Dogma

Possibilities

Linkeroever is a large modern neighborhood in the city of Antwerp, built from the 1960s on the left bank of the river Schelde. This vast area has been for decades the perfect battlefield of contrasting urban ideas, each trying to pragmatically tackle the changing conditions of the city. The project was developed as an entry to the competition launched by the city architect that called for the possibility of rethinking Linkero-ever as a place where urban and natural environments could coexist and where a process of densification would allow the construction of affordable dwellings. Possibilities is based on an understanding of the neighborhood as unfinished modern project that needs to be partially corrected and completed. The goal of the proposal is therefore to offer a set of possibilities through which to revisit the legacy ofthis large-scale postwar housing estate. Both the competition entry and the second phase of the proposal focuses on developing a set of types that allows for different configurations of living and working, with the presence of public facilities and larger spaces for production. The proposal offers a clear form to the area by reinforcing its boundaries, where the green areas in between the buildings become equally an important. The difference between each of the developed types, rather than in terms of functions and dimensions, has to do with basic spatial properties such as open versus closed, low-rise versus high-rise, linear versus clustered.