URBAN INCISIONS
The 19th-century belt of canals in Antwerp has a splendour of its own that only reveals itself if you speak the language of the city. The seemingly perfect system of characteristic city blocks is in fact full of holes. There are patches of vacant land, demolished buildings, building sites without a plan. It is a phenomenon in its own right. I carried out my research method ('the cut of the city') in the two parts of Antwerp with the greatest number of such holes, Turnhoutse Poort and Kievitbuurt-Bleekhofbuurt. First came pathological research and then anthropological research. The cut of the city is a combination of spatial and social factors, supplemented by an interpretation of my own. The cut in question shows the elements that makes the city what it is.

URBAN DECISIONS
Urban Decisions is an organization I founded to address the matter of temporarily fitting out the gaps that have appeared in the canal belt. It explores ways of making use of these spaces before a permanent solution is found. The beauty of the cut in the city is key to this operation, which is a diversionary tactic with a double agenda.

There are many advantages to temporary use as against permanent use. Short-term interventions can respond more rapidly and more specifically to the locations in question. They are unencumbered by rigid legislation and take place at the most local level. They derive their strength from the capacity to improvise. The potentials of places are exposed, something that can benefit a city's social, cultural and political dynamic in the long run. The designs issuing from Urban Decisions have been grafted to the set-up on site; they respond specifically to the situations obtaining there, as much socially as spatially. Urban Decisions seeks to grasp the essence of the space and twist it in such a way that the place can be appropriated and its visual splendour shine through.

A gap that has arisen can be redressed on three planes: facade, ground plane and property boundary. These can support transformations that can go on to influence the space around them. Armed with a toolbox, the designer can respond with great accuracy to the particular conditions of the territory and the desired setting. The toolbox is not the be-all and end-all, but an interpretation made through Urban Decisions. The interventions are of a temporary nature; they are relatively easy and quick to assemble, dismantle and move about. The materials used are cheap and easy to obtain. Underpinning the designs is a modular system inspired by scaffolding and stadium seating for added flexibility.

Thanks to Urban Decisions, the gaps will be invested with new meaning in the collective memory of the city and appreciation of the place in its present form will grow. The city will change. The interventions may be temporary but their influence will transcend the short-term.

Place of education: TU Eindhoven | Specialization: urban design | Tutors: Bruno De Meulder, Sophie Rousseau, Oswald Devisch