Reframing Ghent

LEAN BACK AT THE CASTLE

_Reframing Ghent

Lien Van Holm - Maximo Santos - Oanh Nguyen - Petra Ross - Vasco Reis

Design studio - 1st Ma Int - lead by Johannes Strรถhmenger Berry & Wim Goes - 06/2015

Intro

The assignment “Reframing Ghent” gave us the possibility to discover the city in another way. The way we were exploring the city, made us look different at things, not only as a designer but moreover as a person that experiences daily life.

From exploring to detailing the project, the working process can be seen as an unpredictable journey which was inpsired by experiences on site. Observing our site and comparing it to similar places made us discover new things every week. We started with the water as a dynamic element, went deeper into the topic by researching the “edge”,...

What could be our intervention? Keep on reading...

Content

GROUP 18

Our team of international master of architecture students: Lien / Belgium, Oanh / Vietnam, Maximo/ Mexico, Petra / Czech Republic, Vasco / Portugal.

Week 01

Water

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Week 02

Living boat

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Week 03

Canal route

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Week 04

Site visit

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Week 05

Edge

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Week 06

Dead end park

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Week 07

Layering the City

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Week 08

Workshop week

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Week 09

Elements

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Week 10

Temporality

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Week 11

Elimination

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Week 12

Connecting path

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Week 13

Entrances

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Week 14

Final project

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Visual

Perspectives

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Drawings

Section Elevation

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Details

Elements Structure

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Week 1

WATER

Water is omnipresent in Ghent, it defines the city. We were very interested in this element already from the beginning. History, monuments and waterways became the starting point of our searching process.

Gravensteen in history

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Waterways

Roads

Building blocks

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Week 2

LIVING BOAT

Interview of the boat owner of Ecohostel on Bargiekaai (18.02.2015) • 200 livingboats in Ghent • 20 on bargiekaai • other places are Dok, Visserij and Verbindingskanaal (Visserij is the most expensive) • Who owns the water? private company WENZ (Waterwegen en Zeekanalen) owns the water in Ghent • The citizens who live on the water don’t have the same rights as the other citizens • contract price and utility cost go up every year - they have to pay 5000 euro to connect to electricity and water • living on the water is like living on another layer of the city • “This is not a lifestyle. This is a choice that we took. First we thought it would be easy, but now things are more complicated than before.”

• Why is that difficult to live on the water?

You need both the permission from the owner of the water canals and the municipality.

The two parties contradict each other which creates a lot of trouble for the boatowners to achieve a living place and have the rights...

• Which kind of legal formality do u need to live on the water?

We have a 12 years contract with the private company who owns the water.

10 perspectives how to experience water

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• Is deck your front yard?

It feels like you enter somebody’s home when you step on the deck of the boat • Can you do some changes on the pathway?

No, we don’t own it.

• The riverside is covered by grass, but unused. Who owns it?Why is nobody doing something with it (like sheeps on the coupure)?

The riversides are also from private owners, nobody actually knows who’s property it is. The ecohostel tries to uses it by planting herbs and plants.

• Let’s say we want to buy a boat and live on a boat, what steps do we have to undertake?

According to the owner it is very difficult nowadays, he advised us not to do it.

• Do u stay on one place?

Yes we stay here, but every 5 years we have to go to the port for a maintenance.

• Do u have a fixed adress?

Yes we have a number like a normal house. Some of the boat owners even a doorbell.

• Where is the entrance?

We had some trouble finding the owners of the boat, because there were two doors and there is not an indication which one is the private or semi-public. Later we discovered that the owners lived in the cabine.

• According to the men we spoke, the people living on the water don’t have the same rights in practice as the people living in a house on the land.

• The water is purified on the roof of the boat. There is no system to recycle gray water.

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Week 3

CANAL ROUTE

In week 3 we approached the water in several ways. Each track gave us a different experience. According to the perspective, level to the water, you had a different experience or position: stairs, tunnels, underpass, boat, suspended platforms, bridges....

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Week 4

SITE VISIT

In week 4 we presented our site to the fellow students and tutors. We took them for a little walk, so they could experience the different levels of the water in a similar way as we did.

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NIGHT VISION A particular approach to water BOAT The observer RAINY AGAIN? Exposed

THE BEST SHOT Open invitations ME & GRAVENSTEEN Edge contrast PICK YOUR VIEW Trigger your curiosity

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Week 5

EDGE

A little research about the edges was conducted in several ways. On the one hand the physical edge: border of the water and on the other hand the symbolic value of the edge.

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Week 6

DEAD END PARK

To obtain a different viewpoint we searched for a different but similar site: Wille de Beersteeg parc. Both of the sites are dead end parks, but they have a totally different context and scale. We used the second site for experiments and comparism to our site (Sint-widostraat park).

ACTION AND LEARNING SITE SINT-WIDOSTRAAT PARK

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LEARNING SITE WILLEM DE BEESTEEG PARK

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Week 7

LAYERING THE CITY

Peel the city into layers and observe. Once you try to go really deeper and think about how the place was literally created, you can discover an interesting story.

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Week 8

WORKSHOP WEEK

We made an experiment - performance to see what can happen between dynamic water element and static shores. Can we provoke the relation of the action and reaction while boats pass in between? We discovered that the fewer actions we did the more people in the boats reacted, the place needs little interventions instead of big gestures.

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Week 9

ELEMENTS

The review was a verification for us to see how good we understood our site so far. We tried to map all the key elements which characterize the site and oppose them to each other. This was also the moment when we started to research the pop-up phenomenon and temporary structure.

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Week 10

TEMPORALITY

The site is full of contrast and dualities: activity and intimacy, permanent and temporary, massive and light, water and land,...The challenge is to do an intervention without changing the atmosphere of the place. What can happen on the construction site?

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Week 11

ELIMINATION

We were always very focused on the park and construction site, but this time we tried to act more open and take into consideration the complete surrounding and ask “What if we eliminate or add elements?�

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Week 12

CONNECTING PATH

You can find castles in meadows, in the water or on rocks. Every castle has a completely different expression. We had two possible choices. The first one was making the castle more monumental by bringing the water back. The second option was making the castle less visible by making the land around it bigger. We choose the second option because this gives us the possibility to give the castle back to the people.

ACTIVE

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shade . going under the water level

sun - sitting part

PASSIVE

Experience the gradient

in the shadow of Gravensteen

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Week 13

ENTRANCES

Gravensteen is only accesible by one main entrance. The path we implemented has two entrances. Each entrance has its own identity according to its context. The connection to the Rekelingstraat gives a cozy feeling because its enclosed and there is only one access (ladder). The connection point to the Geldmuntstraat is easily accessible.

raat

Geldmunt st

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Entrance to Gravensteen

at

gstra

lin Reke

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Week 14

FINAL PROJECT

We implemented a path (1 to 2,3 metre wide) around the castle. The path is a temporary light structure in contrast to the heavy castle.

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VISUAL

PERSPECTIVES

Water is omnipresent on our site. On our path people can experience the water from a different angle: you can sit down, your feet can touch the water or you can sit with your back against the wall of the castle.

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DRAWINGS

SECTIONS

Close to the Geldmunt street, the water is just a few centimeter deep. It is a suitable condition for planted marshland. From the other side is the street much higher and if you want to enter, you have to use ladder first.

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DRAWINGS

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ELEVATION

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DETAILS

ELEMENTS OF THE STRUCTURE

For the structure we choosed the Long-leaved Pine, which is known for shipbuilding and his water resistance. The path is supported by columns that are stuck on the ground underwater. Once that all the pieces are cut off, it is pretty simple to assemble the structure, no need for many tools, a hammer is enough. All the pieces fit together and with small pieces of wood placed in the gaps of the joints, the structure becomes tighter and stiff.

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DETAILS

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STRUCTURE

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Will they ever stop renovating the castle Gravensteen?

The monument seems to be a never-ending construction site in the middle of the city centre of Ghent. In the back of Gravensteen we discovered a small dead end park. This place inspired us by its specific character, intimacy and fragility and later on it became our habitat for project.

During the research period we discovered a lot of elements, which were in contrast to each other. Permanent versus temporary, heavy versus fragile, dynamic versus static, exposed versus protected, ... Our site - Sint Widostraat park has a strong relation with the castle and the construction site next to it. The construction site is spread around the castle, encloses the park and provides for both of them feeling protection. Presence of dynamic water element plays a fundamental role for us the whole time. You are exposed to attention of the tourists in the boats and you can observe them as well. Just for a moment....

We wanted to incorporate the feelings and experiences which we discovered within this context. The site has a lot of different parameters and by playing with them, we tried to make an intervention without changing too much of the cozy hidden park atmosphere. By removing the construction site and allowing the water to go around the castle, we created the same feeling of exposing and enclosing. In the same time the Gravensteen became very monumental and as it used to be, it´s only accessible by one entrance. We want to give the castle back to the people by creating accesible pathway with two specific connection points, each carrying its own identity . One connection point in the back of the side of the castle, Geldmunt, and one connection on the site of Veerleplein.