ORG @ Architecture Biennale Rotterdam "It's About Time"

ORG’s Antwerp Ring Project was selected for the Ancestor trajectory of the Rotterdam Biennale because of the long-term, multi-generational, planning for transition in the metropolitan region. By working towards a comprehensive mobility transition Antwerp is acting as a good ancestor for the residents of now and the future.

The Antwerp project is an example of how an integrated approach can tackle both hard dynamics through analytics, and then be combined with consistent stakeholder work and collaborative visioning that builds towards a realizable project with a real budget and timeline and stakeholder support. The built project is an adaptive vision that meets the mobility needs of generations and creates quality green spaces out of what once was hardscaped transportation infrastructure.

The transition is a model of how new transportation infrastructure can fit conscientiously into the landscape, compared to how existing infrastructures cut through neighborhoods and communities, creating congestion, pollution and division. With new technologies ORG implements a new level of infrastructure that functions in a more streamlined, transitionary capacity for a new kind of movement of people. This is an incredible opportunity to work in the city of antwerp and see the kind of quality of life improvements can be implemented to create a widespread impact on the daily life of citizens, from air quality, to leisure lifestyle amenities to reconnecting communities.

This live project is engaging this imaginary with multi-generational works, initiating the development of new ecosystems that will evolve and grow over time, building new sustainable infrastructures for the next generations. The process of bringing these large-scale visions into reality is an epic task, full of risks, obstacles, calculations, tests/pilots, and hard work and communication efforts. Bureaucracy, policy, law, finance, politics and time are just a few of the many hurdles a project encounters on its journey to realization.

ORG participated in the 2022 International Architecture Biennial Rotterdam, showcasing the Capping of the Antwerp Ring project. Alongside scale models detailing the interventions, we included a timeline of the entire endeavour. This timeline represents the mobility transformation efforts of Team Intendant towards a realization of The Great Connection for the Antwerp Ring Road. The project vision creates long term, multi-generational, planning to transition the car centric ring road into a series of parks and public spaces around the city. By capping the Antwerp ring and through the creation of new mobility networks with infrastructural interventions such as multimodal hubs, the city embraces new forms of mobility that provide an improved social and environmental quality of life.

This timeline represents the mobility transformation efforts of Team Intendant towards a realization of The Great Connection for the Antwerp Ring Road. The project vision creates long term, multi-generational, planning to transition the car centric ring road into a series of parks and public spaces around the city.

By capping the Antwerp ring and through the creation of new mobility networks with infrastructural interventions such as multimodal hubs, the city embraces new forms of mobility that provide an improved social and environmental quality of life.

The timeline also details the immense and intricate co-creation process that makes this project possible by creating well-supported works across a diverse stakeholder pool.