Infrastructure as a “renewable resource”: re-cycling artificial rationalities in Limburg

The phenomenon of the diffused urbanization in Europe is context-specific (De Geyter, 2002). Nevertheless, it is still possible to recognize some common aspects: in recent research evidence has emerged of the city-territory’s ability to be adaptable and resilient. These aspects are often related to the metamorphosis of its infrastructural assets (Macchi Cassia et al., 2004; Secchi, 1999). This paper aims to contribute to the description of the contemporary conditions of diffused urbanization and to the development of urban design tools for imagining new (life)cycles for resilient urbanized territories of the future. Mapping the level of waste and disruption in relation to infrastructural assets will contribute to the reclamation of infrastructure design as a strategic point of intervention for governments to tackle territorial issues by recycling and up-cycling dispersed territories. As a palimpsest (Corboz, 1998), the European city-territory is constantly “overwritten”—its condition today is the result of different waves of urbanization that belong both to slow and fast engines. What the role of infrastructural assets is today, and how we can interpret their contemporary role, is the starting point of the design exploration. The following paper considers and tests these considerations within the context of the Campine region of northeast Flanders. Diverse productive “colonization processes,” with their specific infrastructure, have shaped the current condition of the region. Each of these periods left traces at different scales. Such traces are linked to specific infrastructure, urban patterns, and landscapes. The urbanization of the Campine region clearly shows how infrastructural operations and urbanization are closely interwoven. The hypothesis is that European territories could reinvent themselves by way of critical evaluation and by means of a strategic manipulation of their existing materials and leftovers. By rethinking infrastructural layers and by adding, removing, and connecting artificial and natural rationalities, the city-territory might achieve a more sustainable future. Is it therefore possible to consider the existing infrastructure—with all of its complexity in terms of scales and materials, technicalities and dimensions—as constituting a part of the city-territory’s renewable resources? This implies a deep comprehension of the current global paradigm shift that is imposing a change on the organization of society in space. Recycling is mandatory, but how to go about it is an open question, and it changes according to the scales we are referring to. How can we evolve from urbanization in which we accumulate materials and in which we consume resources—in a linear way—toward a different scenario where infrastructural synergies might activate cyclic interactions with the environment?