The Ring (R1), the motorway partially circumscribing Antwerp, runs from the North East to the South East. Over the years, traffic intensity has grown considerably, making it one of the busiest motorways in Europe. Today the Ring exhibits several contemporary urban symptoms (congestion, intrusive noise and atmospheric pollution) and is a barrier between the historic city and its suburbs.

And yet the R1 is located in the largest green space in the city. Extending for 625 hectares, the green belt follows the former military track of the Enclosure of Brialmont (1850-1860) circling the city to the river. It integrates the railway (the southward network extension of 1896) and the Singel ring road. The City of Antwerp has decided to rework the infrastructure of the Ring and that of the Singel as a multi-way boulevard in order that they become the support for the network, from the supra-local to the local.

Selected by the Flemish Government for the South Sequence, TVK and TER are collaborating on the production of a strategic vision to develop, over time, the possible covering-over of the Ring between the Kennedy Bridge and the E19 motorway.

In applying the Scenarisation method, the study identifies, according to the temporal perspective, the role of the landscape as a vector of metropolitan identity, the capacity of infrastructures to link its two banks and to develop the disposable surfaces that will become reserves of useable space and places to visit. In parallel with this study, a collaborative consultation process continues with the inhabitants of the southern districts of Antwerp, leading towards the determination of their needs. The goal of this study is to ameliorate the quality of life of the inhabitants.