STW0068 – BORGLOON - Beguinage housing
design: masterplan and execution of social rental and private housing with park
client: Wonen in Limburg
design team urbanism and landscape: Studio Thomas Willemse - collaborator: Bram Vidts
design team architecture and urbanism: agmen
periode: 2025-…
visualisation: agmen
NL / EN
At the edge of Borgloon’s historic centre, a new residential project emerges where city and landscape are interwoven—just as the beguinage once formed a transition from the urban core to the surrounding countryside. Both qualities converge on this site.
Topography as a readable palimpsest: the wooded slopes of Borgloon accommodate stronghold, beguinage and park, creating a contemporary living environment.
The urban reading reveals the layered past of Borgloon: a wooded hillside crowned by a stronghold, the origin of the city. This existing topography forms the foundation of the design. Steep slopes are defined by clusters of trees, while the more gentle terrain accommodates productive fruit trees, meadows, and gardens.
EXPERIENTIAL PARK - A soft zigzag path connects all courtyards—both existing and new—making the park landscape in between fully accessible to everyone, regardless of age or mobility. The experience map reveals a wide variety of outdoor spaces: from a cultivated city park to collective vegetable gardens, wooded zones, and natural meadows at the site’s edge.
COLLECTIVE COURTYARDS - Alongside the park lie the collective courtyards, featuring central green lawns inspired by the historical beguinage that once occupied this place. Around these courtyards, the housing completes a gradual transition—from compact row houses typical to the urban centre to freestanding dwellings that arrived later —combining urban density with landscape openness.
By linking the site’s rich history to contemporary needs, a new spatial layer is added: a palimpsest from stronghold to beguinage.