PXL-MAD School of Arts - Field

The river Demer gives the PXL campus in Hasselt its orientation and backbone. With more room for the stream and green, natural banks replacing hard edges, new ecosystems emerge that are also pleasant places to spend time.

Rooted in the Demer and organised as a true campus, the masterplan for PXL on the Elfdeliniestraat in Hasselt turns a fragmented site into a green, connected place to study, meet and linger. It does so through four themes.

The first theme lets the river Demer give the site its orientation and its backbone. The stream is given more room, and its hard edges make way for natural, green banks. These form new ecosystems, but they are also pleasant places to spend time.

The second theme is about opening up the heart of the campus. The fragmented spaces between the buildings are cleared of parking and unnecessary paving and replaced by inviting meeting places, where students and staff can actually stay.

The third theme rethinks mobility and circulation across the whole campus, with a clear hierarchy. The large transverse axis, now a traffic route, will be reserved for cyclists and public transport. Cars are banned from the campus altogether and moved to its edges. In between the buildings, a dense network of walking and cycling paths emerges, forming a connective web of natural open spaces that guides soft mobility flows and continues into the Demer area behind. A genuine campus model.

The fourth theme looks for the right scale for the buildings. Along the city ring, buildings of generous size with long facades form a strong wall that announces the campus to the city. Inside the campus, the buildings seek a smaller grain, more human in scale and better suited to the green spaces around them. Together, these four moves give PXL a campus that is greener, calmer and more connected, both to the water and to the city.