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Place Rogier
Place Rogier- © XDGA
Place Rogier
Similar to the Nørreport project and the Schuman Square, this project is about public transport in public space. Rogier Square used to be a square in front of the North railway station, until it was relocated futher up north due to infrastructural reasons. The area nonetheless remained an important hub: a major subway station was built under the square, while above the ground it became an intersection for bus lines. This new condition characterized by vertical fluxes, however, failed to be translated into a qualitative space. Ultimately four major interventions were proposed.
A patio that is carved out of the subterranean infrastructure is the central element of the project. It brings daylight to the subway levels and to an underground event hall. It is nonetheless a connector as well. Access to the underground and to an existing parking garage is concentrated inside and around the patio. A 3d composition of stairs, escalators, elevators and a pedestrian bridge becomes the heart of the project.
The underground levels are reorganised. They are reoriented towards the patio, new shops are introduced and an underground link with a shopping mall on the other side of the street is redesigned.
A pedestrian strip is introduced along the north façade of the boulevard. The impact of cars is drastically reduced. Only taxis and buses are allowed on the square. While the square itself remains rather empty, the strip is accommodated with terraces, street furniture and small groups of trees. The strip is laid with white concrete panels incrusted with pebbles, the square with dark basalt stone.
In between the square and the boulevard a large circular canopy is installed that covers both the patio and the bus stop. It has a central pedestal that is used as a coffee shop. The canopy is a steel structure resting on 4 pre-existing columns that also support the underground trains. The pedestal, a volume with a rectangular ground plan based on the existing column grid, and a hexagonal ceiling integrated in the triangular structure of the roof, is shifted in plan in order to position the canopy at the center of the square. The roof is covered with a single ETFE sheet, while the opaque triangles are made of a white PVC foil.
Similar to the Nørreport project and the Schuman Square, this project is about public transport in public space. Rogier Square used to be a square in front of the North railway station, until it was …
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- © XDGA, photo by Matthias Van Rossen
- © XDGA, photo by Matthias Van Rossen
- © XDGA, photo by Matthias Van Rossen
- © XDGA, photo by Matthias Van Rossen
- © XDGA, photo by Matthias Van Rossen
- © XDGA, photo by Matthias Van Rossen
- © XDGA, photo by Matthias Van Rossen
- © XDGA, photo by Matthias Van Rossen
- © XDGA, photo by Matthias Van Rossen
2006-2019080 Place Rogier
Competition / 1st prize, built
CityBrussels
Programrenewal of Place Rogier and the Boulevard Botanique, with the rehabilitation of the subway station Rogier
Year2006-2019
ProcedureCompetition / 1st prize
Statusbuilt
ClientBrussels Capital Region
Total floor area45.000 m² (square: 9.000 m², metro: 7.000 m², boulevard: 29.000 m²)
Budget20.000.000 €
LandscapeMichel Desvigne Paysagiste
Structural engineerNey & Partners
Mechanical engineerStudiebureau Boydens
PhotographsMatthias Van Rossen
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Statement
Ideally architecture is not about fixing activities, fluxes or programs, or worse, about solving spatial problems. On the contrary, it is about opening up possibilities: the potential of a site, the hidden opportunity of a particular situation in time, of a programmatic conflict. It is about dealing with uncertainty, about enabling different and unforeseen scenarios.
In that sense architecture and urbanism are not opposed disciplines with different outcomes, but similar mediators, on different scales and in different degrees of complexity, with the same goal of enabling life.
The basis for architecture in our way of working is to carry out a meticulous scanning of a brief, a program or a context. Context not just as that what physically surrounds a project, but the larger field of social, economic, political, administrative and also technical issues, all on an equal level. This activity of accurate and systematic reading leads to a matrix of knowledge that frames any architectural decision. Sometimes this framework functions as a backdrop for postponed intuitions, sometimes it forms the battlefield for a bombardment of architectural proposals that slowly gain self-evidence through a process of trial and error.
The scanning raises new questions, opens up unexplored fields, reveals hidden opportunities, or brings together so-called incompatibilities. Through this working method all projects are rooted in their context, but as context has a visible and a hidden part, they often surpass their physical context and they sometimes completely transform it.
This explorative approach leads to a working method, not a style. Instead, style is restrictive to exploration. Our approach saves us from dogmatic thinking, from an all too narrow agenda, from the architectural one-liner.
Team
Doug Allard, David Ampe, Vincent Blactot, Tom Bonnevalle, Maud Bouhin, Lionel Bousquet, Jérémie Brault, Karel Bruyland, Rémy Carat, Elena Caruso, Antoine Chaudemanche, Pieter Coelis, Beatrice Colaiacomo, Marie Debraine, Xaveer De Geyter, Joris De Greef, Hanne Defloor, Thaïs de Roquemaurel, Chloé de Salins, Jacqueline De Souza Luduvice, Pieter De Walsche, Nenad Duric, Eleonor Ferragu, Sandra Fol, Eric Gilham, Arie Gruijters, Annelotte Herrebosch, Ingrid Huyghe, Yannis Igodt, Ménélik Jobert, Paul-Emmanuel Lambert, Solène Le Gallo, Jonathan Robert Maj, Leo Mazurek, Philip Niekamp, Emilia Ockerman, Federico Pedrini, Anne-Sophie Rouillère, Yuichiro Suzuki, Hannelore Thomas, Foucault Tiberghien, Greta Torsello, Willem Van Besien, Wouter van Daele, Catherine Van Driessche, Matthias Van Rossen, Marie-Pierre Vandeputte, Dana Vargovčíková, Simon Vellut, Yannick Vergnaud, Samia Wahbi, Ulysse Zehnlé, Rui Zenha
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