ACG Ghent
Ijzerweglaan, Ghent 2021 - 2023
Along the Scheldt in Ghent, cars make way for a park. But the cars don't disappear. The car dealership has made a future-oriented choice to continue its operations near the city in a new, now multifunctional, building.
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The building has a dual character. On the side facing the residential neighborhood, the existing blind garage wall gives way to three large homes. These courtyard buildings, offering affordable student housing, are connected by an elongated, elevated walkway, which invites students to pay each other a visit.
The courtyard structures sit atop the showrooms and workshop spaces that face the street. In the surrounding park, a third, smaller showroom will be positioned, serving as a sustainable energy hub for the entire site.
The cars, once parked all around the building, will now move underground, freeing up space for even more park.
A hybrid stack
Urban planning in Ghent focuses on the prudent management of the city’s scarce open space. To this end, it stimulates the interweaving of functions in denser, thoughtfully designed neighborhoods and buildings.
This project pushes that ambition to its limits, stacking parking spaces, showrooms, workshops, and large-scale student housing on top of one another. The result is a hybrid building, with a distinct and multifaceted character, leaving room for a park along the river Scheldt.
All student rooms are of the affordable type, achieving no less than five times the usual market standard, where typically only 20% of rooms are offered as affordable.
