The Sportspark is a node to reactivate.
Missing links_It can be part of a wider park connecting the National Park Hoge Kempen, in the east, to the heather landscape in the west, through the terrils of C-mine and the inhabited agricultural landscape. This east-west connection does not exist today.
The Stiemerbeek, part of the blue and green fingers perpendicular to the Albert Canal, intersects the east-west system in the Sportspark. Together, they integrate the Sportspark into a "metapark" running from Antwerp to Maastricht. The project focuses on: 1. mobility and energy saving; 2. green restored habitat; 3 cut and fill balance, water management and water quality.
An urban and metropolitan centrality_ Today we consider mono-functional areas a problem: both in the social, economic and ecological sense. The sportspark is at the center of a diffuse urban condition and it needs a different vision. The strength of the urban centrality is not in opposition to the ecological role of the area. On the contrary: it supports a transcalar and flexible project that while designing an enlarged square, suggests new green continuities.
The sportsquare between the swimming pool and the sport hall develops into a multifunctional east-west stripe which reorganizes the access and the border between the parking and the buildings as a new open and public space. Together with the green “counter figure” connecting the forest to the Stiemerbeek it enriches the park of a series of flexible spatial episodes.
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