Rethinking Houthalen-Helchteren (s Grote Baan) Towards a Paradigm Shift in (Infrastructure) Planning by MaHS-MaULP

HH/EW/NS Rethinking Houthalen-Helchteren (‘s Grote Baan) Towards a Paradigm Shift in(Infratructural) Planning Studio Urbanism Fall 2017

URBANISM STUDIO STUDIO TEAM Bruno De Meulder (program director) Erik Van Daele Julie Marin

EVALUATION TEAM KUL Bruno De Meulder (Erik Van Daele) Julie Marin Joris Moonen Kelly Shannon Maarten Gheysen Mateo Motti Wim Wambecq

STUDIO MEMBERS Antonio Alfredo Manhota Athanasiou Iosif Petros Finotello Marta Khalil Dur-e-shahwar Mavia Elis Locia Matchowani Muiruri Davis Njenga Nguyen Minh Quang Otoya Nieto Purnama Bindi Raditya Rishmawi Sandy E I Shah Nikita Maheshkumar Yoseph Samrawit Yohannes

HOUTHALEN HELCHTEREN Alain Yzerman (Mayor) Jef Verpoorten (alderman spatial planning) Bertien Buntinckx (administration urbanism) Dimitri Pellens ( administration mobility) Eefje Vanworstwinkel (alderman mobility) Freja Bas (administration urbanism) Joke Vandebeek (administration ecology)

RUIMTE VLAANDEREN Charlotte Timmers Els geerts Liesl Vanautgaerden

MORE INFO ? MaHS / MaUSP / EMU Master Programs Department ASRO, K.U.Leuven Kasteelpark Arenberg 1, B-3001 Heverlee, Belgium Tel: + 32(0)16 321 391

DE WERKVENOOTSCHAP Durkadin Yilmaz

Email: paulien.martens@kuleuven.be

MOW VLAANDEREN Maarten Blomme

Copyright by K.U.Leuven Without written permission of the promotors and the authors it is forbidden to reproduce or adapt in any form or by any means any part of this publication. Requests for obtaining the right to reproduce or utilize parts of this publication should be addressed to K.U.Leuven, Faculty of Engineering – Kasteelpark Arenberg 1, B-3001 Heverlee (België). Telefoon +32-16-32 13 50 & Fax. +32-16-32 19 88. A written permission of the promotor is also required to use the methods, products, schematics and programs described in this work for industrial or commercial use, and for submitting this publication in scientific contests.

EXTERNAL DESIGNERS BUUR Arnaut Vandenbussche

All images in this booklet are, unless credits are given, made or drawn by the authors (Urbanism Studio HH).

HH/EW/NS Rethinking Houthalen-Helchteren (‘s Grote Baan) Towards a Paradigm Shift in (Infratructural) Planning Studio Urbanism Fall 2017

The Urbanism Studio addresses the long term livability of Houthalen-Helchteren, a municipality that, as so many in the world, is cruelly torn apart by massive traffic infrastructures of the post war era: highways and upgraded national roads. The supra-local infrastructures (predominantly NS oriented) and urban fabrics (predominantly E oriented) indeed mismatch dramatically and consequently reciprocally hinder each other. The recent rejection by the Council of State of the last highway-bypass project (last episode of 40 years of contestation), makes evident that a new epoch for infrastructure planning, away from top down planning, but also away from one-dimensional heavily engineered motorway imageries, is urgently required. The studio ambitions to canalise the energy of this emerging epoch that embraces socio-ecological concerns and innovative mobility possibilities and considers pressing needs of today simultaneously with desired long term options with a reinterpretation of the resourcefulness of the territory.

Road versus settlement The ‘Grand Road’ in Houthalen-Helchteren undoubtedly fits a casebook of dramatic traffic situations and planning disasters in Belgium. The road serves, nowadays, as a heavily used international north-south traffic connection between Hasselt and Eindhoven overlapping with an east-west regional and local network. Superposition and juxtaposition of infrastructures, fabrics and landscapes is characteristic of the territory.

You said Houthalen Helchteren? Houthalen Helchteren is spatially not a coherent municipality but rather the amalgam of Campine villages and hamlets, ribbon developments,military domains,recreation parks,holiday resorts and a mining settlement.The characteristics of the elements are by far stronger than the identity of the whole. The Grand Road crossing Houthalen Helchteren is both the geographic centre of the “municipality” and a gigantic spatial rupture in the loose urban tissue that seems impossible to bridge. Although centrally located, dominating mobility patterns and having accessibility advantages, the central road is not a liveable and qualitative place. It is currently only a passage; a functional infrastructure accommodating heavy traffic flows. Consequently, along the Grand Road, there are many vacant and decaying buildings.

Natural (to) Structure Even though Houthalen Helchteren does not stand out as a remarkable built environment, its natural environment is, in the Flemish context, outstanding. It counts nature reserves, forests, heath, marshlands and the like that nest themselves on the edge of the Campine plateau and the Demer valley where Houthalen Helchteren is positioned. Though heavily distorted by urbanisation and industrialisation, the natural environment remains, till today, a highly qualitative and coherent structure. Probably it is the only qualitative spatial structure, in which settlement and occupation were, for a long time, embedded.

Planning disasters, contestations, dead ends For more than 40 years contested efforts have been and are made to complement the Grand Road with a bypass.This bypass is, in fact, a parallel highway considered by Flemish policy as the missing link in the regional highway network. The highway, commonly called ‘the North-South Link’, was never completely finished. The infamous highway project, in many respects, defines the end of an era of car-dominated top down planning. The plans for the bypass/ highway are a classic example of old school top-down planning of heavy infrastructure, conceptualised in an extremely sectoral manner, without regard of any spatial quality or local liveability. On the rebound, the outdated highway plan simultaneously catalysed 40 years of political, social and civic contestation. Environmentalist campaigns went hand in hand with the emergence of ecological parties in the political spectrum, social movements, etc. The segment of the Grand Road in HH is currently almost the only remaining piece that has not been doubled by the A24 highway. It is (on Belgian territory) the only remaining bottleneck of the infamous NS-connection. No wonder that the bypass highway is on the agenda since ages. Exponential traffic growth only added to the argument and necessity to solve the conflict between heavy traffic and local environment. Re-stated in a different way: between road capacity and mobility. While the catch 22 endures, the Grand Road, originally conceived as a pure connector of North and South without any adjacent constructions, more and more became a collector of all sorts.

Discipline and enduring enforcement of rules and norms is indeed not a strong Flemish characteristic.As a result, the road ended up with buildings (big commercial boxes, bars, petrol stations, etc.) having an address on the Grand Road further jeopardizing the traffic fluidity, increasing the conflicts between different modes and speeds of traffic, and widening the ruptures in the landscape and ecological structures that are crossed by the Grand Road. It goes without saying that the amalgam of development along the Grand Road weakens and distorts the structure, coherence and quality of the settlements and at the end of the day, none of them (the centre of Houthalen, Helchteren, the mining site, the Grand Road) manage to accumulate a significant centrality. So, there is no centre.

Back to the start The State Council recently annihilated the latest plans for the mentioned bypass. As such, the top-down imposition of infrastructure plans has proven once again its failure. Planning has to restart from scratch. It is time to rethink. The urbanism studio, instead of starting from a unilateral topdown and uniquely technical point of view, recognizes the complexity, multi-scalar character and multidimensional nature of the ‘Grand Road’. The studio explores the undeniable issues that the ‘Grand Road’ is causing, from the local perspective onwards. In other words, the urbanism studio places itself in the centre of the paradigm shift that infrastructure planning willynilly is undergoing: multiscalar from the onset, participatory, and using infrastructures as a momentum to introduce positive externalities in the form of new public spaces or to address issues such as ecology or water management. The studio inscribes itself in the energetic policy of the municipality that stimulates the transition to a circular economy and this not only as a means to reinvent itself in economic terms, but to simultaneously reconnect the spatial development of Houthalen Helchteren to its resourceful natural environment.

You said North South? Studies on HH and the Campine plateau invariably depart from the infamous NS infrastructure. It obviously has a prominent omnipresence. It brings, however, no added value to HH, it only brings nuisance, poison, disconnection, danger. The urbanism studio therefor departs its exploration from the landscape structure that remains the main quality of the area: the east west structured geography, landscape and settlement structure. The studio investigation will indeed ignore on the rebound, the conventional emphasis the NS enjoys. It will unravel the mismatches between NS/EW, between economy and ecology, settlement and landscape, tissue and singular programs that characterise HH. Strategies and concepts to detach the EW landscapes and developments at the utmost from the NS Grand Road will be elaborated and requalify, while injecting with quality, the juxtaposition of systems. While different hypotheses (such as a bypass or tunnel) are tested, the emphasis of the studio is the opportunities that new forms and systems of mobility offer to reorient the spatial development of HH.

Dialogues in Urbanism The urbanism studio explores how, while addressing major mobility and infrastructure issues, the spatial structure of HH can be requalified. This exploration takes place with the support of and in dialogue with as many as possible relevant stakeholders, to begin with the urban planning, housing and economic development administration of the municipality, its mayor, and aldermen. The studio also collaborates with the Flemish Department of the environment who after the annihilation of the NS bypass by the State Council, treats the NS project as a ‘Complex Project’ requiring custom solutions and multilevel stakeholder support.The studio invites everyone to contribute to our debates and explorations.

Rethinking Houthalen-Helchteren(‘s Grote Baan) Towards a Paradigm Shift in (Infrastructure) Planning Urbanism Studio Fall 2017

thematic analyses The studio explored the characteristics and logics of the territory in three thematic approaches - History - Permeability - Ecology The analyses served as the basis to understand the Ew vs NS logics of the region team members: Antonio Alfredo Manhota, Athanasiou Iosif Petros, Finotello Marta, Khalil Dur-e-shahwar, Mavia Elis Locia Matchowani, Muiruri Davis Njenga, Nguyen Minh Quang, Otoya Nieto, Purnama Bindi Raditya, Ishmawi Sandy E I, Shah Nikita Maheshkumar, Yoseph Samrawit Yohannes

1770 Heath

1897 Agriculture & Forestry

The Ferraris map clearly indicates how topography and hydrology oriented the east-west oriented territorial occupation. The Demer-tributaries, that cross the whole river valley and penetrate deep into the sandy heath plateau, indeed spatially structure the area. Settlements, with the related agricultural tissues of meadows and fields, spread along the valleys on the edge of the plateau. Scarce and unstable trajectories through the heath allow a minimal mobility. Eastwest oriented paths connect plateau and settlements in the valleys. The national road Hasselt-Eindhoven is superimposed on the landscape.

End of the XIX century agricultural land use drastically expanded. This went hand in hand with the systematic construction of ditches that extend the natural water drainage system. The number of ponds decreased. Moreover, afforestation radically replaces large swats of the heath. Midcentury legislation that stimulates development of barren land leads to massive afforestation and privatisation of large parts of the common heath. Anyhow, the dichotomy between local and embedded east-west tissues and superimposed regional north-south infrastructures articulates further, amongst others with the railway Hasselt-Eindhoven.

1930 – Mining Site & Railways

1971 – Industrial Zonings & Road Infrastructures

In the first half of the XXth century coal mining overwhelmed the region. Helchteren somehow escaped major change. Houthalen however was radically transformed: an extensive coal mine exploitation site developed south of the village and Meulenberg, a mine workers housing estate, was built 2 km east of the village. Houthalen squeezed in between mining site in the South and the Mangelbeek valley in the North, expanded eastwards. The west side story of Houthalen is the one of mining and it’s infrastructural devices (as the railway yards and extensions). The Grote Baan turned into a real rift on the growing urban tissue.

The last decades of the XX century large industrial sites were developed in an attempt to make up for the job losses that came with mining closure. To that end, terrils were flattened and became big industrial plateaus, waiting for activity. The coal track was abandoned, but road infrastructure on the other hands expanded. The A2/E314 highway integrated the area into the national network, while creating a major spatial and ecological rupture. To accommodate traffic growth the profile of the Grote Baan was drastically widened, what also increasingly made of the N74 a major rupture in the local (east-west oriented) settlement structure.

HISTORY

2. The cars’ infrastracture 2017 – Stand Still The territory of HH is the only segment of the N74 (HasseltLommel) that has not been rerouted and disconnected from the local road network. Bypass or tunnel have been in planning schemes for the last 40 years, but don’t materialize. It turns HH into a bottleneck. The wide N74 in HH that generated accessibility and hence attracted development, turned into an over congested source of pollution and physical barrier that erodes the livebililty of the town centers of HH. The Grote Baan more and more is characterized by vacancy. It attracts predominantly substandard development. Diagrams: spatial evolution of Houthalen Helchteren distinghuising the evolution of the elements that are anchored on the N74 (on top) and the landscape embedded fabric (that is E-W oriented).

Diagrams: spatial evolution of Houthalen Helchteren distinghuising the evolution of the elements that are anchored on the N74 (on top) and the landscape embedded fabric (that is E-W oriented).

EW vs NS

settlement patterns The strong impact of geographical conditions on the settlement pattern and on their density and intensity endures in the study area. The Demer valley is punctuated by cities like Diest, Hasselt and Bilzen and settlements along the valley, but also knows an extensive urbanisation of the alluvial lands that intertwine like filaments with the tributaries of the Demer. The forests and heath of the sandy Campine plateau embed smaller and concentrated settlements. The two landscapes define almost counterfigures that inverse each other: a continuous urban field with green openings in the valley and a green continuum with built islands on the plateau. Houthalen is located on the edge of the plateau between the frayed, urban filaments paralleling the creeks, and the sparse, centralizing settlements on the plateau. Houthalen (as well as Genk for that matter) functions as a hinge between these two fundamentally different environments.

settlements on the Campine plateau settlements on the edge of the plateau filaments along the creeks towns along the river

the Campine plateau: domain of domains Large domains, most often with a limited degree of accessibility and a strong identity (nature reserve, military domain, recreation park, etc.), characterize the area. Most of the domains cannot be crossed, one has to go around them. As such, they are partes pro toto of the Campine plateau: a large, rather predominant green area that till today remains difficult to cross. A lot of these domains are positioned on the edge of the Campine plateau, and as such protect the plateau from infiltration of generic urbanisation.

military and postmilitary domains industrial and postmining sites forests nature reserves

PERMEABILITY

connecting Highways, railroads and canals connect the area to destinations further away. These prime infrastructures are rather fast ‘connectors’ that pass over or through the region with only a limited number of links with the territory: exits, stations and stretches of quays. An intertwined bundle of connectors –highway, railroad and canal - positions itself roughly in between valley and plateau and touches HH.

highways canals railways

collecting Apart from the national roads and international highways, a local roadnetwork collects goods and people from their settlements and carries them to other centers or links them to the long-distance ‘connectors’. This local network is, as opposed to the superimposed national infrastructures, embedded within the landscape conditions of the region from which it collects its traffic. The edge of the plateau is characterised by large gaps in the respective meshes of the valley and plateau.

PERMEABILITY

strategies and concepts Studies on the territory of HH and the Campine plateau tend to take the NS infrastructure as point of departure. Which is logic because at first sight it is the most dominant structure. However, the analyses show that the NS Grand Road adds little to no quality to this territory. In contrast to current visions the studio exploration starts from the EW structures: the creeks, landscape types, urban tissues as more valuable and more qualitative environments than the NS. Just as the NS ignores these fragile EW structure our exploration ignores the dominance of the NS. Thus unravelling the mismatch that characterises the territory by developing strategies and concepts to detach the EW landscapes and developments at the utmost from the Grand Road. How can the current mismatch become a high quality juxtaposition? The studio works with three perspectives: - soft mobility - team members:Mavia Elis Locia Matchowani,Nguyen Minh Quang, Otoya Nieto, Shah Nikita Maheshkumar, - ecology - team members: Khalil Dur-e-shahwar, Muiruri David Njenga, Ishmawi Sandy E I, Yoseph Samrawit Yohannes - occupation - team members: Antonio Alfredo Manhota, Athanasiou Iosif Petros, Finotello Marta, Purnama Bindi Raditya, The different strategies are indicated in a black square in the right hand corner .

HH: ebike-hinge between plateau and valley. The existing soft mobility network has two main paths – the coal track (railway in disuse) and the service trails along the canal. Tributaries of the Demer define a local bikenet in the valley, while the Campine plateau has its own local bikenet. The red line suggests a brand new, high quality, spacious and autonomous bikeway - ebikeway to keep in line with the times - that crosses the coal track and canal trails, while connecting Hasselt in the South to the heart of the Campine plateau in the North. Canal trails, coal track and red line are nearly horizontal and are each located at a specific height (canal, plateau and in between for coal track). As such they define hinderloze bike spines for and on each of the levels that the area is defined by. HH, which is linked to both the coal track and the ebikeway, is actually a hinge between these soft mobility lines.

kempens plateau existing/ reappropriated bike paths proposed bike path

BIKE

ebikeway, its surroundings, and elsewheres While the coal track and ebikeway realize connections across the territory, on the height of HH they form a parallel bundle that functions as double spine. All the soft mobility nets of the environments this bundle passes through are linked to it. The bundle furthermore gives access to the recreational domains, while respecting the nature reserves and military domains as elements off the grid, areas where movement is more related to wandering, getting lost, being away, being elsewhere. In our contemporary world these are unique qualities that cannot be protected enough.

military domains recreational domains mine tailings restructured bike systems

BIKE

existing and future public transport The existing public transport is the sum of lines between destinations that have developed over time. Frequency of service depends on demand and is finetuned for specific situations (such as schools). Mobility patterns however are nowadays essentially regional. Hence it is worthwhile to rethink public transport: it is no longer a system of lines, but as a system that serves the region(a mobility market). The proposal distinguishes 3 network components, each with their own transport-technology (ranging from bus-tram to small shuttles) and frequency. Also in this aspect, HH functions as a hinge.

BUS

Net Definitions The existing road network thins out, while going from the south (Demer valley) to the north (Campine plateau). In the lower part of this territory, the intensive accumulation of major infrastructures (Albert Canal, the E314 highway and the railway) are superimposed on the territory and mismatch with the organically embedded tissue of local roads. On the plateau, towns are mainly defined by local crossroads. In the valley, settlements are denser. HH (like Genk), situated between valley and plateau has a more complex hinge structure.

The local settlement structure is crossed and brutally ruptured by the N74 that over the years developed into a massive (and over-congested) road, that has more in common with a highway than with a local infrastructure. This disproportion seriously affects the livability of Houthalen. Hence a fundamental reconfiguration of the mobility network is urgently required. The hypothesis of this design research is, that the N74 should be radically disconnected from the local network, as the mixing of local, regional, national and international traffic on one and the same infrastructure that functions as connector and collector, is part of the problem.The exercise that follows therefor imagines the municipality’s mobility network without the Grote Baan. This allows to value, to begin with, and thereafter to rethink the local network. The network combines often different scales: neighborhood, urban or regional, all is combined in one rather heterarchical system. Although the heterarchical character could be a valuable asset, it misses some clarity. The proposal is therefor to canalize (regional) through traffic on well-defined E-W-corridor streets. A sequence of roads then work as an interface between the regional net and the neigborhoods, while simultaneously functioning as interfaces between ecological and anthropic systems. The proposal is therefor to canalize (regional) through traffic on welldefined E-W-corridor streets. A sequence of roads then work as an interface between the regional net and the neigborhoods, while simultaneously functioning as interfaces between ecological and anthropic systems.

10 CAR

Nets of HH The street system of HH is rather heterarchical then hierarchical. All roads seemingly have the same importance. They all seem to follow the same pattern shaped by the EastWest orientation and going from forest to forest by passing through a settlement.

CAR

ECOLOGY

The ecology of the area of Limburg is its density and as such we look to intensify it.The green grows overall as a strategy of infiltration of the forest into the urban area. Available space wherever its found is used to densify the greens.

Existing Green Growing Green

ECOLOGY

Analysis of micro topography of the area based leads to designation of natural water catchment locations. These latent catchment areas can be transformed into semi-natural retention ponds that simultaneously surf to purify water contaminated by the current agriculture practices (fertilizers, etc.). Additional water projects intensify the water ecology in the area.

Swamps

Existing Water Growing Water

ECOLOGY

Interpreting the systems of the streams and vClose reading of the streams and valleys system, allows to define another such corridor., through: transformation of Europark and Centrum Zuid into ‘ a forested parks’ that, by creating a new (neo-)natural environment that can accommodate programmatic transformation: a forest environment that can absorb a mixture of urban programs.. EuroPark is surrounded by forests on the East and South. The forest-infiltration in ‘Euro Forest’ allows for large clearings within this ‘Euro Forest’. Centrum Zuid is rearticulated as a barcoded green plateau that blends into the wet landforest it is superimposed on. The ‘Euro Forest’ and Centrum Zuid are constructed with production wood (short rotation crops), mixed with trees patterns that are forming a permanent ‘bell’ structure in Euro Forest and barstripes in Centrum Zuid. Parking spaces get a specific aforestation program (Forking). Short rotation wood can be exchanged for other programs when required. Water catchment areas get a adapted plantation. With this variety of components a forest fabric is woven that creates a qualitative environment that can accommodate new mixed programs. . Water project The green in Centrum Zuid would be an opportunistic plantation on the artificial mineral soil., Whatever available space is rigorously planted..The planting is repetitive and systematic. No left overs., A system of permanent green will be supported with an infill much like in Europark/ Euroforest, being added or cut down according to the urban development. ii. All mineral and hard surfaces will be used as potential rain water collectors. These collectors will be linked to the greens for cleaning of the debris of the collected water through phyto remediation. Existing micro topography will lead the water to collection points. iii. Eurpopark is situated on the top of the plateau and all water is collected. A cascading system of water retention ponds will direct the water down the valley, where the tributary is resurfaces and revived.on Meeuwerweg street.Europark/Euroforest then essentially becomes a ‘way’ in the water, short: a waterway. The waterway going down the valley and expands from the existing stream to take over available empty spaces and some road surfaces to create space for the water. The amount of 7.5 percent of the hard surface (parkings/roofs and other impermeable surfaces) of EuroForest is assembled around this road. iv. A bicycle path is integrated in the waterway and joins the main bikeway spine of HH in the south.. v. Water which travels downstream from Europark/Euroforest and the water that is collected from Centrum Zuid can be reused and help to intensify and expand the wet ecological system of Centrum Zuid vi. These green systems create new frameworks for the two industrial parks and catalyse the transformation of them into to new urban development areas. The green enters through Europark and into the urban areas surrounding it, while the urban infiltrates into the park creating a lowrise, dispersed, but nevertheless intense urban fabric embedded in a forest(park). Centrum Zuid becomes an entrance to HH with the shift to a more dense urbanity. Big box commercial activity is reinvented into contemporaneous mixed developments, with residential towers, services, etc..

CENTRUM ZUID- GREEN FRAMEWORK

THE WATER PROJECT

EUROPARK

Existing Forest

New Infiltrating Forest EUROPARK-GREEN FRAMEWORK

Short Term Infill

WATER LOGICS

CENTRUM ZUID

Permanent Green

THE CLEARINGS IN THE FOREST-GROWING BICYCLE NETWORK

INTRODUCING THE GREEN FRAMEWORK AND THE WATER CASCADE

FOREST INVADING THE INFILTRATING THE FOREST

CITY-THE

CITY Short Term Infill

ECOLOGY

THE NEW URBANITY OF EUROPARK AND CENTRUM ZUID

The streams and valleys are polluted through years of intensive farming practices (abundant use of fertilizers, etc.). As such a substantial intervention is required to restore ecological diversity and safeguard endangered flora and fauna. i. The pond system- to clean the water GIS allows identification of the most efficient water collection locations. As the sandy soil prohibits water to be collected, the building of a clay bottom pond makes it possible to achieve the collection and cleaning of water. Following a sufficient amount of cleaning, the water is released to a secondary pond, located at a lower level. The second system of pond allows for infiltration providing the with much needed replenishment of the water table. In parallel, allowing for a swampy wetland, therefore, diversification of animals and plants. ii. Hedgerows- herby grass hedgerows are part and parcel of HH’s landscape. By intensifying the hedgerows again all along the valleys, slops and small ditches water would clean through phytoremediation. The hedgerows leave at least one meter of herby grass facing the water is left for bees, insects and small rodents to thrive, iii. Structuring green By stimulating residents to plant (the same species of) trees in gardens a more robust green structure, allowing for duplicity of nature and urban leaving, is generated, iv. Connecting the heath The heath is essential for the endangered animals and creating an ecological corridor. This is done in phases: 1st phase- pine trees should be planted making the soil ready for development of health. 2nd phase- the pine trees are harvested in case of biomass in Green Ville. Thus, the natural process heathland generation is allowed.

Hedgerows- herby grass

Heath

Pine andHeath

Pond

Pine forest

Deciduous trees

ECOLOGY

Pinus Ponderosa

Short Rotation Copice (willow)

Common kingfisher

forest habitat

habitat legend

Montagu’s harrier

Hen harrier

European Nightjar

heath habitat

Woodlark

Coronella austriaca

ECOLOGY

Evolution of the Built-up areas The urban structure, following a radial trend in Helchteren, while filling the gaps in Houthalen, slowly consumed the green fields that were ever-present and are the main qualitative asset of the municipality. Suburbanization is now at a critical turning point. Or it consumes the last qualities of the environment or a The construction, majorly made up of residential homes occupied the territory, slowly reducing the Green and farmland areas.

Evolution of the Green structure The heath, for a long time the dominant landscape feature of HH and often considered as wastelands, was over time for the largest part turned into forests and partially also into agricultural land, HH landscape continuously kept evolving, also through replacement of large tracts of land by artificial landscapes and built up area. The green environment, actually the main asset of the municipality, has over the periods, especially within the urban footprint, been drastically reduced. A reversal of this dramatic green land consumption pattern is urgently required

OCCUPATION

Good-Bad (land) switches

Historical observations learn that, urbanization actually established on good soils for agriculture, while agriculture invaded in the 20th century the heath, which is actually not very suitable for cultivation. Continuous switching of the two occupations has seen the built sprawl expand significantly.

Good-Badland The two centers of HH are positioned in a delicate ecological system. The existing green presents an opportunity for restructuring the built and to revive the main quality of the towns: being in seamlessly interwoven with a natural environment.

OCCUPATION

Strategy Urban

How?

Reduced Built Footprint + Nature)

Floor Area Ratio 0.3 House Pooling Vacant Buildings Occupation of Buildings "in rotation" within the municipality Occupation of buildings over 40-yearsold

Built-Up Ratio 2.1

Impermeability Ratio 0.5 Green Ratio 0.25

Urban Urban

Nature

New Urban Occupation of current un-built plots throughout the municipality Occupation of commercial buildings along the Grote Baan House pooling for greater quantities of open space to be occupied by green

Urban

Agriculture

Floor Area Ratio 0.1

Permutation of built areas and attribution of new building rights in other suitable places within the municipality Occupation of soil appropriate for agriculture

Industrial

Built-Up Ratio 0.2 Impermeability Ratio 0.3 Green Ratio 0.25

Nature

Vacant Plots Vacant Buildings Occupation of buildings "in rotation" within the industrial areas Occupation of buildings over 40-yearsold

New Mixed

Industrial

Mixed Use

Floor Area Ratio 0.3 Built-Up Ratio 2.1 Impermeability Ratio 0.5

Vacant Buildings Occupation of buildings "in rotation" within the industrial areas Occupation of buildings over 40-yearsold

Green Ratio 0.25

*land-use shift diagrams developed based on the "VISIONS AND CONCEPTS FOR THE SPATIAL POLICY PLAN OF FLANDERS" study commissioned by ‘Ruimte Vlaanderen, 2013 GSPublisherVersion 0.0.100.100

Green as the Re-qualifier of the Built-up area. The municipality has the potential to restore the ecological corridor as well restructure the urban, by both giving a new function to the industrial parks as well as to any vacant plots and buildings found throughout the two settlements.

Green Structure (Agriculture + Forest)

Buildings older than 40 years Unbuilt plots

Buildings in rotation

Commercial buildings along the Grote Baan

Vacant buildings

Land Use Shift Target Area

OCCUPATION

Projected Urban growths Without any intervention on the current mode of development of HH, urbanisation would simply consume all the remaining open space through infills.The regional zonal plan regulates the extents of extension and only avails spaces of possible spaces of development growth. Development would continually consume the green and the farmlands leading to more loss of the quality of ecology in the area.

To ensure that the city continues to grow, but mindful of the ecological corridors it contains, a set of strategies were conceived to ensure that the city grew within new parameters. The first measure to take place is to give new regulations in relation to the occupation of the plots, ensuring each resident contributes to the green corridor, turning the municipality into a forest city.

OCCUPATION

N719 The N719 is an important regional East-West connection. It crosses many centers, amongst which Helchteren, and is as such strongly defined the alternation of urban and natural environments it is passing through. It hosts the important nodes that connect HH with settlements and towns in the area. The N719 softly connects over it’s length the valley landscape with the Campine plateau. As the N719 moves from the west to the east, a transition occurs from more extensively urbanized terrain in the valley to more extensive natural areas on the plateua, from fragmented nature within an almost continuous urban field to patches of urbanized within large landscape figures.

23 N719

Urban Continuities

Imagining the municipality of HH without the Grote Baan allows to value, to begin with, and thereafter to rethink the local network.The network combines often different scales: neighborhood, urban or regional, all is combined in one rather heterarchical system. Although the heterarchical character could be a valuable asset, it misses some clarity. The proposal is therefor to canalize (regional) through traffic on well-defined E-Wcorridor streets. A sequence of roads then work as an interface between the regional net and the neigborhoods, while simultaneously functioning as interfaces between ecological and anthropic systems.

historical interpretation of Helchteren through notation of continities of: - urban voids - mobility systems - water system - landscape parcels - urban greens - main built elements

main elements: - urban-nature continuities - high-low topographies - nature differentiations - interregional and local connections - from North-South to East-West - new role of the roads

24 N719

Iosif Panel 2 N719 as Landscape Figure

Green Structures connector of existing green urban elements collector elements

urban

landscape definition

urban voids

main urban elements

Bicycle lanes system

25 N719

Interpretative section

Helcherenbos

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Lil LILLO

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De Luchtfabriek

Ko ol

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Coal t

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Speedway Club Helzold

Spoorweg ek

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Zolder Station

Bosresevaat Op den Aenhof

redefinition as a landscape figure, accommodating a mobility transition As a historic regional connection, the N719 was strongly embedded within the landscape. This quality severely eroded with successive road modernizations, widenings and the suburbanization around it. This quality can however be recovered and enhanced by articulating the N719 itself as a strong landscape figure, that is sensitive and permeable to the landscape and its ecosystems dynamics. Brouwerij De Dool

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Sporthal Helchteren

Tree planting is key to this transformation of a mono-technical and sterile road into a space, into a landscape figure that can accommodate different (mobility) uses. Tree planting can actually anticipate an eventual re-profiling of the integral road surface and instantly turn the civil infrastructure into a civic space.

As such the N719 is reconceived, to begin with, as a qualitative space, shared (by different mobility media). It’s spatial re-organization integrates bike lanes and pedestrian paths. Different transport modi can co-exist (with their separate civil infrastructures or simply shared).

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Gemeentehuis Sint-Trudokerk

Don Bosco Technisch Instituut

Cemetery

HELCHTEREN

Basisschool “De Biekorf”

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New buildings Existing paths and tracks New pedestrian paths New bikelane spine Road spine Centrality

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Infrastructure, Embedded in Landscape Nature is the main asset of Helchteren. Hence the design strengthens the landscape to increase its capacity to host elements of urbanity, define a system of public spaces, and framing infrastructure.

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This node is a articulated as a hinge between residential and urban fabric and between nature and urban, The landscape is strengthened to create an appropriate and qualitative environment to host a general road structure, bus and bike lanes, acces to railway station and other public spaces, ecological corridors.

c-c’ New buildings New pedestrian paths New bikelane spine New road/plaza New Trees

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Helchteren: a Forest Clearing Helchteren is embedded within a forest system and the design proposal enforces this green structure in such a way that it simultaneously spatially organizes elements of urbanity as the road, public space, an industrial allotment, suburban housing estate, etc. Reinforcing the forest as a continuous environment is key to this strategy.

Vacancy, the Invitation Taken in by Green Public Space

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The center of Helchteren is characterized by many vacancies that eventually have a residual use, such as parking lots. Systematically reclaiming these voids allow to create common lands and public space. Like the traditional ‘dries’, these new landscape figures generate simultaneously nature and flexible public space. Interconnecting them with a system of new and old paths allows to weave in a soft mobility net within the existing urban fabric, revealing a townscape, that through its landscape accommodates new mobility and vice versa.

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New buildings New pedestrian paths New bikelane spine New road/plaza New Trees

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ebikeway, recycled and new As it passes through HH, the ebikeway goes through and along the industrial, residential patches, the two town centers of Houthalen and Helchteren and crosses a green valley. Some segments are brand new (along Centrum Zuid for example), other segments recycle the typically oversized and car-based road infrastructure of HH. Brand new or recycled, the profile of the ebikeway is always a landscape. The ebikeway is indeed a landscape figure in which a bike-infrastructure is embedded. As such the ebikeway weaves itself in into the fabric of HH and by doing so it induces a new spatiality, becoming a host for soft mobility and sociality. Each of HH’s patches is indeed redefined by the ebikeway. Centrum Zuid is sandwiched between the coal track and ebikeway, HH’s double helix of soft mobility. Consequently, a perpendicular local bike-accessnet that limits crossings with the road net to the absolute minimum, is attached to this helix. This distorting move gives direction to the sustainable restructuring of Centrum Zuid. Similarly the center of Houthalen (and of Helchteren) is reoriented by the introduction of the ebikeway. The ebikeway, as a ebike-infrastructure embedded in a landscape figure (parkway), is indeed inducing a new form of urbanity that combines the new strengths of HH: landscape (omni-)presence & soft mobility.

steep slopes of the Campine plateau existing forested areas ecological corridor (heath) the coal track new ebikeway

EBIKEWAY

ebikeway parkway

ebikeway crossing the green valley

EBIKEWAY

You said NS? The studio focused on the qualities of the EW structures, yet in our research by design we cannot escape the relation between the NS and EW. If only because the EW structures only function if they can cross the NS in one way or another. Therefore the studio explores three hypotheses: -the NS in its current situation but detached from EW - the NS in a tunnel giving priority to the EW connections - team members:Mavia Elis Locia Matchowani,Nguyen Minh Quang, Otoya Nieto, Shah Nikita Maheshkumar, - the NS in a tunnel giving priority to the EW connections -team memebers: Khalil Dur-e-shahwar, Muiruri David Njenga, Ishmawi Sandy E I, Yoseph Samrawit Yohannes - the Grand Road replaced by a bypass giving the opportunity to integrate the space of the Grand Road in an EW logic. - team members: Antonio Alfredo Manhota, Athanasiou Iosif Petros, Finotello Marta, Purnama Bindi Raditya,

The coal track positions itself predominantly on the slope between the Campine plateau and the Demer valley. While it serves the previous mining sites, it follows basically East-West-direction. As an almost horizontal infrastructure it is superimposed on the landscape. Sometimes it is elevated, sometimes it is carved out, mostly it is on the same level as the landscape. In HH the coal track changes position to the South. Hence it becomes part of a bundle of superimposed north-south directed infrastructures that define ruptures in the original landscape structure.

BYPASS

Bypass Scenario

Traffic of the Grote Baan is taken over by a by-pass connecting the N74 north of Helchteren to the highway E314, south of Houthalen. Crossing different landscapes and topographic conditions the bypass design adapts to the context. On the higher part of the plateau in the North a tunnel safeguards continuity for the heath habitat. When it passes through the pine forest, the profile is carved in the ground, while in the valley, it turns into a viaduct crossing the Lillo. It stays on a high embankment further south to end in an open tunnel that crosses the industrial plateau of Centrum Zuid and links up with the E314 highway. The HH exit of the E314 is abolished and replaced with a exit on the bypass that leads to Centrum Zuid. This way Centrum Zuid becomes a filter that blocks all direct connection between the local net of HH and the highway system. The abundance of space on Centrum Zuid gives possibilities to make it function as a transferium.

BYPASS

NS : as it is The existing soft mobility network Though intended as a NS regional connection, Grote Baan became the new main street of HH. As HH oriented itself partially to it during the last decades, Grote Baan in HH is now an oversized space with a combination of interregional traffic, regional traffic, local traffic, bike paths, walkways and access to various shops, services and housing. It goes without saying that this is a few roles too many. It also goes without saying that the gigantic amount of traffic (with a very high concentration of trucks) has turned the Grote Baan into a major threat of public health and liveability in general. Grote Baan is a major cause of the deterioration of HH. In the situation where Grote Baan continues to be the NS connection between Eindhoven and Hasselt, the proposal is to radically disconnect the regional flow from any local net. The number of lanes is reduced. Existing entry and exit junctions are re-appropriated to make an efficient regional NS connection without any stops in HH. Keeping the NS connection on the existing Grote Baan requires a general aforestation program of HH to mitigate fine dust, air and noise pollution which are currently at alarming levels.

The space of Grote Baan is repurposed into a landscape element that separates NS from HH, and joins with other landscape systems of HH. This landscape element is created from a catalog of profiles that adapt to the segment of HH the NS is passing through. The NS is partially cut into the ground and the earth is used to create strong profiles that create a first filter for the noise, pollution and fine dust that NS brings to HH.

AS IT IS

TUNNEL