BASSIN VERGOTE

Refurbishment of the commercial harbour of Bruxelles Bruxelles, 1000

Margherita Pagani. Diploma project with Professor Frédéric Bonnet.

The project idea started with the analysis of the entire Brussels Canal and on the masterplan produced by the Brussels City Council called “Horizon 2040”.This masterplan involves improvements through the canal area. There are some long-term goals for the localized areas, in particular, talking about the harbour around the Bassin Vergote, the main goal is the urban logistics intensification around the costruction sector, the productive activity that characterizes the area. In addition to water transport, the one to be preferred in terms of costs and pollution, the site is strategic for the distribution of raw materials for construction with land transport: it is part of the project “Horizon 2040” also the new tir center where the intercity transports have been conveyed.Another significant theme is the citizen’s spatiaand visual relationship with water: for the entire length of the channel there is at least one bank that is accessible, except for the Bassin Vergote. The spatial ruptures are both physical and visual due to traffic problems and visual obstacles. The site’s main topic is about fluxes: every existing industry needs a connection with water for the blue transport and a connection with the street for the TIR one. Because of these flows, which make the area alive from the economic point of view, peo - ple tend to use alternative roads to move and the site represent an urban void. The project aim to divide the private, the semiprivate and the public areas of the site in order to bring back citizens to use the banks of the basin and to make the most of the relationship with water. Getting more into the project there are three key elements: the industrial park with the preservation of existing industries, the promenade: an elevated walkway to solve the crossing of people and TIR and the social condenser, punctual interventions around the basin to revitalize it.Existing industries and new interventions coexist forming a sequence of different spaces, each with its own peculiarities. It’s a system of public spaces that lay between the leftover space of the industrial buildings and doesn’t want to create a ceasure between the public and the industrial space but, on the contrary, try to embrace them.I added some punctual intervention around the basin following the needs of the area:t here are two green areas, in correspondance with the entrances of the area: one from the city centre and one from the masui district. The two walkways, elevated both for the security of people and in order to create different point of views of the area and the new buildings, linked to the promenade.The site works as an unit: people here can simply cross the site, can learn, can live, can produce and can expose their art.