Following a closed competition, BUUR was appointed by social housing company Ons Dak for a masterplan in the social residential area of Terca in Maaseik. Just outside the city center of Maaseik, Ons Dak built a residential area here in the 70s and 80s with a Youth Home. Despite the proximity to the cultural center and a sports cluster, the neighborhood is particularly badly anchored in its surroundings. Partly due to this isolated location, the residential area today has a negative image.
In 2015 Ons Dak also decided to further develop a number of grounds north of the residential area and thus give the neighborhood a final touch. Given the outdated infrastructure of the Jeugdtehuis, it was also decided to place it in a new building. This gave the opportunity to immediately re-construct the access to the neighborhood. The master plan drawn up by BUUR creates space for new homes, but also ensures that the residential area is more firmly anchored in its environment. By relocating the Jeugdtehuis, the necessary space is made available to provide a new access road that makes the residential area easily accessible. At the same time, a number of new links for soft traffic are being searched in the existing fabric. Along the new access road, a separate cycle path will be created that will make the connection between these different links. In this way the residential area is included within the soft traffic network. The existing residential area was constructed according to a more traditional land development logic, so that there is also little qualitative green space. Despite the relative proximity of the open landscape, the residential area suffers from a shortage of green meeting space. The BUUR master plan also provides new high-quality green space at the neighborhood level. This happens in a linear park space that forms a connector at the urban level and a neighborhood park at the neighborhood level.
The master plan was translated into a zoning plan and urban development regulations. Based on this zoning plan, the VMSW will prepare the road map and then appoint architects for the further elaboration of the residential entities.
