Page 61 - Tussen binnenstad en spoor - Leuven 2003

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The narrow and long building plot situated
between the station and the new Provincial
Government House is 60 metres wide between the
railway tracks and the Tiensevest, and 370 metres
long. On the long side, the plot is delimited by a
railway bedding, at a lower level, and the tunnel
trench of the Tiensevest. This tunnel trench forms
a barrier for about half of the plot’s length. An
additional source of difficulty is the signal cabin
near the station, a building that had to be inte-
grated in the project.
The wide railway yard forms a barrier, it even
marks the border between Leuven and Kessel-Lo.
Marcel Smets uses the metaphor of “iron river”
for this open space in the urban fabric. Just like a
river, a rail location has two banks, and people
use bridges and tunnels to cross it. Furthermore,
laid in the 19th century, the railway bedding forms
a break that people will continue to experience
physically. The banks in Leuven will always con-
tinue to be peripheral areas, edges, even with two
new connections over the tracks. Edges can
hardly be turned into a new central area in an
urban fabric; the border remains an irreversible
element when considering solutions. The form,
topography and adjacent structure determine the
possibilities of the site in a radical way.
For this narrow strip, the Urban Project Team
opted for a building with free standing volumes
with a total surface of 24,000 m2, only a third of
which, i.e. 8,000 m2, could be used as office
space. The SPS, the elaboration of the “Urban
Project,” provided for mixing work, shopping and
living. Can a certain building location fit in a theo- approach proved pivotal: a permanent develop-
retically postulated intended use? Can a design
be developed with one third allocated to living
space, without taking into account a noise level of
85 decibels from the trains passing by? One char-
acteristic element for railway environments is the
great presence of dust, which virtually excludes
opening the windows. The question must there-
fore be raised whether this strip, immediately
adjacent to the tracks, is suited for housing.
Naturally, such housing will afford a fine view of
the city of Leuven, but the living quality is not
determined solely by panoramic vistas or theoret-
ical considerations. It was further noted that
developers were not interested in the proposed
ratios of the SPS for this location, and for housing
in particular. There was a real danger that this plot Important adjustments were made in the course
would remain an open space for years. The ques-
tion remains whether the proposed programme
for this site with 8,000 m2 of office space, was not
estimated too low. This ratio may have been a
realistic forecast in the mid 1990s, certainly when
the major Philips site was being developed in a
provincial city like Leuven. But thanks to the great
interest that the government itself created in the
station area, it was to be expected that such a top
location would lead to a much higher rate of
occupancy. By comparison with the situation in
the Netherlands, such as the station area in the
provincial city of Arnhem, the offer of 8,000 m2 of
office space for the private sector is far too small
to attract important investors. The biggest draw-
back raised against proposed plan had to do with
the expansion of the office space and the elimina-
tion of the living function in this area. According
to the defendants of the urban project, such a
change would be seen as a return to the old
urban development practices which is far too
much based on pragmatic points of view.
__ A YEAR OF INTENSIVE DESIGN PROCESS
The phase between the first sketches in the
beginning of 2002, and the final design, pre-
sented in June 2003, was a very intensive period
for the design team. A multi-disciplinary design
ment of the design on the basic idea of “People –
Planet – Profit” was used as the underlying prin-
ciple. Samyn describes the PPP principle as
striving for balance between the three main
parameters in the process, i.e. the human, eco-
logical and financial. The various aspects of
durable construction are integrated therein: func-
tional durability, minimal and ecologically justified and transparent character and not to mortgage
use of material, rational use of energy, a mainte-
nance friendly concept and a rational use of
water. Detailed explanations on energy aspects
are given in a special contribution by Dr. Ir. Arch.
Filip Descamps of the building physics enginee-
ring firm Daidalos in Leuven.
of the design process. The building became less
long, one bay was left out, thereby extending the
distance to the Provincial Government Building.
The total built volume was lowered by burying the
volume deeper in the ground. This created a
better connection on the Tiensevest side, but the
lower level of the car park gets less daylight,
which is a concession on the energy-saving front.
It was also decided to connect the car park
(capacity: 690 cars) with the car park of the new
Provincial Government Building. Instead of a fully
glazed façade skin, a wooden façade texture was
chosen for the eleven construction volumes. The
verticality of the façade composition, which
Samyn wants to include as an essential compo-
nent of the architectural tradition, was enhanced.
Unlike Byrne in the provincial government house,
he did not opt for a modernist, horizontal type of
window. With the stress on verticality, he wants to
include a centuries-old tradition in contemporary
architecture. In a city with a verticality icon, i.e. the
town hall, this is a deliberate choice, according to
Samyn. The architect’s premise is not the new
against the old, but architecture seen as an ele-
ment of continuity.
The pronounced sloping roofs in the preliminary
design were replaced by a less flamboyant roof
structure. The way in which the existing signal
cabin was integrated in the whole changed radi-
cally. One very fascinating aspect in the design
phase is trying to find the most efficient structural
arrangement whereby the bay width, distance
between columns and column diameter are con-
stantly reconsidered to arrive at a balanced pro-
portion. Optimising the structure is a leitmotif in
Samyn’s endeavour to give the building a light
the future use.