Key aspects of the North-South Limburg Complex Project (between Hasselt and Eindhoven) include using infrastructure as a backbone/spine to connect nature and enhance the quality of the natural surroundings. We design with a strong focus on serving nature to boost biodiversity. Designing for and with nature always involves a significant element of unpredictability: how will nature react? The goal isn’t to ‘create’ nature but to make it possible and create the optimal conditions that allow for spontaneity and change.
Where possible – for instance – we create retaining walls as ‘living walls’ using natural materials to support nearby ecosystems and provide habitat for fauna and flora. Additionally, we design ecological passages to reconnect valuable landscapes and biotopes. By not providing a bottom or floor plate, the profile of streams is extended as naturally as possible beneath the infrastructure, while the broadening tunnel mouths can guide fauna inward.
Client: De Werkvennootschap / Flemish Government – Environment Department
Studio NZL: Tractebel / IMDC (Tractebel) / Arcadis / Maat Ontwerpers / 51N4E / NU architectuuratelier
Engineer: Arcadis, IB-Miebach
