Rus Eco-Neighbourhood

Masterplan for the train station area of the town of Ciney

Ciney, Belgium

The local landscape as urban catalyst. Blue-green infrastructure and soft connectivity

The famous Belgian writer Gaston Compere spent his childhood in the hamlet of Conjoux, in the urban area of Ciney. In his memories «A childhood in Condroz», he describes the region as a harmony between human activity and landscape, between city and nature. The local landscape is structured by a dense network of streams (called “rus” in French) and paths that enter into the towns, whereby the towns take their place on the land wisely.

It is these ideas of ​​harmony with the landscape and of soft connectivity that guide the proposal. Therefore, the ecological restoration of an existing stream that crosses the site (the Leignon) is the backbone of the proposal for the new Les Forges neighbourhood and provides continuity to the blue-green infrastructure of rivers and streams, and the establishment of local and regional soft connections links Ciney and the project’s site to its surroundings.

Regional connectivity: completing the regional network of soft mobility routes along the rivers

In the first place, we propose to complete the missing link in the of Wallonia’s slow lanes between the vertices of the triangle formed by the cities of Ciney, Yvoir and Dinant, with connection paths that follow the rivers. Thus, the relationship between these three main urban centers of the region is thus enhanced through these slow lanes specifically dedicated to slow modes (pedestrians, cyclists and horse riders), which are at the same time utilitarian, for leisure, and touristic. The completed network will feature a stop on the project’s site, thus linking it with the town of Ciney and beyond.

Town scale strategies: the two poles, accessibility and green infrastructure

Then, for the project site in the old forges of Ciney, we propose a penetration of nature and, at the same time, an intensification of its urbanity. The Leignon, this small stream (the «ru») which crosses the site, is therefore renaturalized and regains its role as a green reserve in the heart of the town. Around the Leignon stream, the new neighbourhood of «Les Forges» establishes the necessary density to form a new vibrant neighbourhood and also composes a new facade of the city from the train.

The Station Square and the new neighbourhood of Les Forges

Finally, the area around the train station is reorganized and remodelled to assert its role as the second urban center of Ciney after Church Square (Place Monseu). We propose a new generous and comfortable underpass under the existing railway tracks dedicated to pedestrians and cyclists, that knits together the two parts of Ciney on both sides of the railway. This crossing leads to the new building of the service of the Administration of Agriculture, which serves to reinforce the urban character of the area. All these measures are aimed at transforming the area around the station into a more friendly and urban space: a real Station Square for the town.

The memory of the site.
Urbanism, architecture and materiality as contemporary reinterpretations of local historical references

The design of the Les Forges neighbourhood will establish continuities in a contemporary idiom with the local traditions and memories, both urbanistically, architectonically and in terms of materials.

Urbanistically, the houses of Ciney and its surroundings are row houses that can grow horizontally with annexes at the backyard, then vertically with new stories, and then they can be subdivided in flats if needed. We propose to use this mechanism as a tool for the development of the adaptable housing proposed in the new station neighbourhood. Architectonically, the houses have a more formal and regular street elevation (main body), and more informal and irregular backyard volumes (annexes). We propose to reinterpret this volume massing in the new houses.

Materially, the predominant local materials are the exposed brick of the facades of the houses and the remaining industrial buildings bordering the project’s site, the local stone of the quarry, and the steel of the railway scrap yards. We propose that the new neighbourhood of Les Forges will provide continuity to this local materialities: the facades will be in brick, the pavements of the streets in local stone, and the railings in Corten steel.

The layers of the design: water cycle, built volumes, program, social synergies, materiality, and accessibility.

The layered design principles of the proposal for the new neighbourhood of Les Forges are:

-Renaturalization of the Leignon river at the center of the new station neighbourhood

-Water cycle on-site management (waste water is cleaned by wetlands and then the clean effluent flow to the river)

-Built volumes that allow the views and form, adopt the scale of the surroundings and, at the same time, form an acoustic barrier that shields the site from the train’s noise

-Social synergies involving local stakeholders

-Use of materials from the area that evoke the industrial memory of the site

-Accessibility strategy to give priority to pedestrian in the proposed station square

Project name

Rus

Location

Ciney, Belgium

Client

Municipality of Ciney

Year

2013

Status

Competition: Europan 12, Europan is the most prestigious biennial urban design and architecture competition for young European architects

Program

Master plan, housing, offices, public space

Site: 30.000m2

Gross built area: 30.000m2

Author

Eduard Balcells Architecture+Urbanism+Landscape

Honorata Grzesikowska, Balbina Mateo, Marcos Ruiz de Clavijo, Valentin Kokudev, Andrés Lupiáñez, architects

Collaborators

Design development

Joan Gallego, Cristina Aznar, Mike Swords, Ma Li, architects

Agronomical engineer & Landscape consultant

Factors de Paisatge - Manuel Colominas