Unlock the NEC4 code, dive into Antwerp’s €5 billion, 200-acre Oosterweel mega-build

Edwin Tanasale likes to joke that the biggest surprise in his life is not the Oosterweel megaproject but the six-year-old son he is raising at the age of 63. The Dutch safety adviser built an eclectic résumé, municipal HR director, pensions consultant for the Rotterdam police and fire brigade, international soil-remediation site manager, before deciding that protecting workers is the one constant that gives every job meaning. The common thread, he says, is people: “Technology is wonderful, but social intelligence keeps you alive”

Since April 2024 Tanasale has been on secondment from 4People , the Dutch-Belgian engineering consultancy within Pauwels Solutions Group, to TM ROCO, the joint-venture building the right-bank section of Antwerp’s Oosterweel Connection. He serves as a safety adviser on VORK, the 19.8-hectare “hinge” where the future double-deck R1-North will dovetail into local roads and port access. Alongside him are fourteen fellow 4People specialists, designers, planners, modellers, and quality engineers, working shoulder-to-shoulder with numerous Pauwels Consulting, member of PSG, colleagues who are contributing their own expertise to the same Oosterweel project.

A project that redefines scale, and contract culture

The Oosterweel Connection is closing the missing link in Antwerp’s ring road with an underground motorway system, new Scheldt River and canal tunnels, and landscaped parks on the reclaimed surface. Its right-bank works are being delivered under two NEC4 Engineering & Construction Contracts, together valued at roughly €5 billion after scope changes in 2024. Section 3B alone, ROCO’s remit, includes 4 km of twin-level tunnels beneath the docks and Albert Canal, plus the lowering and covering of 4 km of the existing ring road.

Future image, Oosterweel junction, Top view-Scheldt River ©Oosterweel Verbinding

For Belgium this contractual set-up is new territory. NEC4 ties payment to transparent, early warning of risk; both client Lantis and contractor teams share the same cost and programme dashboards. The approach fits neatly with ROCO’s “Goal Zero” ambition (zero injuries or environmental incidents) and its target of a proactive, Safety-Culture-Ladder Level 4 organisation.

Why VORK became Edwin’s laboratory

The VORK sub-zone might lack the photogenic glamour of the immersed Scheldt tunnel, but its constraints are brutal: live freight corridors on one flank, dense residential quarters on the other, and excavation depths that trigger mandatory archaeological oversight. An official note lodged with the Flemish heritage service describes a project footprint of circa 197 574 m². That scale convinced Tanasale he could make a difference: “Safety awareness only grows when people feel their voice counts,” he insists.

Bridging two safety languages

Dutch crews arrive on site with an ingrained routine of last-minute risk analyses and open confrontation about unsafe acts; many Flemish operatives, in Tanasale’s experience, still take hierarchical cues before speaking up. He spends much of his week translating between those habits, sometimes literally, rewriting toolbox slides so every key line appears in both standard Dutch and Flemish idiom. The goal is not to impose one culture on another but to reach what he calls “shared alertness”.

Edwin Tanasale © 4People

His own conversion to safety evangelist dates back to an arsenic-contaminated mine in Georgia, where corrupt subcontractors bribed labourers to sell their protective gear. Diplomacy, mental resilience and improvisation became survival skills. On Oosterweel he deploys the same soft power: informal field walks with supervisors, coffee breaks with rebar crews, and mentoring sessions for interns from Delft and Ghent who shadow him to learn that a design drawing is only half the job.

Concrete, steel, and 915 giant beams over their heads

ROCO publishes its safety KPIs, frequency, severity and culture level, on its public website so nobody on site can plead ignorance. For Tanasale, however, the subtler metric is conversation volume: How many near-misses are reported? How often does a trainee challenge a senior foreman? Those numbers are harder to scrape into a spreadsheet, yet they decide whether Goal Zero is more than a slogan.

Lessons for the next generation

Asked what he tells newcomers, Tanasale quotes his own advice from the 4People interview: involve the execution team early, cultivate communication, and treat social intelligence as a design parameter. He urges young engineers to swap the office canteen for the dusty lunch bench beside the soil-mixing rig, they will spot a trip hazard sooner, and earn trust that no PowerPoint can buy.

A legacy measured in quiet success

When the right-bank tunnels open, current schedules point to the early 2030s, the concrete will disappear under parkland and traffic will glide out of sight. What remains, Tanasale hopes, is a safety culture that Belgian and Dutch teams wrote together, proof that contractual transparency and human empathy can coexist on a megaproject. “The best compliment is silence,” he smiles. “If no one mentions safety on opening day, it means we did the job.”

About 4People and PSG

4People is the Dutch civil-engineering and infrastructure arm of PSG. Through assignments such as Oosterweel, its consultants bring PSG’s broader expertise, in life sciences, IT and big-science engineering, to the front line where European mobility is being re-imagined.

Interested in shaping the next chapter of European infrastructure? 4People and PSG welcome specialists who combine technical rigour with Edwin Tanasale’s brand of social intelligence. Reach out to explore current openings on Oosterweel and beyond.