse Valley, ponds and constructed wetlands complement the existing necklace of waterbodies, while slopes are reforested and urban forestry requalifies suburban fabrics. The resulting landscape structures further urbanization that is directed around common, public spaces and infrastructures.

MaHS / MaULP Design Studio, Module 1, 2021

post covid-19 water & forest urbanisms

2 slopes.

MaHS / MaULP Design Studio, Module 1, 2021

post covid-19 water & forest urbanisms

settling with topography multiple co-existences

resetting edge ecologies duisburg & eizer In Duisburg and Eizer, rearticulating edges allows the restoration of ecologies and provides settings for complementary urban tissues that benefit from majestic panoramas.

down to the river ijse valley necklace The necklace of water bodies in the valley provides settings for the future social infrastructure of urban tissues. The restructured and intensified urban tissues become embedded in a new spatial configuration of forests pockets, orchards and common gardens on the slopes that reach to the majestic Sonian Forest. In this sequence of open and built patches from plateau until valley, water elements enhance lush riparian vegetation.

Sonian Forest

Garden Houses

Private Backyards

Communal Housing

Existing condition

Sonian Forest

Afforestation

Forest Gate Community Urban AbriNature Protection culture

Keyline Dam

Communal Housing

MaHS / MaULP Design Studio, Module 1, 2021 36

post covid-19 water & forest urbanisms

forest / agro / water urbanisms voer valley

(inverted) forest clearings vossem

productive terracing leefdaal

confluent waters sint verone

MaHS / MaULP Design Studio, Module 1, 2021

post covid-19 water & forest urbanisms

St. Genesius-Rode is characterized by three very different interplays between topography and urbanization. Hence there are three distinct forest urbanism strategies proposed. In the north, a strong alternation of hollow roads and gullies articulates the urban forestry figure while, in the east, clearings are carved out of the existing urban forest figure in order to create possibilities

figuring the thresholds florival & neerijse

worlding the slopes sint-genesius-rode

for more collective housing tissues. In the south, a proposed transition allows for the breaking up of ribbon development and the creation of meaningful forestry figures.

MaHS / MaULP Design Studio, Module 1, 2021

post covid-19 water & forest urbanisms

3 plateaus.

vzw ‘de Rand’

MaHS / MaULP Design Studio, Module 1, 2021

post covid-19 water & forest urbanisms

productive plateaus as new commons

RETHINK MOBILITY

Desealing Soft mobility path Shared green streets New public places Informal movements

ENHANCE THE LANDSCAPE

Natural parks Agroforestry Community gardens Food forests Orchards

ACTIVATE COMMUNITIES Communities activities Collective gardens Greenhouse adaptive reuse

Diversification of the housing suppy Collective housing Garden roof terraces

REINVENT THE URBAN

resetting edge ecologies duisburg & eizer Duisburg (a settlement on a ridge) and Eizer, are both previously known for grapes and peach orchards on their fertile south facing slopes. They border the eastern edge of the Zonian forest. The project cherishes the quietness resulting from its relative isolation. The gradual expansion of the forest is enhanced by the resetting of edge ecologies. The Nellebeek carves a deep and narrow valley in Eizer that is indicated for a substantial afforestation, in the valley itself and on the steep, erosion fragile slopes. This expansion of the ecological system goes hand in hand with a strong articulation of the large open, rolling landscapes. Articulating the edges between the different landscape components – open plateaus, forested slopes and settlements simultaneously defines settings for new mixed development that benefits from its integration in the existing fabrics while enjoying the spectacular

MaHS / MaULP Design Studio, Module 1, 2021 40

post covid-19 water & forest urbanisms

settling the hillsides (oud-) heverlee A transition is proposed to reconnect with the natural spatial organization of the territory where the flood prone valleys remain unbuilt and only accommodate exceptional programs (historically the abbeys, more recently university campus for example). The productive plateaus are indicated for agriculture. The few heavily built domains on plateaus (such as the military domain of Heverlee or the Science Park of Haasrode) are gradually restructured to restore the experience of the wide open landscapes. This leaves the slopes in-between these two conditions as the site where forestry and urban development have to be re-balanced. Systemic afforestation on steep slopes and urban forestry programs in the urbanized areas are strategies for this purpose.

2021

2030

2070

2100

MaHS / MaULP Design Studio, Module 1, 2021

post covid-19 water & forest urbanisms

forest / agro / water urbanisms voer valley Water bodies and wetlands are constructed along the tributaries of the Voer in flood prone sites. New forest pockets in the surrounding of, and urban forestry interventions within the monotonous suburban fabric of Vossem (including orchards) reconnect Tervuren Park with Hogenbos and Moorselbos, enlarging the ecological structure of the Brabant Woods, while strongly articulating the agricultural plateaus. The landscape interventions simultaneously generate a new spatial structure that can guide the restructuring of the urban tissue. The rich variety of conditions created in Vossem facilitate the introduction of various new housing typologies.

down to the river ijse valley necklace All the way upstream the tributaries of the Ijse, the urbanized slopes touch the open plateaus or border the Sonian Forest. Partial reforestation and urban forestry measures wrearticulate the transition between the heavily urbanized slopes and the larger-scale landscapes on the plateau or connect to the forest. New urban development nests itself within these edge conditions, taking benefit from the larger landscapes they border as well as their integration within the existing urban fabric.

MaULP theses 2021 (Rana Bachir, Lebanon) 42

brabant woods

new synergies & alternative ways of living plateau van beersel

water

valley connections

100 meters topography

> 100 m topography

Beersel Plateau

urbanism

plateau < 100 meter

ﬂood 2100

microtopography

existing marshland

2.5km

5km

plateau > 100 meter

water

0.5km

1km

0.5km

water

runoff

Brussels

Beersel

1km

This design investigation in Alsemberg recognizes the unique quality of Beersel Plateau, well known for the panoramic view it offers on Brussels and in many ways offering the opposite qualities it has in relation to the tangible, but distant city: quite, hardly connected, rather homogenous, etc. The project safeguards the open plateau of Beersel as one of the multitude of plateaus that are dotted across the inhabited national park Brabantse wouden. This implies the concentration of transforming the valley and slopes. Liberating space for water in the valley is accomplished by desealing, transforming big boxes, decommissioning overprovided infrastructure, constructing wetlands, complementing the necklace of ponds, re-naturaliszing the river and its tributaries. All these interventions simultaneously create a new landscape structure in which the new urban configurations can embed themselves. On the slopes, monotonous suburban allotments gradually transform. Road-oriented urbanism and suburban housing typologies are redirected to new housing forms, located in relation to landscape characteristics and responding to changing housing needs. This translates into higher densities, more elements of collectivity integrated (including water elements as retention ponds), mixed programming and sizes. As such, the slopes become places of multiplicity, both in the urban as well as in the forest. Generic and oversized road networks are punctually dismantled. Instead of a crossroads, the plateau again simply becomes a destination, and consequently an endpoint. The same logic is tailored in strategies to transform the slope.

MaULP theses 2021 (Darina Andreeva, Russia)

brabant woods

water marks & other palimpsests senne valley

The Senne Valley is the only area of the inhabited national park Brabantse wouden that has known extensive industrial development. The valley is crossed and paralleled by an impressive bundle of large-scale infrastructures such as railroads, high speed rail, highway to Paris, national roads, in the meantime abandoned tramways, canal Brussel-Charleroi, etc. They all disrupt crucial ecological connections of the inhabited national park Brabantse wouden. In light of climate change consequences (such as prediction of massive and regular floods), the fragmentation of ecologies in the valley is also a main issue. As de-industrialization in the valley progresses and environmental consciousness increases, there are opportunities to envision gradual transitions. A meticulous reading of the microtopography and the layered water systems of ditches, river branches, dikes, draining systems allows the choreographing of a future water structure that simultaneously functions as a spatial register. Afforestation strategies complement the water management. In the floodplain, an embryonic tissue of forest-rooms were discovered and further enhanced, paralleled by riparian forests and erosion-preventing forests on the foothill slopes. This forest figures, hand in hand with the water register, defines a dynamic landscape structure with unique opportunities for (re)development. They take the form a new type of either waterfront development or infill operations within forestrooms, clearings, etc.

DEPARTMENT OF ARCHITECTURE FACULTY OF ENGINEERING SCIENCES

MASTER OF HUMAN SETTLEMENTS MASTER OF URBANISM, LANDSCAPE AND PLANNING