CO-HOUSING AND COMMUNITY HEALTHCARE CENTRE ON THE FORMER INDUSTRIAL SITE ‘MALMAR’ IN GHENT | OPEN COMPETITION ORGANISED BY THE CLIENT, 1ST PLACE
AWARDS Nominated for the Brussels Architecture Prize 2023, in the category Extra Muros | Finalist for Architectuur Prijs Gent 2024
Close to the centre of Ghent, an abandoned factory site is transformed into a flourishing community including three cohousing groups (Wijgaard, De Spore and Biotope) with 59 dwellings, a neighbourhood health centre, a circuit of collective indoor and outdoor spaces and a workshop with a view of the Bijgaardepark. Bijgaardehof focuses on sustainability, both at the urban development level and at the project level – an ambitious, mixed programme organised around meeting and interaction in one of the largest cohousing projects in Flanders.
From the start of this project – with a competition organised by sogent in 2009 – the redevelopment of the abandoned factory site was an excellent opportunity to reinforce our vision of the spatial conditions for collective living in the city. In that sense, Bijgaardehof answers a number of important and, for us, necessary quality criteria: urban densification in the vicinity of local amenities and public transport; recycling, upgrading and greening a vacant brownfield along the railway tracks; sharing functions in order to be able to offer a higher quality of life at a reasonable cost; combining urban nature and urban agriculture in order to strive for a living quality that we have come to call – because of the pandemic – ‘lockdown-compatible’ living.
Bijgaardehof’s specificity lies in the ambition to mutualise a set of functions overlapping at various scales: the three residential groups each have a communal space with a collective kitchen, dining room, living room, laundry room and a play area for the children, and together they share a workshop, quiet areas, a winter garden, a workshop, a roof garden for urban agriculture, collective generation of renewable energy, all with an added value to the neighbourhood and the city of Gent. Biotope has also committed to building an “inclusion” unit, which will serve as long term housing for a refugee family.
The commitment and vision of sogent and the city of Ghent for the redevelopment of this abandoned factory site was crucial. They decided not to simply sell the land to the highest bidder, but to invest in a programme with a social dynamic and a qualitative masterplan. Through Energent, the cohousers were provided with subsidies for the extraction of geothermal heat, and they made access via the shopping centre to the north of the site possible.
For us, the design of a cohousing project is by definition a participatory process, a form of co-creation that goes much further than the traditional design process. In the case of Bijgaardehof, a transversal organisation brought the representatives of each cohousing group together with the design team to reflect jointly upon multiple topics such as mobility, sustainability, shared use and more, in order to challenge the programme with bottom up participation and generate co-creation. In addition, we took the initiative to discuss with each future co-houser their own residential wishes. Setting up this consultation structure and bringing together the various residential wishes in a balanced architectural whole were part of the design brief. This ensured that Bijgaardehof was not only the subject of an architectural design, but was also the design of a participatory process. The relationship between architect and client thus became enriching and rewarding for everyone.
Selected publications: bouwkroniek, De Standaard, Sogent, Het Nieuwsblad
Supporting initiatives: Gemeengoed, Wooncoop, heim, groene gevels vzw, MilieuAdviesWinkel.
Visits: Please contact via the website of Bijgaardehof
ADVISORY ON HIGH RISE | PUBLIC SELECTION PROCEDURE
This study aims to display a balanced picture of the problems and possibilities of high-rise in Ghent. It is not an uncritical apology of towers. Although the first signs of an improved image arise, we wonder why the present towers, built over the past decades, gain a rather bad reputation. From this perspective we conclude that high-rise appears at the starting line with a series of historical, cultural and perceptual handicaps and with a high-degree demand for professionals conceiving it. However, if used judiciously, it could be an economical solution to problems of land use, urban and landscaping structure, and urban densification.
For the making of an informed “Advisory note high-rise”, it is necessary to thoroughly explore the underlying cultural, social, architectural and urban layer. Also, we should emphasize the importance of communication with the population, of showing good examples, of setting up proper selection procedures for designers and developers, etc. Our cities bear a key responsibility for the sustainable development of our environment. High-rise will be an increasingly important part of this task, which is only possible if there is sufficient political and public support.
The multiple objectives of this advisory note are the following:
1. creating a vision of high-rise buildings in Ghent within a detailed theoretical background;
2. creating an impetus for a wider political and public support for high-rise;
3. supplying elements for further research and feeding the debate and the awareness about high-rise
4. the delivery of quality criteria and assessment tools necessary for the licensing policy.
In the ‘analysis’ section, we briefly examine the phenomenon of high-rise buildings in general, with definitions of high-rise, with references and high-rise advisory notes from other countries and cities, and with a theoretical framework on the perception of high-rise, the concepts of scale break and change of scale, the quality of high-rise and a taxonomy of different high-building types.
Next, the Ghent context is examined, through a description of its high-rise history through the centuries until the modern times, through a photographic analysis of the Ghent skyline, through a setting of Ghent’s high-rise in international perspective, through an assessment on the relation high-rise – density of available urban green, through an analysis of the existing regulations in Ghent, through a suggestion of what ‘high-rise’ today and tomorrow in Ghent can mean, through some case studies of existing or planned high-rise, through a number of interviews with key witnesses, each of them in one way or another connected to Ghent, high-rise, architecture or urban planning.
In the ‘advice’ section, the study assesses the volume of high-rise to be expected in Ghent in the coming decades, although part of them has already been planned, and the spatial and policy actors that may affect those projects. Subsequently, a number of areas where high-rise is more likely or desirable have been identified. Finally, based on all these, Ghent is invited to make choices and to define a high-rise policy.
The elements that will allow the implementation of this high-rise policy are handed in the proposal for further research: the use of tools for the evaluation of quality, the creation of a proactive policy frame promoting quality and the conduct of a communication and awareness policy.