PLATFORM
PLATFORM
A new public square in Brussels elevated above its canal
Year → 2010
Status → Competition, Special Mention Young Teams
Team → TEMP
When the City of Brussels invited us to propose new ideas for its canal zone, we decided not to take the obvious path. Typically these projects turn the canal into a tourist destination, adding waterfront attractions and residences that take advantage of the picturesque site.
But Brussels is not a typical city. It is a major global port struggling to keep up with the logistical demands of international trade, spatially constrained by its ring road. Since the area inside the ring road is a separate administrative and bilingual region—while the area outside is a Dutch-speaking territory—it can not rely on industrialized hinterlands to drive economic development. The city has only its Canal Zone to develop for semi-industrial use and economic growth. At the same time, the canal itself is a critical shipping artery for both Brussels’ own harbour and the canals to the south—making it all the more essential to the economic health of the city and region.
Other cities can afford to turn their canals into sanitized tourist destinations, but Brussels needs to leverage every advantage at its disposal to alleviate congestion along the ring road and maximize its potential for local, regional, and global commerce.
An industrial shipping highway beneath a public square
Rather than convert the canal zone into a tourist district, our plan turns it into an industrial shipping highway covered by a continuous public platform suspended above the water and connecting both banks. The Platform replaces the existing bridges and sits high enough to allow triple-stack container ships to pass, bringing the canal into compliance with European shipping directives. The Platform acts as a linear city square, a new space for concerts, hangouts, open-air markets, and other activities—including swimming in a pool embedded into its surface.
A series of new bridges that take the iconic form of the Buda bridge connect the sides of the canal. The bridges create high clearances in the canal and mark it with a series of identical shapes, making it more visible than it has ever been. Two of these Buda-bridges intersect with the Platform. The shifting positions of the bridges alternately create passages and podiums. Their sculptural forms frame the Platform as a space of potential to be defined and filled by its users.
Connecting city and canal
Car and shipping traffic is concealed beneath the Platform, creating an uninterrupted public space. Two large drawbridges at either end of the Platform frame the gathering places in between and create vehicular paths across the canal. A collection of stairs, ramps, elevators, and escalators connect the Platform to the ground, offering access points all around the city. The Platform disguises the canal, making it ever more present. Like a pier, it joins the city and water as parts of a whole.
TEMP is an experimental collaboration between architects, engineers and artists with experience in the domains of philosophy, photography, graphic art and economy. As a young and ambitious team they aim to combine these multiple experiences in a practice of different scale levels, from various points of view and within changing cooperation. Hereby they continue the inevitable combination of theoretical studying and working on a practical level.