Arenberg Science Park Leuven

Master plan in collaboration with KCAP Rotterdam

location	Boudewijnlijn, Leuven
year	2005 - 2006
i.c.w.	-
principal	INTERLEUVEN
uitvoeringsteam en	-
cost price	11.600.000 euros
surface	-
collaboration	-

The plan is embedded in the surrounding landscape structure in which built-up areas are dotted around the scenery like inlaid work (intarsia). The plan builds on the existing patchwork in which the manner in which built-up areas and landscape elements alternate is judiciously considered and planned.
Given the sensitive nature of the area (landscape, water catchment area), the planning concept is based on minimal land uptake. To this end, the plan that has been devised works around a system of clusters, in which ICT buildings and bio labs are loosely assembled around a yard that serves as an entrance square to each building.
The clusters see to it that the plan is phaseable and is completed in itself with each phase that is rounded off. Between the clusters, this produces a park landscape as a continuation of the landscape that sits in the southern corner of the grounds. Between the buildings themselves, gardens have been marked out with dedicated greenery, accessible to pedestrians and building users. In doing so, this serves to create a sustainable relationship between the existing natural landscape and the new “artificially” built environment, with the courtyard and the cluster gardens as intermediaries.