INDUSTRIAL SITE REDEVELOPMENT, SAVOOISTRAAT – RONSE

36 apartments

Redevelopment project at the former “Ververij De Wolf Frères” (De Wolf Frères Dyeworks) industrial site.

In the future developments, the site situated at Savooistraat serves as a key link in the connection between the town centre and Muziekbos (Music Forest), a major tourist and recreational attraction pole for the town of Ronse.

Courtesy of its visibility in the landscape, the design is set to act as the ‘face’ of and as an impetus for the redevelopment of the industrial sites around Molenbeek (Mill Brook).

The impact of the new project respects the heritage value of the site to the utmost as far as its linkage with the urban fabric goes.  The old facades engage in dialogue with the environs. They are interwoven as widely as possible with the embedment of new elements that lend the site a reinvigorated élan from its historical roots. In respecting this circumference, the dialogue with the immediate environs is left as good as untouched.

The relicts (such as the old boiler and the chimney) that refer back to the site’s industrial past, are consolidated and incorporated into the buildings and the landscape layout.

Molenbeek is a significant element in the creation of an inner area that is as open and green as possible.  Molenbeek was not just important to the historical developments at the site, today too its presence continues to constitute a considerable added value for the development of this green area. Which is why the bed of Molenbeek is to be opened up again, to be returned to its condition from before the industrial revolution.

To preserve the inherent identity of this landscape as widely as possible, we have therefore opted to consolidate the site in the landscape, for one thing by preserving the boundaries of the site and, in a heritage sense, by including valuable elements in the new programme.  For another thing by incorporating distinct references to the ‘textile architecture’ in the design of the volumes to be newly constructed.