REcentre opens temporary park in Maastricht (NL)

The Sphinxpark is located on a vacant lot that is part of the Belvedère project. With a planning area that covers almost 1/6 of the total city surface area, in many ways the Belvedère project has a lot of impact on Maastricht. The plan includes the redevelopment of a site that stretches from the heart of the city to the Belgium border at Lanaken. The closing of old industrial buildings (such as the Sphinx factory) has created possibilities in the city centre for a new residential quarter in which living, working and recreation are connected in a sustainable way to nature and the landscape and to the industrial history of Maastricht. Some industrial monuments are being repurposed while in other areas of the project new housing is developed.

The outlines of Plan Belvedère are not yet visible in all the subareas. The changing economical climate has forces reconsideration of the original ambitions and a re-establishment of the cooperation between public and private. The groundwork for a new urban residential quarter in the area around the Eiffel has been laid. At the moment, parts of this planning area are vacant and, while the building hasn’t started yet, have been taken over by nature. You could say that a park has almost formed itself in the absence of human intervention.

In a region that is dealing with decline of population and vacant buildings and even wasteland as a result, REcentre sees the temporary park as the perfect opportunity for a case study on models for temporary use but also on the contemporary function of a park. What is the role of the park nowadays? Is it a place where we can pick nick and promenade or is it a place where we can grow our food, keep animals, store energy or even work.

REcentre works together with Marres Projects (www.marres.org) and seeks cooperation with local designers, architects, activists, organizations and habitants of Maastricht.

As a start of the project, on the 13th and the 14th of October 2011, ecological gardener Hans Engelbrecht started with creating a mowing plan for the lot so that the beginnings of a park became visible.

Meanwhile, design students from the Fachhochschule in Dusseldorf worked together - in the framework of the education programme of The Great Indoors Awards 2011 - with landscape architect Ernst van der Hoeven (www.ernstvanderhoeven.com) and designer Frank Bruggeman (www.frankbruggeman.com) on an initial function and ‘interior’ for the park. Check out the students' blog and some pictures.

This temporary park is realised with the generous cooperation of Belvedère Wijkontwikkelingsmaatschappij (www.belvedere-maastricht.nl) and Gemeente Maastricht (www.maastricht.nl).