Julien Mongrolle & Lisa Djanaralieva & Yoann Quehec

The floods of July 2021 have severely affected the town of Pepinster, located at the confluence of the Vesdre and Hoëgne rivers. These floods are the evidence of the intensification of extreme climatic events. It is therefore essential to question the design of our infrastructures, both at the urban and building scales. The REFLEO district is therefore a project for the urban and resilient redevelopment of the Pepinster confluence site. The strategies adopted are to move the buildings back from the watercourses, to create a flood park, to increase the density of the buildings and to raise the level of vulnerable functions. The public space is duplicated, giving life to a low square, at the same level as the road, and a high square situated six metres above.

The Vesdrienne, for pedestrians and cyclists travel between these two settings, reflecting each other. Thus, a new programme has been composed to reorganise the distribution of the population by favouring the upper levels for residential functions. Other functions are added to this programme to recreate a new urban and dynamic centre in Pepinster: shops; supermarket; library; restaurant; etc. Two buildings have been developed in detail: a sports hall and a complex building organised according to the principle of overlapping functions. The latter is the result of a particularly interesting structural and functional elucidation. All these functions are articulated by green spaces of various kinds, which can be flooded if necessary. Finally, so that all these components can forma coherent system, the mobility network has been reviewed to favour soft mobility. All these steps feed the primary objective of the REFLEO district: to offer a new living environment to the population of Pepinster, a balance between quality of life and resilience to the risk of flooding.

---

SCHUNCK cannot guarantee the correctness of content and expression. The participants themselves are responsible for their entries. The copyright of the projects underlies to the authors, any reproduction or use of the shown material is strictly forbidden.