Halle - Sports hall and surroundings

The temporary partnership of BEL Architects, CRIT/Peter Swinnen, Bureau d’Etudes Greisch, Stream And River Consult and Tijd en Vlijt will assist the city of Halle and the Vlaamse Milieu Maatschappij in the coming years to transform the area around De Bres, Leide and Slingerweg in successive phases into a generous and accessible park landscape with space for water, sports, recreation and nature.

A strongly meandering Senne will be given a central role in the landscape park. It will be made visible again and given natural water dynamics. This offers opportunities for humidification and a greater diversity of habitats. The new bank profiles will be stepped, creating slow-moving terraces, some of which will be accessible. This will allow the public to safely access the water and experience the seasonal changes of the watercourse up close. The new Zeneter terraces provide space for the creation of water play zones, child-friendly picnic areas, but equally for rougher areas. The supra-local cycle path runs between these zones.

The new sports hall will have a central place at the edge of the Zenne. It will no longer be hidden, but visibly placed in line with the axis towards Possozplein. An avenue of trees between Zennepark and Possozplein leads visitors from the core to the park and makes the sports hall part of an urban trail.

The new sports complex will be an all-sided building, partly slid into the sloping valley landscape. The building is compact and efficient. The entire programme can be organised legibly in the above-ground volume and the main programme sections all receive natural daylight. From the stands, spectators have a nice view of the Zenne Valley. The outdoor sports fields will have a place on the roof or under the canopy so that maximum space is preserved in the park for low-dynamic recreational areas and greenery.

The main structure of the current sports hall will be transformed into an above-ground parking facility, which could eventually accommodate another programme. This choice keeps traffic out of Zenne Park and also makes it possible, pending the new sports hall, to keep the building in use.

The parking building will be connected to a contemporary urban building block conceived as a park wall, skirting the existing buildings along Monseigneur Senciestraat and Louis Thibautstraat. There is not only room for housing here: smaller neighbourhood shops or other activities can also find a place there. This will eventually create a single urban ensemble in relation to Zenne Park.

A few years ago, the city of Halle had an urban development plan and landscape vision drawn up under the title ‘Landscape park Halle’. In this vision, the city clearly shows its ambition to revalue the Zenne valley and to transform the area around the watercourse into an elongated landscape park. One of the strategic places in this vision is the area of De Bres-Leide-Slingerweg. This zone is designated in the landscape park as a pivotal point between various urban and infrastructural developments. The site lies in the heart of the city, but appears today rather as a part of the periphery dominated by car parks and roads. The city wishes to transform the entire zone into an integrated park landscape with space for water, sports, recreation and nature. One overall design is sought in order to interweave all these aspects in optimal fashion. One of the spearheads in the vision for this quarter is the reopening of part of the Zenne. To make this happen, the city is entering into a partnership with the Flanders Environment Agency (VMM).

Assignment

The centre of gravity of the project area is the De Bres sports hall. The building needs to be replaced or thoroughly updated. The city authorities want to use the renovation to implement a more sustainable parking policy. After all, there are several parking zones around the sports hall. The city wants to depave these areas and integrate them into the urban landscape as public spaces with a high-quality experiential and user value. However, this should not happen at the expense of the city’s accessibility. The parking capacity being removed from the public space must therefore be compensated in a car park that is located (in part) underneath the sports hall. The city authorities expect this parking demand to be addressed in an innovative and future-oriented manner. On the one hand, consideration must be given to complementary time and user regimes, so that, for example, events or markets are also possible in the car park. On the other hand, the building should be able to be used for other purposes in the future.

The construction of a centralized parking facility will not only free up space for qualitative recreational areas, but will also create the opportunity to install the Zenne in an open bed. In accordance with the landscape vision, the open Zenne will in part take the place of the current open-air sports facilities (athletics track, skate park, etc.). It will therefore be a particular challenge to combine sports and recreational facilities linked to the De Bres sports hall with the construction of a (child-friendly) public space. The strongly fluctuating water level also has to be taken into account in this regard.

Phasing will certainly be a point of attention in this project. As long as the new Zenne channel is not constructed, the Zenne cannot be given a new open bed. The public spaces, however, can already be completed after the construction of the underground car park. This can take the form of a temporary public staying space while waiting for the works to open up the Zenne.

This ambitious project will involve major and lengthy works that will bring inconveniences. The challenge is to get the whole city excited about this project.

Both during the study and architecture assignment and during the design and execution process, the city will work to involve the Halle residents and other stakeholders. The designers are expected to have a special eye for temporary interventions that can bolster support for the plans.

Architecture, landscape, water management and public space are equivalent components in this assignment. The city authorities are therefore looking for an interdisciplinary team of urban planners, architects and landscape architects who can translate the ambitions of the city and VMM into a single integrated design without losing sight of the question of phasing and temporary arrangements. Experience with the spatial and landscape integration and reconstruction of watercourses or of a similar level of complexity is required. The different partial assignments are subject to a different schedule. The team must therefore be prepared to make a long-term commitment.

Included in the assignment

• master vision of the site
• soil mechanics study
• architecture (including environmental permit, tender dossier, site coordination, quality control and study visits)
• interior – first equipment, including fixed furniture and fixed equipment for the sports hall
• stability
• techniques
• study of the acoustics
• safety coordination
• EPB
• the study of the layout of the outdoor space and the layout of the surroundings as described in the project definition and in conjunction with the landscape vision ‘Landscape park Halle’
• topographic survey of the site
• mobility

Not included in the assignment

• participation
• communication
• loose furniture
• survey plans
• archaeological research if applicable

Exclusion, selection- and award criteria

Please read the selection guideline. There you can find:

• the grounds for exclusion
• the selection criteria (suitability and technical and professional competence)
• the award criteria
• the description of the evidence and documents to be submitted
• …