Second walkway at Limburg DC connects Construction Campus with UHasselt transport hub
‘Forest Track’ complete: new section winds past bluegrass meadow and pondorest track
DIEPENBEEK – The second and, for now, final section of ‘Forest Track’, the elevated walkway designed by architecture studio Gijs Van Vaerenbergh, has opened at Limburg DC. While the first walkway connects the Health Campus with the Construction Campus, this second section runs from the Construction Campus to the UHasselt transport hub, the campus’s main bus and cycling interchange. The walking time between the two locations has now been halved, from nine to 4.5 minutes.
At 342 metres, the second walkway is slightly longer than the first, which measures 264 metres. Yet the experience is quite different. Starting from the Construction Campus, the path winds through a more open section of woodland, with more open space, towards the transport hub.
Past bluegrass meadow and pond
Along the way, the walkway passes a viewpoint overlooking the grassland between the bus lane and the woodland. This area is known as bluegrass meadow, a rare habitat of which very few examples remain in Limburg. Further along, lowered sections of the walkway allow visitors to get close to the water. The pond itself will be restored at a later stage as part of a climate adaptation project, with measures aimed at enhancing habitats for local flora and fauna, including the European tree frog. As this section features more of these distinctive locations than the first, the designers also incorporated additional benches and resting places.
“With this second walkway, we are providing a very different answer to the same question: how do you connect two parts of a campus functionally while at the same time encouraging people to rediscover the landscape?” says Tom Vandeput, Deputy for Economy and Chairman of POM Limburg. “Where the first walkway winds its way through dense vegetation, this section opens up the landscape, with the pond and bluegrass meadow providing particular added value.”
From design to construction
As with the first walkway, the structure is supported by screw piles – 498 of them this time. The visible finish is once again weathering steel, accounting for 76 tonnes, mounted on a substructure of galvanised beams. The project cost approximately €1.8 million, 70% of which was financed by VLAIO, the Flanders Innovation & Entrepreneurship agency.
“The shape of this walkway was once again determined by the landscape itself,” says architect Pieterjan Gijs of Gijs Van Vaerenbergh. “But the greater amount of open space here gave us the opportunity to make the walkway itself more expressive, with the distinctive locations along the route serving as natural stopping points.”
A beaver with plans of its own
During construction, the contractor received some unexpected company: a beaver that had been busy at work on the Oude Stiemer stream. The dams built by the animal caused an overflow structure at the pond to flow in the wrong direction, sending water towards the construction site rather than away from it. As a result, the dam had to be removed several times. Now that construction is complete, the beaver is free to carry on: the area is allowed to flood, and the walkway has been designed accordingly.
Lighting adapted to bats
As on the first walkway, the lighting has been designed with bats and other nocturnal animals in mind. It switches off after 10 p.m. and comes back on whenever someone passes by.
Parties involved
- Design: Gijs Van Vaerenbergh
- Engineering: D+A and the Concrete Applications Centre (UHasselt)
- Main contractor for road and infrastructure works: De Dender (Liedekerke)
- Metalwork: Cevan Metaalwerken (Maaseik)
- Lighting: Claesen Outdoor Lighting (Bilzen)
- Digitalisation of the walkway: PXL and EDM (UHasselt)
- Partners: Natuurpunt Diepenbeek, Municipality of Diepenbeek, Province of Limburg
Key figures
- Length: 342 metres
- Surface area: 1,402 m²
- Average width: 4.1 metres
- Screw piles: 498
- Steel: 76 tonnes (galvanised beam substructure with visible weathering steel)
- Cost: approx. €1.8 million, 70% financed by VLAIO
- Walking time from the Construction Campus to the transport hub: reduced from 9 minutes to 4.5 minutes
