cyclic urbanism: linking cycles, rethinking territories, and imagining futures

Spring Studio 2016: Cyclic UrbanismRacha Daher, Bruno De Meulder

CYCLIC URBANISMLinking Cycles, Rethinking Territories, and Imagining Futures

K.U.Leuven, Master of Human Settlements, Master of Urbanism and Strategic Planning

CYCLIC URBANISM STUDIO | Spring 2016

STUDIO TUTORS AND COORDINATORSRacha Daher, Bruno De Meulder

STUDIO SUPPORT TEAMJulie Marin, Cecilia Furlan

PUBLICATION EDITORRacha Daher

FOR MORE INFOMAHS / MAUSP / EMU Master ProgramsDepartment ASRO, K.U.Leuven KasteelparkArenberg 1, B-3001 Heverlee, BelgiumTel: + 32(0)16 321 391Email: [email protected]

CYCLIC URBANISM: Linking Cycles, Rethinking Territories, and Imagining Futures

ISBN: 9789460189975Wettelijk depot: D/2016/7515/17 Copyright by K.U.LeuvenWithout written permission of the promotors and the authors it is forbidden to reproduce or adapt in any form or by any means any part of this publication. Requests for obtaining the right to reproduce or utilize parts of this publication should be addressed to K.U.Leuven, Faculty of Engineering Kasteelpark Arenberg 1, B-3001 Heverlee (Belgi). Telefoon +32-16-32 13 50 & Fax. +32-16-32 19 88.A written permission of the promotor is also required to use the methods, products, schematics and programs described in this work for industrial or commercial use, and for submitting this publication in scientific contests.

All images in this booklet are, unless credits are given, made or drawn by the authors.

GUEST CRITICS

Eliana Rosa de Queiroz Barbosa Margarita Macera CarneroErik Van DaelePatrcia FernandesCecilia FurlanHanne Van GilsDavid de Kool Salima KuenJulie MarinJeanne MosserayMatteo MottiWim WambecqGuillaume Vander VaerenToon Vanobbergen

MANY THANKS TO:

Alvin ChuaCarmen van Maercke Caterina Rosso Patrick WillemsIsabelle Verhaert

and everyone who offered insight

STUDIO PARTICIPANTS

Swagata Das | MAHS Wenbo Fu | MAUSPGavriela Georgakaki | MAUSP / EMUElena Kasselouri | MAUSP / EMUIsrael Ketema | MAUSPMengling Li | MAUSP / EMUSven Mertens | MAUSPAdam Prana | MAHSGlenn Somers | MAUSPMichal Stas | MAUSP / EMUCharlotte Timmers | MAUSPNghia Tran Dai | MAHSJingyue (Aris) Yan | MAUSP / EMUBenjamin Vanbrabant | MAUSP / EMUMaria Zouroudi | MAUSP / EMU

CYCLIC URBANISMLinking Cycles, Rethinking Territories, and Imagining Futures

Spring Studio 2016: Cyclic UrbanismRacha Daher, Bruno De MeulderK.U.Leuven, Master of Human Settlements, Master of Urbanism and Strategic Planning

Cyclic Urbanism: Linking Cycles, Rethinking Territories, and Imagining Futures4

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank Bruno De Meulder for making this possible, for sharing his knowledge and his advice, and for his limitless commitment to the development of the program.

Julie Marin, for her endless support, advice, and reference for the studio.

Cecilia Furlan for her support and involvement with the studio.

I would like to thank all the Guest Critics, as well as all those who took time off from their schedules to make themselves available to provide insights throughout the process.

The staff, for their behind the scenes work.

And of course, to the students and authors of the design research work represented here:

This book is dedicated to you, to display the fruits of your hard work.


CYCLIC URBANISMLinking Cycles, Rethinking Territories, and Imagining FuturesVolume 1

This book is part of a 3 volume series.

Volume 1 | Connecting Cycles, Rethinking Territories, and Imagining Futures

Volume 2 | Cyclic Urbanism: Investigations for The Post-Mining Territory

Volume 3 | Cyclic Urbanism: Urban Systems for The Densification of the 20th C. Belt of Antwerp

Cyclic Urbanism: Linking Cycles, Rethinking Territories, and Imagining Futures 98

Table of Contents

Preface

Framework

0.1 Ecological Urbanism0.2 Systemic Design0.3 Cyclic Urbanism

Part 1

1.0 Investigations for The Post-Mining Territory

1.1 Megalopolis, Greece Re-configuring the Productive Territory: Design Explorations for a Post-mining Era A History of the Future

1.2 Charleroi, Belgium Exploring Le Pays Noir: Design Investigations for a Productive Landscape

A History of the Future

Part 2

2.0 Urban Systems for The Densification of the 20th C. Belt of Antwerp

2.1 Antwerp, Belgium 2.1.1 Re-connecting the 20th Century Belt of Antwerp: Valorizing the Blue and Green Network as a Qualitative Infrastructure for Future Densification

2.1.2 Synergies of Waste-Energy-Mobility: Towards a More Resilient 20th Century Belt 2.1.3 Stitching the 20th Century Belt: Towards a Healthy Urbanism for Future Densification

A History of the Future Conclusion

Bibliography

Cyclic Urbanism: Linking Cycles, Rethinking Territories, and Imagining Futures 1110

Preface

By 2050, the worlds population is estimated to have increased to almost 10 billion people (United Nations, 2015). It is also estimated that 70% of this popultion will live in urban areas (United Nations, 2015). This growth, as well as the steady shift from rural to urban, will add increased pressures on already limited resources to secure global livelihoods, and on infrastructural support systems, such as energy, food, mobility, water, and waste among others. In addition, increased density will add pressure on urban areas to provide qualitative infrastructure in the form of public space and in a way that encourages health, social mixity and co-existence.

On top of that, climate change and its impact on the environment and on habitable areas, poses a major threat to our planet and calls for a re-evaluation of previous and current modes of urbanization. Diminishing fossil fuels call for a re-imagination of ways to provide alternative energy that can be renewed and replenished.

As such, the city is an ever-changing through time, eco-system that deals with multiple realities, across multiple discsiplines, and multiple scales (Mostafavi & Doherty, 2010). Top-down planning and the shaping of the form of the city (as artifact) without understanding the dynamics within which it operates, and critically evaluating and analyzing its logics, is an outdated, oblivious, and irresponsible way of dealing with the realities of the 21st century city.

There is no linear or singular way to deal with the city and its complexity.


Framework

Cyclic Urbanism: Linking Cycles, Rethinking Territories, and Imagining Futures 1514 Framework

0.1 Ecological Urbanism

In 1996 an article by Van der Ryn and Cowan in Theories and Manifestos, outlined a set of principles for ecological thinking in design. These principles stated that design that is ecological: has a deep understanding of site at the local scale - its local conditions and its people, presents accountability and consideration for environmental impact, footprint and portrays respect for nature with processes that regenerate rather than deplete, is a participatory process in which all voices involved are heard, and acts as a tool to educate and inform our place within nature (Van der Ryn & Cowan, 2006, p.168).

In 2010, Mostafavi in Ecological Urbanism went further to broaden ecological thinking as an Urbanism to portray a holistic approach that reformulates the way we think about the urban. He discusses an urbanism that deals with multiple realities that transcend traditional boundaries between disciplines, between the public and private sector, between formality and informality, between rural and urban, between real and virtual, between the visible and the invisible. As such, it advocates an openness that allows a platform for dialogue, collaboration and negotiation, as a way to deal with the fluidity of the city. It advocates looking through multiple lenses, to generate creative strategies that are multi-scalar, synthetic and can respond to a multitude of issues, allowing for flexibility and for different realities to co-exist (Mostafavi, 2010).

Ecological Urbanism, one can say, is a form of urbanism that blurs the lines between architecture, landscape architecture, urban planning and urban design. It advocates participation and looks at multiple dualities as strength as opposed to contradiction. It responds to social, political, economic, and cultural conditions and allows for future possibilities (Mostafavi, 2010).


0.2 Systemic Design

The city is a complex, man-made entity. Throughout the millenia of its history, the city has repeatedly been redefined in an attempt to understand its nature and effects, which change over time. What is a complex entity? One might say: a multifaceted arrangement of objects that interact in manifold ways. The arrangement in its entirety, also known as a system, possesses features that are not inherent in its individual parts. These are known as the emerging characteristics of the system. The city is a prime example: it is more than just an accumulation of buildings, and it cannot be explained by the characteristics of its human inhabitants alone (Oswald & Baccini, 2003, p. 36).

Geographic zoning, boundary realignment, strategic design, sub-surface programming, sectional thickening, and ecological engineering are some of the most influential mechanisms in the structural transformation of urban regions to affect the large-scale operational and logistical aspects of urbanization (Blanger, 2012, p. 301).

Systemic Design looks to a region as a domain of flows where multiple processes that are inter-linked take place, so that a product in one process has a life in another. Similar to Ecological Urbanism, it is collaborative, flexible, fluid and open. It becomes strategic, trans-boundary and trans-disciplinary, slides across scales, speeds, and systems (Blanger, 2012, p. 301).

However, it focuses much of its attention on relationships between urban infrastructure, both soft and hard, constructing them into a dynamic working operation. It differs from Ecological Urbanism in that it highlights drawing (especially the section) as a mechanism to construct linkages. Interpretative maps and sections identify components and strategies within a system, link flows and processes between infrastructures, and create narratives between surface and subsurface conditions. The system is an operational method of dialogue among complex realities.

With the blurring of lines between the disciplines of landscape architecture, urban design and urban planning, Landscape Urbanism occupies a domain where landscape and urbanism can co-exist, work on each others strengths, in a symbiotic relationship. Each discipline acts as the others bionic limb.

Due to the synthetic and time-sensitive nature of landscape (plants take time to mature and hence, go through different phases), this has brought a metabolic dimension to urbanism that deals with operations that are sensitive to natural and social processes, to time and that are open to growth and change. And since natural processes alone cannot cope with urban growth, the shared discipline allows for a nurturing cross-over that allows the ability to think about urban systems, soft and hard infastructures, and social dynamics in urban space through a system of operations that can grow through phase and change over time (Corner, 2006).

Nature produces waste as it grows (Berger, 2005, p.48). So do cities. Dealing with waste whether in the form of actual physical waste, or in the form of waste space or land, and wasted resources becomes an important component in Systemic Design. We now live in the age of the anthropocene (Sachs, 2015), where man-made activity has threatened our eco-system. Since Systemic Design is about flows, processes and operations, and is rooted in the (ecological) idea that products of one process are inter-linked with another, it searches for creative ways to redirect waste and eliminate it from the stream. Waste is then no longer waste, as it is given a new life or is converted into another resource.

Waste(d)

Landscape Urbanism


1.3 Cyclic Urbanism

Cyclic Urbanism attempts to combine the holistic approach of Ecological Urbanism as an open frame of mind that transcends boundary, discipline, scale and time, with the operational processes of Systemic Design, and in which strategies are constructed as part of a system that is circular. When applied to a region, it can instigate the transformation of regions. It is an urbanism that does not acknowledge waste production, but rather redirects it into a new life, or adapts it to new function (Berger, 2005, p. 53). In that sense, waste is not produced, but is rather productive. It further translates the strategic operations of the cyclic system into specific, contextual and spatial solutions at the local scale, and explores how they convert urban space as a productive ground.

Based on the premise that urban design is not a linear, singular idea about how the city should develop, Cyclic Urbanism is a response to growing needs of habitation, resources, and dealing with real issues that cities and their communities are facing. It is about a rational process that is based on logics of the site in its regional, neighborhood, block and human scales. It analyzes site, diagnostically identifies needs, and is about problem solving, as opposed to making forms (for the sake of form).

To properly understand site, a thorough reading of the territory, and a revealing of the systems that compose it, is essential. Soil, water, waste, energy, food, people, demographic composition, and public space are some of those systems. Every site is unique and carries with it information in a complex layering of social, natural, and physical transformations that have taken place (or that have been erased) over-time (Corboz, 1983). Those need to be de-layered and revealed before an intelligent system of interventions can be constructed.

In 1956, Sert expressed that urban design aims to find the common ground between architecture, landscape architecture and the city planner (Krieger, 2005, p.114). 60 years later, we are still trying to find that shared ground.

The studio looks at the city as a lattice (Alexander, 1965) of systems, flows, and processes that are fluid and dynamic. It attempts to blur the lines between disciplines and boundaries, and between the rural and the urban. It attempts to laterally zoom in and out of site and across systems, through time to synthesize creative solution-sets that have the power to transform the city in ways that have not been thought about, and through narratives and visualizations that represent the territory from a different light. It uses a diagnostic approach to identify issues, and come up with new ideas, and to imagine new possibilities.

The city is too complex to be understood at a single scale. The studio attempts to move across scales and times to generate relationships that could create productive spaces that are linked between the larger and smaller scales. Each scale brings a different set of knowledge to light and allows for unique properties and processes that are elastic and temporal (Kahn, 2005, p. 295).

It attempts to look at changing processes and activities, attempts to accommodate for them, and allow them to co-exist, while eliminating waste, wasteful, and wasted (Berger, 2006) from the process.

It kept an eye open to the strange urban spaces, the terrain vague, where the city is no longer (Sola-Morales, 1995, p.120), to question how these could be re-incorporated into logical systems and re-converted into productive spaces. It utilized a synthetic approach through phase and transformation over time, and questioned different ways in which voids in the city are empty but also full of potential (Sola-Morales, 1995).

The Studio


The studio attempts to design for openness and flexibility in a city that allows for future possibilities and for unexpected things to happen (Pollak, 2006, p. 138). It attempts to read the citys palimpsest, the physical territory, and the people compose it (Corboz, 1983).

It also attempts to identify different stakeholders that could possibly co-exist as part of a system and come into a productive dialogue to make future changes happen.

Through data collection, site documentation, knowledge accumulation, and looking at the city through different lenses, it attempts to construct relationships between and across different realities and knowledge sets (Kahn, 2005, p. 287) that can allow for the existence of multiple realities,

In conclusion the studio attempts to approach the city as a mobile ground (Kahn, 2005, p. 290).

Through the theoretical framework aforementioned, the studio included two separate themes: 1- Investigations for The Post-Mining Territory in Charleroi and Megalopolis

2- Urban Systems for The Densification of the 20th Century Belt of Antwerp

What both themes had in common was the ecological frame of mind, the systemic approach, and a cyclic or circular process. They followed the same methodology.

Studio Structure

Along with a theoretical framework, the studio participants began with a detailed analysis of infrastructural systems that impact the city. To actually manage metropolitan growth requires dealing with needs like land conservation, water management, and transportation - that cut across jurisdictional boundaries (Krieger, 2005, p. 123). They studied systems of water, energy, mobility, food and public space - flows that go beyond their regions - to accumulate the intelligence that precedes solution. They further collected data and performed several field trips to document and understand the social and physical dynamics of place at the neighborhood and local scale.

After understanding the systems at play in their visible and invisible aspects, they set out to perform rigorous site analysis and fieldwork to understand the spatial and social realities, identify needs, and diagnose real issues. They then utilized their accumulated knowledge to re-imagine and construct an intelligent, logical and circular system, that includes multiple and inter-linked infrastructures, and that is composed of ecological strategies. They then applied their system of strategies onto their sites to imagine and design the spatial qualities, which are transformed as a result of their constructed system. They visualized the transformations in the regional, city, neighborhood and human scales, and across time lapsed phases to imagine the future of the transformed urban space.

In addition they were asked to send postcards from the future of their city (Antwerp, Charleroi, or Megalopolis) every week for 8 weeks. From those as a group, we construct a History of the Future.

Studio Methodology

History of the Future


1.0Investigations for The Post-Mining Territory

- Megalopolis, Greece- Charleroi, Belgium

Cyclic Urbanism: Linking Cycles, Rethinking Territories, and Imagining Futures 2524 Part 1: Investigations for The Post-Mining Territory

Location:

Megalopolis, Greece37.3841 N, 22.0715 E

2726 Cyclic Urbanism: Linking Cycles, Rethinking Territories, and Imagining Futures Part 1: Investigations for The Post-Mining Territory

View to the urbanized area of Megalopolis


Agriculture, archaeology, and energy share the landscape


Landscape shaped by mining activity


Industrial EquipmentLignite (brown coal) mining activity


Authors:Georgakaki GavrielaKasselouri Eleni

1.1 Megalopolis, Greece

Domestic energy resources and potential acquire a strategic importance in Greece today while, at the same time, there is a rising awareness for using renewable resources on a global scale, due to overexploitation of the worlds limited resources. Looking through the lens of the energy potential of the post-mining landscape, what is the next landscape and the future of the urbanization in the basin of Megalopolis?

Starting from the reading of the current productive landscape and its metamorphoses, this thesis investigates Megalopolis territorial transformation under the overlap of different dynamics through time. Energy, soil and water flows are the essential elements of the current landscape formed by small and large scale processes. These are identified as separate but interconnected systems, where the waste of each system is a potential link to another. The visibility of flows, processes and systems underlies much of the work to be done, especially when displaying vast movements [] of natural resources that are often operating in remote or underground environments at scales too large for the naked eye. (Blanger, 2012, p. 291)

In the case of Megalopolis, the radical alternations of the topography, material movements and the natural water flows come together with the slow rhythm of the provincial city and the countryside. After years of lignite exploitation, the artificial topography resulting from the mining activity, generates new territorial figures. The artificiality of landscape created by mining can be seen as an opportunity to create something new during the treatment process - a potential for new economies for the post-mining city (Bergbau Folge Landschaft, 2010).

Re-configuring the Productive Territory: Design Explorations for a Post-mining Era

Cyclic Urbanism: Linking Cycles, Rethinking Territories, and Imagining Futures 37Part 1: Investigations for The Post-Mining Territory 3736

Labo

ur/a

ctiv

ity le

vel

Low

Time

High

site design and construction1-5 years

operation2-100 years

post-closureA decade to perpetuity

final closure and decommissioning1-5 years

exploration1-10 years or more

Mine Project Life Cycle

facing the threat to become a ghost town. Therefore, the emerging scenario of a shrinking economy, through which inhabitants will be forced to migrate inside or outside the borders of the country in order to survive, is evident. After a period of prosperity, decline is coming slowly into the foreground of future Megalopolis.

As lignite is a non-renewable energy resource, the reserves are coming to an end. PPC estimates that the lignite reserves in the area will last for about 20-25 years more. The closure of the mines in Megalopolis is projected around 2040. The post-mining, postindustrial landscapes of coal extraction areas are often considered as if they were in a static condition. Landscape is then a by-product, indirect result of the former activity (Berger, 2006). What does the closure mean for the city and the territory? Wouldnt it be important to start anticipating this transition?

This thesis proposes a series of design strategies to re-configure the productive territory, in a constantly transforming landscape, where new opportunities are emerging for the local populations. Rethinking the productivity of the post-mining landscape introduces an alternative agriculture for the locals, hand in hand with the recovery of the soil and the ecology, and simultaneously creating potential for an energy production scenario based on renewable resources. Under these conditions, biomass is an opportunity for energy production in the local scale and sets new possibilities for the new emerging economies.

Megalopolis is a provincial city of approximately 11.000 inhabitants, in the center of Peloponnese, Greece. The area is known as the second Lignite Center of the country and it contributes to the national electricity production with two combustion units currently active. The vast area of 5,000 ha of lignite extraction and combustion facilities are adjacent to the city. The local economy is heavily depending on the mining activity and electricity production. Since the 1970s, when the extraction started, the Public Power Corporation (PPC) has been a major employer in the area. The internal migration of workers and specialized employees from all over Greece changed the composition of the local population and doubled its size (NTUA, 1992). Simultaneously with the social sphere, the landscape started changing radically as the new production domain started to develop.

The mandatory public and private land expropriations either of agricultural land or forest dramatically transformed the rural landscape, generating a complex system of smaller and bigger open pit lignite mines and artificial hills, forming a manipulated topography. The existing self-sufficient settlements were inscribed in the territory, considering a system recovery process. However, the overexploitation of an extraction area in the center of Megalopolis basin is disregarding the recovery of the landscape. The current dominant activity of lignite mining and electricity production is a catalyst of territorial transformations, which at the same time, constitute a disturbance, a rupture in the landscape.

As other former industrial territories in Europe, Megalopolis, without alternative productive economies is going towards a post-mining era,

Towards a post-mining era: A Challenge and a Threat

Diagram source: Sloss, L. (2013). Coal mine site reclamation. IEA Clean Coal Centre, p.5.


Megalopolis AthensTripolisKalamata

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Megalopolis min.

Megalopolis min.



5,768 inhabitants

Perivolia

Plaka

Anavryton

Routsio

Ellinitsa

Neochorion

Lykaion

Vaggos

Voutsaras

Mallota

Falaisia

Makrisi

Chrousa

Soulion

Marathousa

Katsimpalis

Apiditsa

Kourounios

Trilofo

Ano Karyes

Thoknia

Anthochori

Nea Ekklisoula

Likosoura

9

5

9

26

25

23

16

20

30

28

26

32

19

17

24

22

27

16

28

20

15

22

13

23

04.6

02.8

05.4

15.1

18.5

13.5

15.3

12.0

19.0

21.1

18.0

23.0

18.5

07.7

19.8

11.6

12.2

16.6

09.4

15.8

14.6

13.1

10

13.0

32

54

54

32

32

33

35

35

52

52

50

49

47

47

47

46

46

44

44

42

41

39

37

36

Derveni

Kato Anavryton

Mavria

Orestio

Gefira

Ano Kalivia

Stroggilo

Gavria

Petrovounio

Kalivia

Soulos

Isoma Karyon

Palamari

Paleomiri

Choremi

Fanaiti

Kotsiridi

Kamaritsa

Karvounaris

Palaiochouni

Karatoulas

Marmara

Vrisoules

23

29

25

7

15

29

28

16

15

23

18

26

28

18

25

23

17

17

31

17

16

19

15

18.3

16.7

15.1

03.3

11.4

19.6

16.6

12.7

09.2

15.4

12.5

10.6

14.1

13.9

11.6

17.8

10.1

10.6

13.9

14.9

13.0

27.0

18,9

31

31

30

31

31

28

3

8

9

10

11

13

25

25

14

15

18

22

22

22

24

22

23

Leontari

Karitaina

Kato Makrisi

Paradeisia

Skortsinos

Chranoi

Lykochia

Potamia

Kastanochori

Tripotamos

Psari

Isaris

Soulari

Chirades

Zoni

Anemodouri

Kotylion

Vastas

Kato Karyes

Veligosti

Syrna

Kyparissia

Pavlia

Rapsommatis

20

35

20

18

32

19

31

23

20

10

25

32

23

27

23

33

45

19

11

16

30

19

20

22

15.9

2h198 35433846.6

21.5

16.2

13.1

25.9

13.3

20.4

15.0

12.6

05.9

16.9

19.3

17.4

19.5

13.8

23.5

23.8

11.4

07.1

10.2

23.3

11

13.3

16.6

257

232

221

153

139

137

121

118

94

89

89

86

83

80

74

68

64

62

61

61

60

58

55

55

Megalopolis min.

Megalopolis min.

Megalopolis min. Megalopolis min.Megalopolis AthensTripolisKalamata

5,768 inhabitants

Perivolia

Plaka

Anavryton

Routsio

Ellinitsa

Neochorion

Lykaion

Vaggos

Voutsaras

Mallota

Falaisia

Makrisi

Chrousa

Soulion

Marathousa

Katsimpalis

Apiditsa

Kourounios

Trilofo

Ano Karyes

Thoknia

Anthochori

Nea Ekklisoula

Likosoura

9

5

9

26

25

23

16

20

30

28

26

32

19

17

24

22

27

16

28

20

15

22

13

23

04.6

02.8

05.4

15.1

18.5

13.5

15.3

12.0

19.0

21.1

18.0

23.0

18.5

07.7

19.8

11.6

12.2

16.6

09.4

15.8

14.6

13.1

10

13.0

32

54

54

32

32

33

35

35

52

52

50

49

47

47

47

46

46

44

44

42

41

39

37

36

Derveni

Kato Anavryton

Mavria

Orestio

Gefira

Ano Kalivia

Stroggilo

Gavria

Petrovounio

Kalivia

Soulos

Isoma Karyon

Palamari

Paleomiri

Choremi

Fanaiti

Kotsiridi

Kamaritsa

Karvounaris

Palaiochouni

Karatoulas

Marmara

Vrisoules

23

29

25

7

15

29

28

16

15

23

18

26

28

18

25

23

17

17

31

17

16

19

15

18.3

16.7

15.1

03.3

11.4

19.6

16.6

12.7

09.2

15.4

12.5

10.6

14.1

13.9

11.6

17.8

10.1

10.6

13.9

14.9

13.0

27.0

18,9

31

31

30

31

31

28

3

8

9

10

11

13

25

25

14

15

18

22

22

22

24

22

23

Leontari

Karitaina

Kato Makrisi

Paradeisia

Skortsinos

Chranoi

Lykochia

Potamia

Kastanochori

Tripotamos

Psari

Isaris

Soulari

Chirades

Zoni

Anemodouri

Kotylion

Vastas

Kato Karyes

Veligosti

Syrna

Kyparissia

Pavlia

Rapsommatis

20

35

20

18

32

19

31

23

20

10

25

32

23

27

23

33

45

19

11

16

30

19

20

22

15.9

2h198 35433846.6

21.5

16.2

13.1

25.9

13.3

20.4

15.0

12.6

05.9

16.9

19.3

17.4

19.5

13.8

23.5

23.8

11.4

07.1

10.2

23.3

11

13.3

16.6

257

232

221

153

139

137

121

118

94

89

89

86

83

80

74

68

64

62

61

61

60

58

55

55

Megalopolis min.

Megalopolis min.


0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 km

Cartography and spatial analysis by the authors based on data from: GEODATA, http://geodata.gov.gr/

N

An Archipelago of Settlements


Distribution in the local market anD arounD PeloPonnese (future target is distribution to Athens, but not in supermarkets)

0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 km

live

live

live

work

workmines

531

father mine worker farming

Fanis farmer

grandfather farmer since 1950

0 1 2 km

megaloPolis

Perivolia

100 ha of agricultural land100 tones milk per year

2 permanent and 3 seasonal workers

work

Wholesale (except from feta, which is not profitable: 1kg feta needs 4lt milk giving a profit of 5%)

feta cheeseyogurt rice pudding cream

0 100 200 300 400 500 600 700 800 km

Cultivate land for fodder (wheat, barley, oat) storage and processing

Processing and packaging: dairy production from 20 tons of milk (future target 100 tones)

Currently 500 sheep and 4 goats (future target adding 200 goats) 1000m2 facilities

I II III

1h 25m96,8 km

1h 13m115 km

1h 57m130 km

argoskorinth

kalavrita

milkmeatfodder

Fanis Kalogeropoulos, 28 years old Grown up in Megalopolis, studied in Thessaloniki animal husbandry and dairy production. Fanis came back to continue and expand the family business with new knowledge and technologies in order to increase productivity.

the family business exPanDs in all ProDuction stePs

N

60, 45% active PoPulation

Primary sector

seconDary sector

seconDary activities

honey production

gardening

livestockon the edge

hunting in the forest

tertiary sectorPrimary occuPation

0-14

y15

-64

y

11.014 inhabitantsMunicipality of Megalopolis

7.877 Megalopolis 812 gortyna2.325 falaisia

65+

y

Public Life

The population of the municipality of Megalopolis and of settlements around changed radically in the transition period towards the industrial era. The decline in population of the surrounding villages does not directly link to the increase of Megalopolis population, as people from other areas in Greece, specialized labor force, had been arriving to work in the mines. However, its due to the low productivity of the highland, the bad connectivity of the infrastructural network on a strong geomorphological terrain and the concentration of amenities in Megalopolis because of the start of the mining operation. (NTUA, 1992)

The combination of different working and living places is extending the grid of the city, broadening its boundaries, as additional activities take place in the countryside. Its an appropriation where people live in the city and work, move towards or through the landscape, which is making it part of their lives.

family structure > urban structure

single family house with back yardexpanding as the family grows

parents

kids


Cartography and spatial analysis by the authors based on data from: GEODATA, http://geodata.gov.gr/, Corine Land Cover 2000

Industrial Zone Urban Tissue

Legend

Mining area

Natural pastures

Olive groveSand dune

Complex agricultural systems

Non irrigated arable land

Forest (mixed, coniferous, broadleaf)

Sclerophyllous vegetation

Transitional forest and scrub areas

Mainly agriculture with extent areas of natural plantation

RailwayRoad network

0 5 10 15 20 25 km

0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 km

N

Industrial Zone Urban Tissue

Legend

Mining area

Natural pastures

Olive groveSand dune

Complex agricultural systems

Non irrigated arable land

Forest (mixed, coniferous, broadleaf)

Sclerophyllous vegetation

Transitional forest and scrub areas

Mainly agriculture with extent areas of natural plantation

RailwayRoad network

0 5 10 15 20 25 km

The inhabitation of the territory over time projects its multi-functionality, the variety of activities that are coming together in the same space and form its identity. The appropriation of the different landscapes reveals the natural, archaeological and cultural territorial heritage which is not only a composition of spatial elements but also the constant use of the territory.

The complexity of this coexistence is intersecting the mining area, which is sometimes enhancing and other times disrupting the continuities. Thus, there are fragmented and connected parts as well, such as the grasslands of the reclaimed deposits and the artificial lakes that serve livestock. The perception of being inside a basin is also defined by specific landmarks. The cooling towers, as contemporary landmarks, stand inside, in the center of the basin forming two orientation elements, while the surrounding mountains are defining the outer-upper border of the basin, forming at the same time a geological landmark. In this timeless landscape, the inhabitants of the land tirelessly erase and rewrite the ancient scrawls of the soil. The exploitation of the land is a process of landscape colonization even of remote areas with machinery and land becomes an object of construction, a type of artifact, a product. (Corboz, 1983)

Space depends on scale and experience, exists as well as in the transition between the interior and the exterior, is inhabited by users; it does not exist without temporality. (Verbakel, 2007)

A Multi-layered Landscape


10 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 km

forest

agriculture land

lakes

pasture land

ancient ruins

chapels , churches

corrals

national roadrailway

natural gas pipeline conveyor beltsprimary roads

dirt roadscontour lines


I Kyparissia initial open pit excavation starts after 1978 still openII Thoknia initial open pit excavation starts after 1969 until 2011III Marathousa initial open pit excavation starts after 1988 until 2016IV Choremi initial open pit excavation starts 1971-1975 still activeV Kyparissia external deposit starts 1977 until 1995VI Thoknia external deposit for infertile soil starts 1972 until 1986 for fly ash starts after 1970VII Choremi first external deposit starts 1974 until 1988VIII Choremi west external deposit starts 1977 until 1997IX Choremi east external deposit starts 1984 until 2000

10 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 km

I

II

III

IV

V

VI

VIIIVII

IX

Three lignite storage, probably due to the existence of three independent lakes

The surface before 1970

Zebra formation of lignite beds and extraction lines

Kyparissia 20-100 m total depth2-4 million tones production capacity

I

0

-450m

350m

450m

Thoknia20-100 m total depth

II

Marathousa 140 m total depth1-2 million tones production capacity

IIIChoremi 140 m total depth9-12 million tones production capacity

IV

CHOREMI

THOKNIA

MARATHOUSA

KYPARISSIA

extraction areas

external deposits

lignite yards

settlements

fertile and infertile soil with lignite elementsflow of lignite towards storage

flow of lignite towards the units

byproducts from lignite combustion

Material Movements

a

b

a

a

b

b

20202025

2015

Estimated topsoil to be extracted from the new expansions

I Kyparissia _ new expansions a. 56,4 ha > 451000 m3 topsoil b. 94,7 ha > 757508 m3 topsoil

III Marathousa _ new expansions a. 114 ha > 911640 m3 topsoil b. 373,8 ha > 2990360 m3 topsoil

IV Choremi _ new expansions a. 108 ha > 865880 m3 topsoil 2020 242 ha > 1934482 m3 topsoil 2025 b. 186 ha > 1489047 m3 topsoil

Total amount of future topsoil extraction estimated around 9,34 x106 m3

I

II

III

IV

10 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 km

fly ash and gypsum deposit

extraction areas

internal deposits - levels

planned internal deposits

internal deposits

future expansion - excavation planned

future expansion

2020 extraction area

2020 deposit levels

new expansion - extraction area

settlements

fertile and infertile soil with lignite elementsflow of lignite towards storage

flow of lignite towards the units

lignite yards

byproducts from lignite combustion

02024 2039

100

150

200

250

300

350

400

450

500

550

600

50

Kyparissia

69,3

Proj

ectio

n of

the

futu

re e

xtra

cted

m

ater

ial i

n m

illion

m3

Choremi

Marathousa

365,6

156

83,44

99,14estimated lignite production in mill tones

15,2

0,5

590,9Total

Material Movements


Cartography and spatial analysis by the authors. Topography base map from: PPC Lignite Center of Megalopolis, provided by the Survey Engineering Department, PPC, 2016

The current topography: interpreted in shades of grey, from the darkest the deepest to the lightest the highest point, the current manipulated topography of hills and holes in the ground is expressed in this map. The conveyor belts that transfer the material and the dirt roads inside the mines are the essential infrastructure for their function and contributors to the formation of this landscape. The map is a projection of an instant topography, of its formation during the first semester of 2016

Also there is the possibility of using motion in an object as part of the design and composition. The sculpture then becomes in one sense a machine, and as such it will be necessary to design it as a machine, so that the moving parts shall have a reasonable ruggedness. Even those sculptures designed to be propelled by the wind are still machines, and should be considered thus, as well as aesthetically.

(A Propos of Measuring a Mobile by Alexander Calder (manuscript, Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution, 1943).)

10 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 km

10 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 km


conveyor belts

Units I and II closedUnits III and IV in total 600 MW

Unit V

district heating

biomass

A t m o e l e c t r i c power plants

underground pipes

underground pipes

natural gas

rubber

electricity

HEAT

gypsum

ashes

bypr

oduc

ts

CO2

SO2 NOx

60% of the agricultural land of the country is irrigated by private drillings (290.000) - aquifer

water supply - nearest settlements

lifestock

Megalopolis

irrigation

water supply - industrial buildings

emissions pollution air - water - soil

treatment industrial watercleaning filters

cooling tower

domestic and agricultural use

pumping out from the extraction area

dicrease of surface water

Alpheus aquifer

40% less cost than using oil for heating

Overpumping use of fresh water directly from the aquifer

10 %

18 - 20 h m 3

14 - 16 h m 3~10 h m 3

0,5 h m 3

0,32 h m 3

0,18 h m 3

130 - 150m0,65 h m 3

90 %

maceration

infertile soil and lignite beds

heavy machinery

fertile soil

conveyor belts

rubber

infertile soil

reforestation-agriculture

lignite yards

20-bucket wheel excavator

ZEBR

A

relocation - expropriation

Starting from the mass material movements and the large amount of fresh water, extraction of the lignite and electricity production, the mining activity could be seen as a closed industrial system, where energy, soil and water have been overexploited. In all the steps and phases of these processes, there is waste produced that could be seen as a dynamic for a new system. How could the waste of each system generated by the industrial activity, be a potential for the territory?

A reading of the current networks could lead to design strategies for the creation of more resilient systems, where more demands could be met, without overexploiting the non-renewable resources of the landscape.

Through a frame of until and after closure phases, the proposed design strategies explore the dynamics of recycle and reuse the existing waste of the systems of energy, soil and water.

APIDITSA

N. EKKLISOULA

ORESTIO

PERIVOLIA

MEGALOPOLIS CITY

PLAKA

KATSIMPALIS

MAVRIA

TPS ATPS B

NATURAL GAS UNIT V

DISTRICT HEATING

SOIL DEPOSIT

LIGNITE EXTRACTION

URBAN WASTE WATERDISPOSAL

FLY ASH DEPOSIT

DRILLINGS (MAIN KARSTIC AQUIFER)

DRILLINGS (WATER SUPPLY)

NATIONAL ELECTIRCAL GRID

CEMENT

TRUCKS PARKING

COMPANY

ALPHEUS RIVER

10 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 km

internal deposit

excavation area

fly ash deposit

conveyor beltsnatural gas (underground pipes)

primary roadsnational road

surface channel (urban waste water)energy flow

water supply for domestic use fresh water supply for industrial use

wellspumping stations


collection & purification of STORM WATER

retention ponds

recycle the evaporated water harvesting the fog

vegetation - remediation (contaminated soil - f ly ash deposit)

irrigation

corals - l ivestock (water for the animals)

COLLECTION OF STORM WATER

bio

swal

e -

puri

fica

tio

n

d istrict heating

electricity supply for public space & buildings

electricity supply for households

REUSE OF PUMPING WATERpurication and collection

BIOSWALEcollect

storm water

infertile soil

l ignite

pumping surface water

canal (current)

enlarge the riverbed - slow down the flow of water & collect the lignite sediments

BIOMASS - ENERGY CROPS

SEPARATE THE TOP SOIL

BIOMASS - ELECTRICITY SUPPLY

olive kernels - complementary to the lignite combustion)

top soil

low vegetation to keep the soil fertile

flow of materials

aquifer

internal deposit

y ash depositf low of water

flow of energy

existing olive groves(olive oil production)

CCU: CAPTURE AND REUSE FUELS/ENERGY

fuels/energy

HONEY PRODUCTION

DAIRY PRODUCTS

cultivation of leguminous crops(roots enabling storage of nitrogen-rich material)

ENRICH THE ORGANIC MAT TER

INCREASE BIODIVERSITY REFORESTATION

collect biomass(forest maintenance -fire protection zones)

mixed herbs & shrubsmanure -fertil izer

cosmetics & medicines

plaster boards

REUSE OF FLY ASH

cement industry

fertil izer

solar panels - agriculture generate energy for machineries

biomass as raw material

biomass combustion

collective unit

abandoned train station turns to PUBLIC SPACE

CO2

SO2 NOx

material movement with trucks industrial process

new economies

local farmers

lignite movement with conveyor belt

soil movement with conveyor belt

enriched organic matter on external deposits

reforested external deposits

aluvial


separation of grey & black water

retention ponds

irrigation

corals - l ivestock (water for the animals)

COLLECTION OF STORM WATER

bio

swal

e -

puri

fica

tio

n

d istrict heating

local electricity supply for fouseholds

BIOSWALEcollect

storm water

COLLECTION OF SURFACE WATERwet season - use for irrigation in the dry season

existing olive groves(olive oil production)

flow of materials

aquifer

internal deposit

y ash depositf low of water

flow of energy

BIOMASS - ENERGY CROPS

BIOMASS - ELECTRICITY SUPPLY

DAIRY PRODUCTS

collective unit

solar panels - agriculture generate energy for machineries

biomass as raw material

biomass combustion

VEGETABLES PRODUCTION

REUSE OF THE RAILWAY (local connections & seasonal trips for travellers)

HONEY PRODUCTION

mixed herbs & shrubs

cosmetics & medicines

new spieces | birdwatchinglow vegetation plantedon the levels of the formerextraction

plant shrubs,trees & herbage

SILVOPASTORAL SYSTEM

PREVENT ACID MINE DRAINAGE

collect biomass(forest maintenance -fire protection zones)

material movement with trucks industrial process

new economies

local farmers

lignite movement with conveyor belt

soil movement with conveyor belt

enriched organic matter on external deposits

reforested external deposits

aluvial

THE CRATER

REUSE OF INDUSTRIAL BUILDINGSPART OF THE NATIONAL

HIKING PATH Museum, Research Center, Production Hub

Faculty of Agriculture

BIOTOPE


top

soil

Slope reforestation to stabilize the ground and establish the structure of the agricultural plots

Relocate Tripotamos village due to the new expansion

Enlarge the riverbed of Alpheus River to slow down the speed:

collect lignite sediments

Top soil storage area Low vegetation is used to keep top soil fertile

Introduce a variety of species in the reforested areas

Temporal storage of findings

Enrich the organic matter of soil with

specific crops to be used for fodder

Pedestrian and cyclic routes on

the two main axes of the city

2017

Findings

fly ash as K-fertilizer

10 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 km

STORE TOP SOIL:ENRICH:

INCREASE BIODIVERSITY:

REFOREST:

RELOCATE:

SLOW DOWN:

INSTALL:

STORE:

extraction area

10 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 km

2030

extraction area

top so

il

top soil

Topsoil for new agricultural land Plant nurseries

Retention pond reuse the treated waste water

Relocate Choremi village due to the new expansion on the west

Downscaling agricultural plots,

add different crops

RELOCATE:

DOWNSCALE:

REACTIVATE:

PROTECT:STORE WATER:

COMPLETE:

ADD:

PURIFY:Purifying wetlands for the waste water of the city

Public space in Plaka

Complete district heating network in the city

Slope reforestation to stabilize the ground and establish the structure of the agricultural plots

REFOREST:

top

soil

Protect industrial heritage and ancient city

10 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 km

2050

2020

top

soil

Tree crops eucalyptus planted for biomass

Storm water collection system; a network of bioswales on the grid of Megalopolis

Expanding pedestrian-cyclic paths connect to the ancient theater

and agora

Reactivate the public space on Psathi deposit: a balcony to the city

Introduce energy crops on the finished deposits of infertile soil

Water storage to provide water for the cooling towers to release

the pressure from the aquifer

Utilize water from existing ponds for irrigation and livestock

Reuse the abandoned train station and the railroad to connect the nearby villages



INTRODUCE:

REUSE:

PLANT:

REACTIVATE:

COLLECT:

EXPAND:

STORE WATER:

UTILIZE:

10 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 km

extraction area

plan

ts

10 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 km

extraction area

2035

Plant olive groves on the plateaus

Reuse the abandoned industrial buildings: production hub

Expand the pedestrian-cyclic path

Crop rotation: eucalyptus replaced by agriculture in combination with solar panels

Remediate and stabilize fly ash deposit the basis of the forest

REFOREST:

REUSE:

CONNECT:

ROTATE:

REMEDIATE:

PLANT:

Separate treatment grey-black water

TREAT:

Phytoremediation open pit of Marathousa

top

soil

ENRICH:Enrich organic matter of soil

2070

livestock

migratory birds

migratory birds

livestockbees

hikers

hikers

hikers

bees

MEADOW

FOREST

CRATER

VALLEY

ARENA

museum

ANCIENT THEATER

COAST

OBSERVATORY

10 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 km

10 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 km

2025

2040

New programs and public space: the arena

and the crater

Reuse lignite yards for water and yield storage

Form smaller steps on the excavation levels to slow down storm water and

prevent acid mine drainage Lake formation on the lower level

energy crops and a silvopastoral system

INTRODUCE:

SLOW DOWN:

REUSE:Retention pond for irrigation

STORE WATER:

FORM:

EXPAND:

Reuse industrial buildings: education, recreation, research

REUSE:

10 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 km

The design in this scale focuses on sculpting a tableau vivant, capturing the future alternations of an operative landscape, an inhabitable productive territory. Following the dynamic processes of topographic reconfigurations until the closure of the mines, the phasing is directing the creation of a new ground. Part by part, the re-composition of the landscape is taking place in a fine grain of movements and strategies applied in different places and in different times. The moving future landscape is projected phases, in a series of diagrams, which anticipate the transition towards a post-mining era. Landscape, as seen through the practice of reclamation, is grounded in both the mechanical and the organic models of nature, both of which are derived from these modernist conceptions and views of nature. Reclaimed natures may be technologically constructed and evolve organically (and vice versa). Nature is a curious union of the machine and the organism in reclamation. (Berger, 2002, p.182)

The design aims to articulate all the different elements, sharp and soft geometries of the topography which are complementary or in juxtaposition. Establishing a dynamic composition in balance, the current infrastructure is used to form the future landscape. The same machinery that shape the current topography in particular slopes and plateaus are used to organize the proposal. Strong geometries and unfolding soft patterns compose the future machine-made landscape. Material movements are still re-configuring the territory, as the exchange among the different areas is going on.

For a landscape to be properly recovered it must be remade, designed, invented anew; it cannot simply be restored, as an old painting. (Corner and Balfour, 1999)

Capturing a landscape in motion


2020

top

soil

Tree crops eucalyptus planted for biomass

Storm water collection system; a network of bioswales on the grid of Megalopolis

Expanding pedestrian-cyclic paths connect to the ancient theater

and agora

Reactivate the public space on Psathi deposit: a balcony to the city

Introduce energy crops on the finished deposits of infertile soil

Water storage to provide water for the cooling towers to release

the pressure from the aquifer

Utilize water from existing ponds for irrigation and livestock

Reuse the abandoned train station and the railroad to connect the nearby villages



INTRODUCE:

REUSE:

PLANT:

REACTIVATE:

COLLECT:

EXPAND:

STORE WATER:

UTILIZE:

10 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 km

extraction area

10 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 km

2050


0m25m

50m100

m

200m

pasture land

olive groves

forest (reforested area proposed)

forest

(reforestated area existing)

floodable

horticulture

BEEHIVESHONEY

PRODUCTION

COLLECT BIOMASSFOREST MAINTENANCE -FIRE PROTECTION ZONES

PEDESTRIAN& CAR ACCESS

CYCLEPATH

SEASONALPOP-UP MARKETS

SEASONAL POP-UP MARKETS

REFORESTATION

LIVESTOCKDAIRY PRODUCTS

OLIVE GROVESOIL PRODUCTION

VINEYARDS WINEPRODUCTION

biomass

REFOREST SLOPE STABILIZATION

REMEDIATE

district heating

RETAIN FERTILITY new agricultural land

extraction front infertile depositdeposit-storage

topsoil topsoi

l

ENRICH ORGANIC MATTER

organic fertilizer

compost

manurefodder

depositdeposit


last excavation lines

exposed sulphur

FORM SILVOPASTORAL SYSTEM

INCREASE BIODIVERSITY

INTRODUCE ENERGY CROPS

rotation / tillage / restbiomass

bioswales

retention

soil biodiversity

biomass

REFOREST SLOPE STABILIZATION

REMEDIATE

district heating

RETAIN FERTILITY new agricultural land

extraction front infertile depositdeposit-storage

topsoil topsoi

l

ENRICH ORGANIC MATTER

organic fertilizer

compost

manurefodder

depositdeposit


last excavation lines

exposed sulphur

FORM SILVOPASTORAL SYSTEM

INCREASE BIODIVERSITY

INTRODUCE ENERGY CROPS

rotation / tillage / restbiomass

bioswales

retention

soil biodiversity

0m

100m

200m

25m50m

TOP SOIL STORAGEDISTRIBUTION TO OTHER AREASFOR AGRICULTURE

0m

100m

200m

25m50m


sPring 2035 | trimming the olive trees

retention PonDrocks anD gravel useD to retain the storm water During the wet season

silvoPastoral systemmixeD Plantation of trees anD shrubs(increase bioDiversity & welfare of the animals)

6564 65Part 1: Investigations for The Post-Mining Territory Cyclic Urbanism: Linking Cycles, Rethinking Territories, and Imagining Futures


The Crater

The Coast

69Part 1: Investigations for The Post-Mining Territory | A History of the Future68 Cyclic Urbanism: Linking Cycles, Rethinking Territories, and Imagining Futures

Megalopolis, GreeceA History of the Future of Megalopolis


2028 - Lunar Landscape of the Mines 2030 - New Layers of Soil, New Layers of Energy


2035 - Non Land Exhaustive Energy Crops 2038 - Recreational Park

You must close your eyes... otherwise you wont see anything! - Alice in Wonderland


2040 - Open Air Museum of Archeology and Mining, 2040 - Reclaiming the Old Train Station


2045 - Landscape between the City and the Mines 2050 - Co-existence in a Healing Landscape


2060 - Rice Fields are Back 2070 - Climate Change


2080 - The Landscape Returns to Nature 2090 - Terrirorial Park in the Basin


Location:

Charleroi, Belgium50.4108 N, 4.4446 E


Terrils are a prominent landscape feature of Charleroi Nature has begun to take over abandonned industries


View from the top of a terril Urban setting


Industry meets residenceIndustrial Valley


1.2 Charleroi, Belgium

During the last century, the Charleroi region endured drastic changes. Due to large-scale infrastructural interventions, the territory was transformed into a wild conglomeration of steel and glass industries, shoulder to shoulder with mineshafts, workers neighbourhoods and slag heaps. These industrial elements, some of which are still present today, have strongly reshaped the region and its landscape. With the decline of the coal-based industries, Charleroi entered a period of deep economical, cultural and territorial transformations. But before it could recover from this recession, the region was already feeling the impact of the next one.

Le Pays Noir, as the once prosperous coal region was called, is now associated with negative connotations like waste, entropy and unproductiveness. Although several attempts of economic revitalisation have been undertaken in the last decades, Charleroi didnt manage to move beyond its state of regression. To shift the current perceptions of waste(d) and (un)productiveness, this thesis proposes a mapping and design investigation of the Pays Noir as a critical assessment. The interpretation of the territory starts from a critical reading of the materials it is built with and the difficulties it has encountered. Now, fifty years after the industrial decline, pioneering vegetation is reclaiming industrial relicts and abandoned sites, composing a new landscape figure, which has emerged from the shadows of the past. This thesis wants to move beyond the existing paradigms of urban renewal and sustainability, and alternatively wants to introduce the concept of re-cycling to the territorial dynamics.

By looking at Charlerois territory from a different perspective, this study aims firstly to unfold its territorial complexity, which has been neglected for far too long. Secondly, it examines the predispositions and the hidden qualities that are present in the Pays Noir. In conclusion, it proposes a vision and strategies for a productive landscape, creating a framework that can structure the Charleroi region.

Exploring Le Pays Noir: Design Investigations for a Productive Landscape

Authors:Sven Mertens Michal Stas Benjamin Vanbrabant


INFR

ASTR

UCTU

REPR

ODUC

TION

LAND

SCAP

EUR

BAN

TISS

UE

ROMAN ERAPalimpsestIn a famous text, Andr Corboz (1983) affirmed that a territory is like a palimpsest, composed by several traces resulting from an accumulation of different wave of urbanisations. This holds true for the landscape of the Pays Noir which changed drastically over time. The combination of the Sambre valley and the coal layer caused a series of transformations with the purpose of moulding this area into the perfect industrial machine. New centres of productivity demanded new kinds of infrastructure as well as housing for the workers which helped shape the look of the Black Country. Those processes left distinctive traces, still readable in the landscape (Corboz, 1983). In order to understand the former transformations and the ongoing ones, this section briefly reconstructs the most important changes, revealing the traces that are still visible in the Charleroi territory, with a particular attention to the spaces of production and their relation with the urban tissue, the infrastructure and the landscape.

1777 - PRE-INDUSTRIAL ERA 1873 - INDUSTRIAL ERA 1969 - END INDUSTRIAL ERA 2015 - CURRENT SITUATION


drawn by author, (1,2) based on: Huang, C. (2014). Urban Regeneration: Foresting Vacancy In > Philadelphia (Undergraduate). University of Pennsylvania School of Design.

SystemsIn contemporary urban design practices, the concept of the mixed-city is widely accepted. But how mixed is a city nowadays still? We include programs such as bars, offices and services but we generally exclude one, namely the productive economy. If the urban generation of the Charleroi region would be done the same way, there would be enormous spatial and social mismatches between living and working conditions. Therefore we start from a reading of the current and historically existing systems such as energy, waste, water and mobility, and we envision a new form of productivity for the region. For us, the carrier of the new productive economy is the incredible transitional landscape of the Pays Noir. Nature has slowly , but uncontrolled, taken over the industrial terrains and parcels of this shrinking territory. We see a potential for this landscape to be the new identity of the region, turning the Pays Noir into a Pays Vert. At the same time this landscape has the strength to operate as a connective surface, structuring the whole territory.

^ Energy

^ Waste

^ Water

^ Mobility


Systemic SectionWe propose a series of small scale interventions which will have an impact on the whole region. By recycling and scaling up or down certain systems, a new kind of productive economy can emerge which will transform the Charleroi territory.


5 Landscapes - 4 Frames We see the Pays Noir as the collection of five distinct landscapes, from north to south; an agricultural plateau, the big box highway, the slope city, the Sambre valley and forested hills. Since each landscape has their own specificities and qualities, our connective surface adapts and transforms according to these different circumstances. To test our design, we have chosen four frames that include these five landscapes.


FieldIn the north of the region, agriculture is the main production activity. Today, artificial fertilizers are used extensively to support the food economy. These artificial products increase the amount of nitrate in the soil and consequently they pollute the nearby creeks. In addition to this problem, there is also increasing erosion due to water flows in the area.

While farmers keep on expanding and intensifying their production, urbanization is also claiming more and more space in rural areas. Small villages are growing beyond their borders, resulting in an uncontrolled spread of ribbon development and allotment patches. Extensive use of the car as the main transport system demands infrastructural interventions that support this type of mobility by continuously providing more space for the car. To prevent traffic congestions inside the village, bypass roads are built to circumpass the centre while the former infrastructures are kept in existence. The increased amount of impermeable surface also increases the probability of flood problems in these areas.

Apart from these problems, the rural territory offers also a lot of potential. A new system of wood sides, hedgerows and tree lines, could enforce the existing agricultural fields by protecting them from water and wind erosion. In addition they increase biodiversity in fauna and flora and they can become an integral part of an energy landscape where they serve as a biomass resource. New biogas digesters can be introduced in combination with fertilizer processing companies. The produced gas can be used in the nearby villages as fuel for coupled heat and power plants that supplies heat and electricity to new housing typologies. The new public transport system can serve as infrastructure for the transmission of these new energies. Both new energy systems and public transport demand different typologies of individual housing, yet in a collective, that is introduced as a second order to the primary ribbons. To introduce these new elements and systems, new collaborations will have to be set up between different actors.

^ soil erosion

^ floodable areas. 25 year recurrence (dark) to extreme

^ topography

^ 2016


^ existing mobility situation. bus lines in intensity (darker = more lines passing)

^ proposed mobility vision. Rapid Transit System with

^ residential areas (grey), expansion areas (red)

^ 2035


hedgerows

popular fast

popular long

short rotation trees

nursing trees

oak trees

Roman Road

Wood sides Hedgerows5 year rotation 2 year rotation


^ wasted and wasteful spaces constituting a grey and surreal landscape

^ floodable areas. 25 year recurrence (dark) to extreme situation

^ parcels - large industrial platforms in the valley and smaller plots on the slopes 2016 >

Confluence

After the decline of the coal-based industries, Charleroi entered a period of deep economical, cultural and territorial transformations. Many former industrial sites that once proudly represented the prosperous Pays Noir were abandoned. A landscape of dispersed industrial relicts, buildings in decay and heavily polluted sites were left behind. Over time some sites were erased and replaced by something else, polluted soils removed to who knows where, while others remained without attention. The Sambre valley played an important role in this history, yet it constitutes today to the collective image of Charleroi as an unproductive city in decay. However with the passing of time, these sites were taken over by pioneering vegetation and make us question the image of the Pays Noir that seems to have gradually transformed into a Pays Vert. Seen from another perspective these abandoned sites are maybe not as wasted as they appear to be. Ecologically they are enormously interesting and their natural dynamics are an inspiration for how to deal with them.


^ existing mobility situation. bus lines in intensity (darker = more lines passing)

^ proposed mobility vision. Rapid Transit System with feeders

^ residential areas (grey), industrial areas (blue) expansion areas (red)

2050 >

As Charleroi knows a rather slow projected demographic growth for the coming decades, this region has the time to use techniques like phytoremediation to clean its soils. These enforce the new idea of a productive Landscape and are a lot cheaper than soil removal techniques that often just move the problem.

On a larger scale these black and brownfields that are turning green, could become part of a cyclic system that can accept green-field development, combined with measures that enforce the on-going natural dynamics.


Production Landscape

Productive Landscape

Cyclic Urbanism: Linking Cycles, Rethinking Territories, and Imagining Futures 119Part 1: Investigations for The Post-Mining Territory | A History of the Future118

Charleroi, BelgiumA History of the Future of Charleroi


2018 - To the Productive Terril Parks 2022 - After Nuclear: New Energy Production


2025 - New Bikepath: Re-activating the Railyards 2030 - The Ring Road Park


2025 - Orientating toward the Terril 2030 - Along the Sambre River


2040 - Unused Metro Station has a New Life: Charleroi Triathlon 2050 - Terril Ecology and Sky Mobility


2060 - Lonely Fisherman in a Replenished Ecosystem 2070 - Jumping Platform: From Quarry to Lake


2.0Urban Systems for The Densification of the 20th C. Belt of Antwerp

- Antwerp, Belgium

Cyclic Urbanism: Linking Cycles, Rethinking Territories, and Imagining Futures 133132 Part 2: Urban Systems for The Densification of the 20th C. Belt of Antwerp

Location:

Antwerp, Belgium51.2194 N, 4.4025 E


2.1 Antwerp, Belgium

The 20th century saw the urban expansion of Antwerp into an outer city belt engulfing its historical center. Its post-World War war I development plan, mostly implemented, had been aimed at progress and economic development. However, this image of progress did not come without consequences. Oversized infrastructure is combined with low density, single-use residential neighborhoods that lack vitality, and an outdated built-form confines current ways of urban life into dictated and inflexible living, public space, and mobility patterns. Moreover, a strong barrier lays between the 19th and the 20th century belts: the international highway that simultaneously serves as The Ring (road).

These three major problems: infrastructure, density proportion and mono-functionality (lack of vitality and isolation) can evidently be tackled, while reorienting the major development wave of the city in the 20th century belt which in fact, is the only one with substantial densification capacity.

As Antwerp will face a population increase of about 100,000 people by 2030, this will require 47,000 additional households. While the city center is already saturated, the 20th Century Belt has the capacity to accommodate the increased density.

However, to accommodate for this density other urban systems and infrasructures both, hard and soft, will be needed to support this growing population, in a way that makes the city pleasant and livable, while reflecting values of contemporary 21st century living.

The 21st century defies the ways of life that have been dictated. We work differently, we live differently, we move differently, and we think differently than any last century planner could have ever fathomed. Our cities need to respond to contemporary issues, current patterns, and blurred distinctions.

The 20th Century Belt

137136 Cyclic Urbanism: Linking Cycles, Rethinking Territories, and Imagining Futures Part 2: Urban Systems for The Densification of the 20th C. Belt of Antwerp

Asphalt street parking is prevalent Low-rise housing typologies


Wide streets and intersections Inactive street walls


Rivierenhof Park Social housing


Antwerp Systems Analysis

From Linear to CyclicIn order to approach the Twentieth Century Belt from a new light that is future-oriented, it is essential to approach it from an ecological point of view. To do so, understanding its systemic logics is a crucial ste

cyclic urbanism: linking cycles, rethinking territories, and imagining futures

Documents