Capping the ring of Antwerp

In this project, ORG serves as Intendant for a city-wide effort in Antwerp to bury the existing highway and transform the city. The capping offers a chance to reorganize the existing highway area around Antwerp and to redesign special relationships between conflicting programs to optimize cohesion and functionality. The new public space, as a result of developing an underground highway system, offers breathing space to the residential areas and new developments for multimodal transportation. New green zones on the cap also provide crucial missing links in the ecological systems and structures around Antwerp.

The CAP designs succeed in reconciling many, often seemingly contradictory, public wishes into an integrated urban design. It combines supra-local solutions for mobility, infrastructure, ecology, and urban development with neighborhood functions and local programs. This was possible only by intensively working together with all involved parties. The proposal concentrates around several ‘nerves’, connections that link different functions and programs. Large green spaces are located in between. The drawings show the target image for a total long-term covering. In the first phase, cappings will be implemented at the Sportpaleis and Steenborgerweert.

The vision materialized in strategized co-creation with locals, administrations, Lantis (former BAM), landowners, and entrepreneurs from the area. Through public information and scrum sessions with stakeholders, ORG develops a rigorous process towards a well-supported vision for the area that includes dedicated designers for each of the sections of the CAP project. This results in a generous urban space, serving the entire urban community.

The capping process on the ring and the role of curatorial design have been an immense undertaking that includes many site-specific design projects: ORG developed a design for the North-East section of the CAP, the area around Lobroekdok, being defined by large scale industry and infrastructure, the dominant presence of the Sportpaleis and highly densified neighborhoods. The Capping of the Ring also includes a comprehensive reimagining of the transportation network in Antwerp, including the design of Multi-modal Hubs and other transportation infrastructure.