Platform Noord - competition proposal

Platform Noord was a vision presented for an urban and sustainable science park on the railway plateau in the Dijle Valley, conceived from an innovative, entrepreneurial, and research-oriented perspective.

Instead of being designed as its own urban entity, Platform Noord would function as a link between three different worlds, both physically – in terms of its position – as well as programmatically and conceptually. These worlds included; the railway city, a body of infrastructure nestled in the valley which has been undergoing transformation for decades; the Vaart and Vaartkom area which is in full development; and the residential city of Leuven itself – all of which, though approximate, seemed dysfunctionally connected.

The overarching concept combined porosity and the interpretation of the environment to create a permeable world: absorbing, drawing in and mixing. The emerging city district would be equipped to deal with all the various torrents of modernity – such as those of water and climate change, but also economic cycles, technological evolutions, mobility transitions, programmatic shifts, and demographic changes. In short, Platform Noord could have been a model for the city of tomorrow, enabling future leaps in innovation.

A collaboration with plusoffice & OMGEVING