Restart for the Coast

Idea projektu

My project was developed as my Master Thesis at KU Leuven - Faculty of Architecture in Ghent. The overall topic of my campus is Resilient and sustainable strategies in architecture. This is not seen merely as a green architecture with low energy consumption, but mostly as a complex approach, including social, financial and other aspects. Our master studio, lead by Martino Tattara from Dogma Architecture, very much fit into this frame. The focus was put on housing problematics, with the emphasis on an overlooked possible solution for the housing crisis in Belgium, such as transformation, subdivision or even demolition of underused housing. Part of the research was also on innovative housing typologies, which would better reflect current housing demand.

Popis projektu

I am searching for the solution for some of the greatest issues of Flanders, which is lost the relationship with the landscape, urban fragmentation and missing flexible and affordable housing. As a testing site, I have chosen a part of Flemish coastline, characterized by its linear development along the seashore with the preserved landscape at the back. I worked across multiple scales from territorial to an individual house. I have recreated a meaningful relationship with the landscape, added missing public amenities and densified urban areas. The greatest part of my work is focused on the transformation of holiday parks with mobile homes, which are being slowly abandoned, into new neighbourhoods. I kept the spatial layout and existing technical infrastructure, which allows the change to happen over the period of time.

Technické informace

The coastal territory in Belgium is a very peculiar place. As a tourist who is coming for a visit, you see only nice beaches, promenades with expensive restaurants and many attractions which makes you not to think about what lies behind all that. Tourism for the Belgian coastline is both salvation and destruction. It brings large amounts of money into the region, but on the other hand, regular inhabitants are left behind and municipalities are doing more for occasional visitors. The bathing resorts that emerged in last century chaotically filled up an almost entire stretch of coast and took a big chunk of the valuable landscape. The formerly compact small towns and villages have grown significantly and totally lost bond with the surroundings and became disconnected from the constraints of territory. This exploiting relationship of towns with the landscape started before 150 years and persists until today. The municipalities do not have a shared vision concerning new development and there is no cooperation across the scales – from territorial to architectural. The region has many social and economic problems which are spanning across these scales and because of this lacking strategy, they are left unsolved. The goal of my thesis is to precisely define the problems that Belgian coastline territory has, even those that are not visible on the first sight, and by complex strategy contribute to their solution. This strategy that I am proposing is extending over multiple scales and aims to serve as a catalyst for a positive change of the region. Change towards the new coast, where settlements have a more meaningful relationship with the territory, where inhabitants are not left out forgotten, where is enough of possibilities and values to live a regular meaningful life. The large-scale part of the project that I have designed is a strengthening infrastructural armature which is connecting the whole territory and adding new missing slow-mobility means – bike paths and pedestrian transversal links. At the same time, it works as a stabilizing element for new development, which is redefining the seams between the built and unbuilt and recreating the mutual relationship between them. New public space and amenities are built along this territorial infrastructural artery. In intermediate scale, I am defining the key sites at the municipal level, for new growth as well as for the demolition. This is done in order to make the territory work as a whole, get rid of bottlenecks which are fragmenting the landscape, and also to select the most valuable building plots for new public facilities, which would then become functional also in large scale. In a smaller scale, I am focusing on declining camping sites and holiday parks and I am giving an example, how municipalities should tackle these plots in upcoming years. I had rethought the trailer park, kept the valuable infrastructure and proposed a new innovative form of housing on the similar spatial layout as they currently have. These three scales work as one whole and each other can’t work well without other two. By this, I am reacting to current lack of cooperation between different scales in urban planning, which often results in isolated development without any relationship with the whole. I believe that only multi-scale approach across the time can provide an answer to the current coastal crisis.