21st Century (2000–present)

Antwerp Nieuw Zuid

2012– · Belgium · Western & Central Europe · Post-industrial regeneration and waterfront urbanism · Planned by City of Antwerp; Secchi-Viganò (urban design)

Masterplan overview of Nieuw Zuid by Studio Associato Secchi-Viganò: seven perpendicular residential bands with green courtyards, towers marked in red, the tram line, the Scheldekaaien park strip and the 15 ha Konijnenwei park. · © Studio Associato Secchi-Viganò / Stad Antwerpen — used with credit · Studio Associato Secchi-Viganò, masterplan Nieuw Zuid; published in Stad Antwerpen / AG Stadsplanning folder 'Nieuw Zuid' (May 2013)

Core idea

Sustainable mixed-use expansion south of center

Why it matters

Large new urban quarter on former docks

Description

A masterplan for Nieuw Zuid, a new urban quarter on former railway and dock land along the Scheldt just south of Antwerp's centre, developed from 2012 by the City of Antwerp with an urban design framework by Studio Associato Bernardo Secchi e Paola Viganò. The plan lays out a dense, sustainable mixed-use neighbourhood of several thousand dwellings with offices and schools, arranged around a generous riverside park and designed to high energy and water-management standards, with buildings by numerous Belgian and international architects.

Significance

Nieuw Zuid extends the Secchi–Viganò structural vision for Antwerp into built form and is often cited as a European model of park-led, low-carbon urban extension on post-industrial land. It figures in debates on design quality versus affordability in developer-delivered districts, and it consolidated Antwerp's reputation for ambitious waterfront regeneration along the Scheldt quays.

What shaped it

Sustainable development (Brundtland) (1987)
The compact city (1973-1990s)
Landscape urbanism (Waldheim) (1997-2006)

Sources

Open it on the interactive timeline →

hub.toekom.st — History of Urbanism · an interactive timeline of 850 planned cities across 6,000 years.