STW0022 – DENDERLEEUW – Wolfsgracht
design: Wolfsgracht master plan for around 250 new homes and an inner park area
type: urbanism and landscape
client: Gemeente Denderleeuw + SOLVA
designteam urbanism and landscape: Studio Thomas Willemse, part of collective act.
designteam architecture and urbanism: agmen
financial adviser: Orientes
expert in sustainability, mobility, ecology and water management: Tractebel
time: 2020-2022
It seems heartbreaking to carve up one last big open space into an allotment development. We don't want to fragment this big open space. By adding the housing in the periphery a framework for the open space is created. Making room for the water of Wolfsgracht will also make room for nature. In the middle of the site, this creates a common place between landscape and buildings that everyone can use and where different landscapes come together: a park of landscapes. It is a place where you can exercise, where there is a meadow to play, but equally a soft heart for nature. It is a landscape in motion where meadows change with the seasons, where local residents help care for the open space, where poplars grow and are harvested and where nature gradually takes shape. A few simple lines collect the water from Wolfsgracht instead of draining it directly. The simple geometric intervention is the seed for wild nature along the jagged waterline that emerges.
Between the productive landscape and the neighbourhood, neighbourhood brinks as green spaces appear. These form a common place for new and existing neighbourhood residents. The new housing will have its place between this shared brink and the wide views and landscape of the park. Between and throughout the various buildings, there are openings that bring the natural urban landscape to the neighbourhood brink. The atmosphere refers to that of a village green of yesteryear. The diverse and distinctive housing typologies are a mix of traditional and innovative forms of living and each respond in its own way to its surroundings. They also reinforce it. Their architectural language is uniform, timeless and above all solid. The homes are mostly compact, enjoying the rich landscapes of the brinks and the comfortable proximity of all shared facilities.