ANTWERP ARCHIPELAGO Dwelling in the park
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The site of Antwerp’s New South is an intersectional area between the parkway of the Green Singel, the Scheldt River and the center of Antwerp. In general, the motorway is considered to be a rupture in the city, a vast borderland between the inner (medieval and 19th century) city and the former villages and 20th century parts of the city that lay outside of it. However, analysis of this Green Singel structure shows an interesting sets of buildings, which look like “pebbles” in a “green river”. The majority of these modernistic building types offer their users something quit unique: a view with long perspectives over a landscape, at locations that are relatively close to the center of the city, often combined with an enjoyable local park. 2
So, it turns out that the ‘rupture’ is (also) a collector of very special and often qualitative clusters. This design takes this quality as a starting point: it an opportunity to continue Green Singel to impressively meet the river: a big vibrant open park that is a great dwelling environment for its residents and neighbors, but also offers a fantastic recreational landscape for everyone in the city of Antwerp.
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Housing typologies
Explanation schemes
Firstly, building position and orientation ensure that every apartment have wide view to landscape, as can be recognized in the ‘Kiel’ residential project by Bream. Secondly, ensembles such a cultural center ‘De Singel’ make clear distinction between the public domain and serene inside garden courtyard. Finally, without losing the landscape that everyone can enjoy by minimizing the infrastructure though street orientation and parking area position. The main principle in the design of the ‘Archipelago’ masterplan is to use landscape element to define clusters of housing. In order to do so, existing terrain is manipulated slightly to remake the site topography. The housing positions are on the higher levels, while long open views are kept open in between. Following the analysis of existing clusters, each building in a cluster has at least two views: to a collective space within the 4
cluster and to the outer park landscape. This public park is designed to be meadow land with smaller landscape element such as water ponds and clumps of trees. In contrast, the inner landscapes of the clusters tend to have a more mineral materialization. They are designed to be flexible for various community activities by using orthogonally ordered furniture elements (such as trees, tiles, benches, grass, play equipment, etc.) to delineate specific spaces and programs. Waterfront in the design concept is considered as another important element which value the site by its potential of making an open space connect Green Singel with the Schelt river. Into specific, step and stone system (innovation of quay planning dealing with flooding problem) combining with landscape element (which is the continuity of inner landscape) are created to form the whole quay design.
Zoom 1 | Typical floor plan
Zoom 2 | Typical floor plan
Zoom 1 | Ground floor plan
Zoom 2 | Ground floor plan
New South elevation
Lake perspective
Inner landscape perspective
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Project’s process
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Project’s model
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