SCHEPDAAL - Running track and football field
design: landscape intervention with a running track, footballfield, storage space and stand
type: landscape
client: Dilbeek
designteam: Studio Thomas Willemse in collaboration with Metapolis (Cristian Panaité, Mircea Munteanu)
water management: Tractebel
time: 2017-2019
images running track and view over the valley and running track - Jeroen Verrecht
The barefoot running track of about 950m is the spine to restructure the clogged-up interstitial space on the site. Because of the ad hoc adding of auxiliary functions, storage spaces, etc. around the playing fields, the interstitial spaces between the larger plateaus – football fields, parking lot, graveyard – became ever more narrow. The landscape intervention of the barefoot running track is taken as the opportunity to gather the small questions of the multiple associations in a larger landscape framework: a new entrance for the graveyard, storage spaces for the football fields, an outdoor fitness, a water retention pond to alleviate the drainage issues, … In this way the project is a win-win situation for all parties that keep their own fields but get more in return because of a collective intervention.
The impermeable clay layer of the site periodically transformed the lower football field into a muddy pond. This field is replaced by an artificial turf where all the rainwater is collected in an underground rainwater buffer and a landscaped retention pond. The collected water can then be used to irrigate the higher football field and the smaller training field.
The running track winds through the landscape and has staged scenes: from the public entrance on the square, through the forested edge the route opens to a wide view over the valley landscape.