This edition we are working on the brand new Wiedauwkaai Business Park. It seems like a virgin site. No historical artifacts this time. And yet concrete boxes are springing up from the ground at breakneck speed. Here and there there is even a relic of an earlier one. A boat repairman, a lost carpenter. The newcomers are screened by the city. You can’t just get in there. The conditions are strict, electricity consumption is mandatory CO2 neutral. In addition to the business function, only the necessary offices and one integrated home are possible.
It is the biotope where Willy Naessens is at home.
In groups of two you will look for the identity of the place. Without blinders and with a fresh eye for the banal. What are the standard elements of industrial construction? What determines the environment? How can you make a difference for the future, what is truly circular construction?
You make two designs. One for now for a specific company that meets the requirements and a second that focuses on the future and on living. A contemporary utopia.
What about the strange urban development rules that allow the site to be completely closed up. What about the public space? The architecture lies in the space in between. The potential added value is where your plot borders that of your neighbors. Remember that you are making a city together. Now the border is still hard and clear with the surrounding neighborhoods, but when you are finished, the new free port must merge with the urban fabric. The whole must be so good that a new generation of architects who have to breathe new life into the hundreds of years old business park will radically opt for renovation instead of tabula rasa. Talking about circular.