Antwerp

Antwerp Urban Living Lab

ULL ANTWERP is committed to creating a variety of digital tools for urban planning but needs to address their shortcomings in supporting urban green management. The particular problem areas to address are air pollution in public areas and neighbourhoods and the lack of insights into the development of city- wide breezeways and green corridors. Thus, ULL Antwerp activities will include low-cost monitoring of air pollution, including citizen science involvement, and simulations for the wind field, air quality, and heat. It will also be actively involved in the improvement of the existing tools for urban greenery planning, including its consideration in the emerging urban digital twins. Finally, ULL Antwerp will coordinate landscape and spatial analysis and will support the integration of new evidence through the comprehensive parameterization of the urban environment.

Project Partners

University of Antwerp

Research

The mission of the Research Group for Urban Development (RGUD) of the Faculty of Design Sciences, University of Antwerp (UA) is to contribute to the development of knowledge for the sustainable transformation of cities and urban regions. The main research tracks of the group are: Spatial governance; Infrastructure & Mobilities; Climate & Resilience; Metropolitan Legal Lab and Healthy cities. The UA is, together with Faculty of Architecture, GT, an important research centre for the application of GIS tools in interdisciplinary studies related to sustainable urban systems, and the use and adaptation of various digital tools for urban planning and landscape architecture. The RGUD has extensive experience related to sustainable urban development and climate adaptation strategies, the management of spatial and environmental structures and processes, and participatory planning.

BEHEERSMAATSCHAPPIJ ANTWERPEN MOBIEL (LANTIS)

Company

Lantis, a limited liability company of public law set up by the Flemish Government, is the project coordinator of one of the largest infrastructural works in Flanders, Belgium: the (partial) overarching of the Antwerp Ring Road (R1) and the Oosterweel connection. Lantis stands for "Livable Antwerp through Innovation and Collaboration", and therefore Lantis supports proposals which initiate knowledge development relevant for the liveability in the city of Antwerp in a broad sense. Lantis has a broad expertise which ranges from project coordination to project communication, citizen involvement, CFD simulations, data collection and the execution measuring campaigns. Many of their activities are related to the Oosterweel case study in Antwerp.

VLAAMSE MILIEUMAATSCHAPPIJ (VMM)

Environment Agency

Flanders Environment Agency (VMM) is an agency of the Flemish government that adopts an even stronger position as a solution-oriented partner. As an organisation, it sets out to have a positive impact on the living environment in Flanders and to help make it climate-proof. The VMM has strong competences in environmental monitoring and has extensive data on air quality in Flanders and Antwerp which is collected through various monitoring stations. Even more, the VMM possesses a strong expertise on the development of online tools and platforms (i.e. the Climate Platform, the “Groentool”, Digital Twins, CityTRAQ, and many others) to collect and disseminate knowledge on climate adaptation.

Researchers Involved

Prof. Maarten Van Acker

University of Antwerp

Professor is spokesperson for RGUD. His research focuses on healthy urban design and robust infrastructure projects. He coaches various cities, architectural offices and project developers with the realisation of complex urban development projects, infrastructural projects and the organisation of international urban design competitions and workshops.

Prof. Siegfried Denys

University of Antwerp

Professor is spokesperson of the Sustainable Energy and Air and Water Technology (DuEL) research group. He has an extensive expertise in the validation by computational modelling of innovative air purification technologies using greenery and technology. DuEL and RGUD have collaborated on numerous projects focussing on the usage of CFD to test the implementation of air pollution reduction measures in urban environments, resulting in a number of joint publications.

Chenling Wu

University of Antwerp

Chenling is an expert in integrating technical modeling and spatial analysis to support urban planning and design for improved air quality. Her work focuses on evaluating the impact of urban form and green spaces on air quality and developing context-specific, evidence-based strategies for healthier cities, combining field monitoring, statistical analysis, and numerical simulations (CFD models) across multiple spatial scales.

Dr. Jana Deforche

University of Antwerp

Jana is executive director of the Design Sciences Hub (DSH) at the UA. She has an extensive expertise in working in collaborative settings with partners from academia, government, industry and civil society and supports the research team with valorisation related issues.