The suburbs are growing and the city is sprawling. Larger works for infrastructural entities or urban-development plans are reorganizing the surrounding urban fabric. Flanders has a fine-meshed system of connecting roads, bordered by ribbon developments that screen off the hinterland. The car is king there. Many villages and facilities are located along a road and link up to it directly. The brick façade of the fire station in Dilbeek conceals the daily activities in the interior, but its bright red colour signals the reassuring presence of the safety services. On the outskirts of the city or just outside the residential areas, larger institutions and residential parks are often located on a green campus. The conversion of a former industrial estate into an administrative campus in Oostkamp is a specific variant of this process. 

(Maarten Liefooghe, Maarten Van Den Driessche)

photo UGent/Pierre Putman ©Gosia Olchowska

photo ©Gosia Olchowska