dinsdag 8 oktober 2013
maandag 7 oktober 2013
KORTRIJK
Kortrijk
is located at the river Leie, it has its historic core on the small Buda Isle
in the middle of the river and is encircled by the almost perfect circle of its
ring road. However, this radio-concentric image is deceptive. A dizzying
atmosphere of dispersed regional and global entities – which has left the inner
city porous with vacant sites – threatens the value of the inner city’s
centrality. Counterintuitively Kortrijk is not a radio-concentric city, but
reveals a ladder structure between the regional connectors of the Leie and the
E17 with perpendicular to these axes the local north-south connections.
Perhaps these north-south rungs of the ladder can succeed where the circular figure of the ring road failed: to span the city and stitch the successive expansions of Kortrijk back together. The city is no longer a radial bullseye with a dense urban heart, surrounded by ever more open rings to end in the open countryside, but instead a hybrid city form within the ladder frame. In this way a subforest becomes part of both city and countryside by mixing forest and fields – agroforestry – and forest and houses – allotment forestry. By abolishing the redundant west-ring the gap left by the oversized car infrastructure could complete this image: Instead of having green villages with tree-filled gardens, it becomes a forest with clearings for the villas. Emphasizing the strengths and diversity of the sprawling city rather than superimposing an outdated view of the quintessential city, reveals an otherwise unnoticed wealth of this new kind of city form.
Thomas Willemse
October 2013
Perhaps these north-south rungs of the ladder can succeed where the circular figure of the ring road failed: to span the city and stitch the successive expansions of Kortrijk back together. The city is no longer a radial bullseye with a dense urban heart, surrounded by ever more open rings to end in the open countryside, but instead a hybrid city form within the ladder frame. In this way a subforest becomes part of both city and countryside by mixing forest and fields – agroforestry – and forest and houses – allotment forestry. By abolishing the redundant west-ring the gap left by the oversized car infrastructure could complete this image: Instead of having green villages with tree-filled gardens, it becomes a forest with clearings for the villas. Emphasizing the strengths and diversity of the sprawling city rather than superimposing an outdated view of the quintessential city, reveals an otherwise unnoticed wealth of this new kind of city form.
Thomas Willemse
October 2013
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