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Abstract:

Flanders needs to rethink its’ consumption of open space, horizontal spreading and housing ideal. In order to transition towards a more sustainable mobility and settlement pattern, to mitigate climate change and adapt to water and other resource scarcity, a radical shift away from the horizontal urbanism is needed. This applies to the urban, but might have an even greater impact on how Flanders’ villages will transform. Looking at urbanizing villages in the Gete valley where the actual densification is in conflict with the intention to no longer accommodate for population growth, the agenda here is to use controlled transformation processes for building up spatial qualities: creating stronger and more resilient landscapes, another mobility context in which high level bike infrastructure as being planned can supplement the larger scale public transport infrastructure, a more networked system of amenities and another building culture that contributes to the quality of the village in itself.