The redevelopment of the Standaert site was an ideal opportunity to create a place at the service of the inhabitants in the densely built area of Ledeberg. Murmuur architecten, Carton123 architecten and AE-architecten with landscape studio Arne Deruyter and engineering office H110 won everyone over with their winning design: the area has flourished in green, open space.
The Standaert site no longer hides behind the terraced houses of Hoveniersstraat and Hilarius Bertolfstraat, but shows itself prominently on both sides. Drawn by the art installations of Marc Nagtzaam and by an abundance of greenery, you enter a new horizon in which the act of meeting is triumphant. The built-up tangle that was leftover appears today as an unobstructed outdoor room that lets the area breathe more freely. The early design sketches make you sense already how greenery is a connecting factor between the streets. Climbing plants and currant bushes, vines and copses let passers-by linger in a succession of resting places they can make their own. A yard composed of vegetable gardens and a south-facing terrace makes up the beating heart of the park. The stepping stones, sand pit and wadi provide the necessary play elements that open up the place to toddlers and even young children.
By refining the programme in a twofold manner in activities that demand (or not) a heated indoor space, the design team limited the built zone. For instance, the half-timbered shed, the smallest and oldest building that lies crosswise on the site, is now a place where the different community organizations can make use of multipurpose workshop spaces with a coffee house. Windows on the ground floor reinforce the shed’s existing underpass and make the building move between indoors and outdoors, between a space you pass through and a space you linger in, between a park and a meeting place. A gesture that is tangible even in the details of the benches. The roof, which has settled over everything like a porch, offers the necessary shelter and safety that ensure the generosity of the place.
In addition, the designers reused the site’s existing trusses and transformed them into a canopy that cleverly seeks support via the garden walls. Like a floating gesture, it offers a stage for a range of activities. Except for several new storage spaces, the designers hollowed out the rest and what remains is an open space in which the greenery can nestle.
‘The site is characterized by what it is and that’s something you can feel’, say the designers. They dealt inventively with the limited budget and set to work ecologically with everything that was available. It is a design attitude shared by the three architectural offices. A kind of pragmatism and sobriety that reveals the potential of the plot through modest but well-considered interventions.
