Project description

Kortrijk town council wants to have a master-plan drawn up for the Weggevoerdenlaan site. This site is located inside the town’s ring-road, at walking distance from the station and from Campus West, one of the region’s most important higher education clusters. The aim is to generate a detailed development plan for the whole area.

Van Marcke is a Belgian market leader in the wholesale distribution of equipment and appliances for bathrooms and heating. It has grouped a number of branches in Kortrijk into a single brand-new logistical complex. As a result, the main site on Weggevoerdenlaan is now free for redevelopment. The site has an area of about 15 ha. Until the mid-1960s it was home to the Kortijkse Kunstwerkstede Gebroeders De Coene, an innovative woodworking company whose buildings Van Marcke purchased. De Coene built the Belgian pavilion for Expo 58. This building, with its characteristic trusses, is still standing on the site and is now a classified monument. The site is characterised by a substantial height difference and is surrounded by, among other things, a school building, houses, business premises, a shunting yard and a bus depot.

The vision for the site should translate the town council’s ambitions for its further spatial development into a spatial programme and design. Kortrijk town council has over the last few years defined these ambitions in a very extensive participatory process together with its citizens and entrepreneurs. This plan is called ‘Kortrijk 2025’.

The most important elements of ‘Kortrijk 2025’ that are relevant to this project are:

  • To enhance Kortrijk as a business-friendly town by creating space for entrepreneurs at strategic places in the town and by reinforcing the ties between higher education and business.
  • To enhance Kortrijk as a connected town by focusing on interweaving such aspects as housing and work, both in the project area and in the surroundings (schools, Campus West, neighbourhoods etc.) and by raising the bicycle network to a higher standard.
  • To enhance Kortrijk as a green-blue town by means of integrated and climate-oriented design, by removing hard ground surfacing and by ceasing to occupy more open space.
  • The town council decides together with its citizens, entrepreneurs and other users about spatial changes in the town.

The development of this site must give a clear signal to the labour market that Kortrijk is an attractive place to live and work.  The main objective of this project is the regeneration of Kortrijk as a city to live and work for a skilled workforce.

The starting point for the renewed use of the site is therefore a maximum concentration on the retention of workspace and its maximum interweaving with other urban functions in and around the area. A substantial part of the site will be reserved for SMEs and other workspaces, preferably with links to higher education. In addition, there will also be room for more housing and green elements.

The site is characterised by a significant relief differences, the functional use of which still needs to be determined. It is surrounded by a number of facilities, the most important of which are a school building, residential buildings, business premises, a shunting yard and the bus depot of De Lijn.  There is also a train station within walking distance and this is an important asset for the site in the realisation of its philosophy.

The master-plan should contain a conceptual development of the area so as to make room for the set programme, with a proposal for buildings (in terms of volumes) and layout of the open space. For the buildings, in addition to the volume, initial indications are also to be formulated of their later architectural elaboration. The design team should be able to define the architectural quality in terms of preconditions for its future development.

Van Marcke wants to make a social statement by means of this redevelopment. Both the operational management and the technologies that the company distributes have the same philosophy of sustainability and innovation. 

Van Marcke wants to make a meaningful contribution to the well-being of the planet without compromising comfort for users of its products.  This site aims to be a living example of how Van Marcke’s know-how can combine a comfortable living and working world with sustainability and nature conservation. The future use of the site will be built around four basic themes: living, learning, thinking, doing which together guarantee integrated sustainability.

The functional use we wish to find in the final result is as follows:

  • Living: housing, both in multi-family homes and ground-oriented housing, in green surroundings
  • Learning: schools that supply the people and innovations we shall need in the future
  • Thinking: business incubation and offices
  • Doing: a workshop zone for SMEs

Kortrijk Town Council and Van Marcke are looking for a design firm that can translate this vision into:

  • A single overall design in which the various functions are harmoniously interwoven and which implements the overall vision of the future that the town council has developed with its citizens and entrepreneurs under the ‘Kortrijk 2025’ flag
  • vigorous architectural design that brings unity to the variety and variety to the unity.
  • State-of-the-art architecture that transcends banality and functionalism while yet remaining affordable
  • Technical knowhow that is able to integrate tomorrow’s technology into the functional needs of the development.

The aim is to create nothing less than a site that is a model at a European level, which through its visionary architecture and sustainable functionality integrates man, work and development into a single microcosm. At the same time, there may and should be reminders of the industrial past of the site.

Following the delivery of the master-plan, Van Marcke may decide to award all or part of the assignments for its implementation to the design team, but is not obliged to do so.

Allocation Criteria

  1. The quality of the concept and vision and of the research by design, checked against the aims and expectations of the principal as formulated in the specifications:
    a. in a broad social framework
    b. more functionally applied to the user’s requirements
  2. the approach to sustainability (the degree to which the chosen interventions contribute to a qualitative and future-proof building)
  3. the process-orientation and process-readiness
  4. the composition and expertise of the design team
  5. the estimate of the cost of the project and the fee

The respective weighting of the criteria is as follows: 4 / 3 / 3 / 1 / 1.

Kortrijk OO3608

All-inclusive study assignment to draw up a master-plan, plus possible assignments to carry out the work, for the Weggevoerdenlaan site in Kortrijk

Project status
Selected agencies
  • OMGEVING, UAU collectiv
  • Barcode Architects NL
  • BASIC CITY A+U, OTO landscape architecture
  • Felixx, Poponcini & Lootens ir architecten bvba
Location

Weggevoerdenlaan 5, 8500 Kortrijk

Timing project
  • Selection: 13 Nov 2018
Client

Van Marcke
Stadsbestuur Kortrijk

contact Client

Liesbeth Terryn (Stad Kortrijk)

Contactperson TVB

Jouri De Pelecijn

Procedure

Design contest followed by a negotiated procedure without publication of a contract notice

Budget

In accordance with master-plan

Fee

Fixed fee for master-plan: €60,000 (excl. VAT)

Awards designers

€15,000 (excl. VAT) per candidate, 4 selected candidates

Downloads

Lijst_kandidaten_3608
Selectiebeslissing OO3608