Settlement Unit

Assignment
Consider the removal of 337 large, freestanding villas along the Leie riverside between two suburbs of Ghent, Drongen and Afsnee, and replace them by new, more compact housing clusters with a similar architectural quality level to the original villas
The new housing clusters have to be set up in three existing public gardens along the riverside where the Leie makes a turn
Besides the 337 housing units, also parking must be included and an additional program with primary school, small hotel, sports facility and small businesses
Focus on outer space and land use, relation between buildings and ground level
Make a model, scale 1/200 for only one of the three sites, the two others may be presented only by paper documents

Location
Abdijpark (Drongen), Kasteelpark, Leiepark (Afsnee) along Drie Leien, Ghent

Concept Sketch
The main focus in the realization of this project was the conservation of the qualitative existing conditions on the three given building sites, where the old abbey of Drongen was reconsidered as a retirement home, the villa castle in Leiepark was renovated as a bed & breakfast, wide open views on the Leie river were kept as much as possible as well as idyllic walkways, and existing trees were integrated in the project
In order to develop the project in accordance to the existing situation, different zones were identified on each site and typologies were designed responding to the characteristics of these zones
This ended up in 4 housing typologies

• Tree typology: tower with double facade allowing the surrounding trees to infiltrate in the terraces, apartments having 360° of view
• Riverbank typology: the lower, introvert variant of the tree typology with an inner patio, placed close to the riverside, apartments having 360° of view
• Allotment typology: as a rethinking of the parcelling tendency going on in Leiepark, a linear volume was created in which the units could enjoy both facade sides around integrated green cutouts
• Abbey typology: luxurious rooms were provided in the existing structure of the old abbey of Drongen which is renovated into a retirement home

Preliminary, intermediate test models of 3 sites 











Test models of 3 typologies

Test model of tree typology