R4WO Ghent Ring Road

The R4WO covers some thirty kilometres of route and offered the chance to design a landscape identity for both ring roads: from open farmland to port industry, from nature reserve to village centre. That double reading of the landscape formed the basis for integrating the infrastructure as well as possible.

Interchange W9 is the largest and most complex section: the crossing of the Ringvaart canal — the 'Gateway to Ghent' — with arch bridges and a striking long cycle bridge, a curve optimised for the landscape, and the passage through urbanised Wondelgem, where the R4 disappears into a tunnel and the ground level is laid out anew.

The architectural design of the structures was refined in working groups with engineers, contractors, ecologists and water management — an iterative method in which the landscape steers the design of the structures, and the structures in turn strengthen the landscape.