Living in the Bocage Landscape
| Location: | Denderleeuw, Belgium |
|---|---|
| Status: | Competition Finalist |
| Date: | 2021-2022 |
| With: | Metapolis, Traject, IDEA Consult |
We believe that sustainability is about learning to live at peace with our environment. To do this, we must understand the identities of the local landscapes and ecosystems, and appreciate their unique features so they may play a defining role in people’s daily lives.
Our proposal, “Living in the Bocage Landscape” creates a neighbourhood of 320 new homes that aims to channel the local landscape identities of the bocage, with its patchwork of agricultural fields, arbors and hedgerows, to structure appropriate urban densification, fostering community building, healthy living, economic growth, and increased biodiversity.
We believe the site can not only be a pleasant living environment for humans, but also a qualitative habitat for all kinds of animals. The Natura2000 zone shows that very high-quality nature on a limited surface is possible here.
We want to form a stepping stone in an ecological corridor through built-up and undeveloped areas, where all kinds of species can migrate to the newly created nature areas (toads and salamanders in the wet areas, bees and insects in the flower meadows and orchards, bats and bird species in the trees).
To successfully develop the project with local expertise, especially during COVID times, we formed a team of like-minded local designers and consultants that include Metapolis as well as Mobility consultant Traject, and sustainable development and Real Estate consultant IDEA Consult.
The Site in Context
Denderleeuw is situated in between two large-scale open space structures:
In the west a vast agricultural area structured by a number of streams such as Molenbeek or Wildebeek that flow into the Dender, acting as a network of ecological corridor composed of swamp forests and poplar groves.
In the east is a lower flood-prone valley composed of marshy meadows, numerous water bodies and dense forests.
The site itself is a triangular zone of bocage (fields bound by ecologically-rich buffers), defined by residential streets (“ribbon” development) to the North and West, and by railroad tract to the East. The core of the site is prone to flooding.
There are only three access points into the site, one from the North, one from the Northeast, and one from the Southwest. Each creates different opportunities to connect the new neighbourhood to Denderleeuw’s pedestrian and vehicular networks. The North access point is a key connection point between the nearby sports facilities and the core of the new development site. On the other hand, the Southwest connection point leads directly to the promising, but currently underused urban node of Iddergem with shops, a school and a church.
The Masterplan
We believe that the following composition of spaces can promote social cohesion in the neighbourhood, with various spaces fostering diverse interactions: Around the communal lawn you are in close contact with your closest neighbours, the front gardens on the street side facilitate conversation with the neighbours across the street, etc…
The masterplan is structured around four types of spaces:
A central neighborhood park that takes the potentially flood-prone area and the latent power of the canal as a starting point. Neighborhood gardens overflow into it. Together with trees and water, they form a reinterpretation of the bocage landscape.
The outer ring is a productive edge, with denser forestation alluding to the swamp forests of the region's typical meersen. It also acts as a buffer against the noise of the railway and a view through the backyards of the local residents. A number of existing parks, groves and plots with an ambiguous status are also included. The denser green border acts as a biodiverse green zone, a suitable habitat for animals and insects. In this productive edge fields mingle with vegetable gardens, orchards and parking bays and habitat nodes.
Between the productive edge and the open park landscape, we organize the housing as a series of residential courtyards giving out on the central park. U-shaped groups of buildings with an alternating code of strips of terraced houses and park villas around a communal green zone, with back gardens that continue into the shared courtyard.
On the other side of the courtyard, the houses along residential streets, a kind of car-free residential areas where the car can drive but is not allowed to park, so that the street becomes a social and child-friendly place.
Rows of trees, water features and soft paths run through these different parts of the master plan and connect them with each other.
The site is designed as a series of overlapping ecological and healthy living systems: water management, biodiversity, production landscapes and transportation
Walkable multi-generational communities integrated within the landscape
Productive gardens build communities around the values of healthy living and sharing
The bocage landscape acts as a rich biodiverse space and water management system
Various flexible housing typologies help create a demographically diverse neighbourhood (apartments, small houses, co-housing, assisted living, etc…)