Rives Ardentes, Liège

The project takes place on the site of the current Clinique de l’Espérance in Saint-Nicolas. Numerous transformations, constructions and reconstructions have marked the site since the 20th century, giving the hospital the shape we know today. The resulting volumetry has gradually become disconnected from the urban space and the complex, now disused, has a dense and impermeable layout. In contrast, our project for this site aims to open it up towards the city and offer its inhabitants a well-defined urban center, in order to fill the current gap.

A new crossing for soft modes of transport will lead to an urban square, framed by public and semi-public functions, in continuity with the strongly commercial axis on which it is located. The rest of the site will be occupied by residential functions of different typologies (single-family houses, flats of various sizes and layouts). The blocks will be cut up by the transversal passage in order to find a more human scale, in addition to benefiting from the security reinforced by the social control that the new street will provide. These strategies are in line with those adopted by other projects in the vicinity (the mosque park, the pathways of the slag heaps etc.), participating in a wider process of opening, restructuring and re-articulating the urban fabric.

The shared outdoor spaces, located in the heart of the blocks, have been designed as places for socializing and stimulating community life. Their extensive planting will also help to combat heat islands. Similarly, they will help to create an alluring and qualitative living environment for the inhabitants, a context in which calmness, the management of views and intimacy will be treated with particular care.