Mining colonies: Tuinwijk-Zuid Waterschei

On the Stalense Heide the Waterschei garden suburb was extended after WW2. This was done by extending the central avenue to meet the extended avenue of Zwartberg at an older road that once ran across the heath (now the Emiel van Dorenlaan is part of this older route). This extension was aligned with the central avenue and consists of 3 parallel streets at a right angle to it. The streets are connected by side streets, although these have no building on them. Where the side streets connect to the main streets a large roundabout has been put in place with a public garden or grass at its heart. The houses are mainly terraces with 4 dwellings. They are placed along the streets at regular intervals. At the roundabouts the houses have been placed at a 45^o angle. The whole setup is formal, but this is softened by the buildings that have varying details, roofs and facades.

The Tuinwijk-Zuid (1) is a formal neigbourhood directly south of the extended axis of the garden suburb of Waterschei. It was built in a single building campaign. North of the garden village large villas (2/3) were built along the extended Onderwijslaan. Between the Tuinwijk-Zuid and the Stalenstraat a number of bungalows (5) were built after 1960. The rest of the buildings (4) differ greatly in apperance and style. They were constructed between 1950 and 2000.

The Tuinwijk-Zuid was developed immediately after the war in 1947-48. The street names are commemorative in nature Bevrijdingslaan (Liberation Avenue) and 14 Septemberlaan (the date Genk was liberated). The backbone of the neighbourhood is the central axis formed by the Verbindingslaan (literally: Connection Avenue). The side streets have no separate name, as there are no houses on them. The layout is reminiscent of the parallel lanes with Mulhouse Quadrangles. The spacing is indeed similar. It seems like the street pattern was to be extended further west. This never happened though. Instead we see a mixed neigbourhood consisting of the typical urban sprawl along former paths and preexisting roads. This urban sprawl together with the post-war neighbourhood and the 1930s neighbourhood behind the hospital are now called Tuinwijk-Zuid (Garden village South).

Taking a closer look at the morphology we see two old routes (shown in orange) and a slightly skewed block of cultivated former heathland divided into broad strips (shown in yellow). The large garden suburb Cité André Dumont bordered on this large block of land. The Tuinwijk-Zuid crosses into it and alters the alignment. The new pattern of three parallel streets connects to the preexisting paths and roads. The two main avenues of Zwartberg and Waterschei (in red) meet at an older road. In the 1970s a motorway was constructed with a new express road connecting Zwartberg to Genk via Winterslag (shown in violet). Because of this express road older streets were dissected and eventually parts of old routes were discontinued.

The garden suburb at Waterschei in Genk has been developed out of several neighbourhoods all typical for their period, but still the whole makes for a beautifully conceived residential area reminiscent of English garden city examples.Tuinwijk-Zuid differs in layout and building style. It makes up a small portion of the total garden suburb.