Brownfields
Brownfields departs from the research of De moord van de vlaamse stedenbouw. After making this map I started zooming in on the problematic areas along the Scheldt, which brought me to Hemiksem, more precisely the old Bekaert site.
This is an old industrial area abandoned and demolished in 2013. This area contains 240 square meters of concrete and steel remnants. There is a plan for a residential area "living on the Scheldt" on this area. A second problem arose during my research as the area has been polluted for years with heavy metals in the soil and it will take 50 years to remediate. Together with fellow student Hanna De Mey, who also did research on this site, we decided to join forces and developed a master plan for the site.
During the site visits an de the brainstorms many creative ideas came up, but each time we came to the conclusion that it was better to do nothing on site and let nature carry out its own healing process. Therefore Brownfields is a manifesto/consensus that shows the added value of this process ant it leaves the place free of function for the people to gain inspiration.
