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Glowacka Rennie were invited by Piercy Conner to join the design team developing a new city quarter vision for Gent. The vision was commissioned by PSR, specialists in regenerating and redeveloping contaminated land.

The site lies within a transitional area, now common to many European cities, where the inner urban edge meets the outer, increasingly redundant, industrial areas. The site itself is a former gas works. It sits at a point where earlier established city patterns collide and large loose industrial grids meet the city’s medieval street pattern and the more formal, traditional urban grid. 

Using the analogy of fabric, a new urban quarter is proposed, formed by a rich and colourful pattern of weft and weave. It shows the emergence of a distinctive new part of the city, carefully stitched into the surrounding neighbourhoods yet designed to be ‘of our time’, a joy to live in and to visit.

This vision is intended as a source of inspiration for the city authorities, the principles of which could be extended to additional lands to the north of the canal and incorporated within the new quarter. It is also designed to provide the basis for those architects and landscape designers who will in turn be working on the detailed designs for the various strands and building plots associated with this site.

GASMETERLAAN CITY QUARTER, GENT, BELGIUM

Client: PSR Brownfield Developers

Client Investment Partners: Cherokee Investments

Project Stage: Invited Bid

Public Realm Specialist Architect: Glowacka Rennie

Architect and Team Leader: Piercy Conner Architects

Urban Designer: Aitken Leclercq

Environmental Engineer: Faber Maunsell