De Zwarte Hond wins tender for green station environment in Roeselare, together with DELVA and Rebel

De Zwarte Hond has won the tender for work on the northern station area of the Belgian city of Roeselare, together with DELVA Landscape Architecture | Urbanism and Rebel. The consortium will develop an updated master plan and conduct a design study for a plot in the development area.

The station environment
This challenging site is located just north of the train station and is sandwiched between the railway track and access roads. Traditionally, this area formed a sharp boundary between the city centre and the working-class neighbourhood of Krottegem. With various (industrial) work and storage functions and no connections through the area, it is an unknown, inaccessible and increasingly underused place in the city. Industry and railway services are gradually being phased out here, while the site location is gaining in relevance with the realization of the Trax cultural cluster and various other developments in the station area.

The city’s lofty ambitions
It is important for the City of Roeselare to shift the focus from (quantitative) urban growth to qualitative improvement: combating heat stress, creating breathing and meeting spaces for Roeselare’s residents, and establishing east-west connections that bring functions, developments and people together. The consortium of De Zwarte Hond, DELVA and Rebel is pleased to contribute to these important city ambitions to add more green, social urban space in order to become a healthy, future-proof city. These ambitions are woven into the DNA of each of the consortium agencies.

 Integrated area development
In the presented vision for the development area, the planned park must grow in width in order to become meaningful for the entire city. This means that future developments in this area will focus on a number of specific locations, and these will be given development conditions. With the design study for the specific plot De Prairie, the consortium will immediately get to work to interweave the plans at both scale levels. This study will serve, for example, as a pilot to apply and further refine the assessment framework for the new master plan.

A decisive factor for the selection committee was the consortium’s presentation of a robust green structure that can also serve as a basis for the plan in the long term, and that is also feasible because it is linked to a real estate strategy.

From September 2022, the three offices will start working on this beautiful and important design assignment for Roeselare.