overleie centrum, kortrijk
The network of public spaces in Overleie is the basic element of its urban structure. Intervening in it is an essential step for the recovery of the district, currently under pressure from various transformative interventions.
For this reason, among the various works intended to articulate this transformation process, the drafting of a Quality plan for the public spaces becomes particularly relevant.
This plan addresses several key elements:
- · The Sint-Amandsplein, heart of the neighbourhood, which unfortunately is mostly used as parking, disregarding its role as a meeting point where summer and weekly markets are held and where children from neighbouring schools play after class.
- · The new spaces in front of the river, intended to be the new gateways to Overleie.
- · The new north-south pedestrian routes that will enable access to the neighbourhood from the promenade along the river, bringing the benefits of this to zones far from it and contribute to the redefinition of the morphology of the built-up areas.
- · The east-west routes, both for cars and for pedestrians, to ensure permeability from the core of the neighbourhood -the Sint-Amands square- to the urban fabric farthest of her.
- · The redefinition of Overleiestraat, a central connector axis that articulate Overleie with the heart of the city and for which we have gone beyond defining quality parameters and have drafted a design plan that has already allowed for remodeling.
- · The redefinition of existing streets, reconsidering its current indiscriminate character and establishing due hierarchy depending on the specific role that each of them plays within the urban fabric.
These interventions involve considerations beyond public spaces themselves and are also related to the morphology of the neighbourhood -currently made up of nonporous large blocks- and to the mobility. The intervention in the public space thus joins the reflection made through studies to address these two issues.
The importance of the quality of public space as a means to achieve other multiple objectives, as a trigger for phenomena that transcend the public space itself, has been demonstrated in operations such as the design of the banks of the Leie river. With this work on public spaces it is now intended to extend its beneficial effects to the whole neighbourhood.
