A set of courtyards organizes the building, shielding open space from a noisy highway.

Entrance courtyard

Entrance courtyard

The entire building is made of cross-laminated timber (with PEFC label) and wood facades.

The sports facility of the primary school

The sports facility of the primary school as seen from the first floor

Left: reception area and right: the restaurant

Colourful interior windows guide you through the building

Double high corridor in the boarding school

A double high atrium with view on the physiotherapists' flexible workspace

Large Care Campus

Antwerp

Building a care campus is not just about assembling program components; it’s about enhancing the children’s lives and supporting the staff’s work. Our goal was to integrate the building into its urban context while ensuring it harmonizes with the neighborhood and surrounding landscape. The campus plays a crucial role in shaping children’s perceptions of the world. We envision it not as an isolated building but as an active interface where the building, landscape, and neighborhood are interconnected. This design should let perspectives gradually change, overlap, and develop.

The outdoor layout is a vital link between the neighborhood and the care campus. The building’s multi-winged structure helps minimize its perceived scale, with multiple entrances distributed along the various wings. The school is accessed from Leo Baekelandstraat and the boarding school from Herman Vosstraat. This arrangement ensures that the campus’s large scale does not feel overwhelming. Additional entrances along the courtyards create a dynamic mix of passageways and intimate spaces.

Since the children’s living environment is largely indoors, it’s essential that the space feels rich and varied. By interweaving the interior with the landscape and offering a variety of sensory experiences, the interior space becomes almost like an outdoor environment. Corridors provide playful views, blurring the lines between inside and outside.

In our commitment to sustainability and reducing CO2 emissions, we prioritized the use of wood throughout the project. We utilized cross-laminated timber (CLT) with a PEFC label for structural elements and incorporated wood extensively in the interior design. This approach has enabled us to sequester 4,000 tons of CO2 within the building.

  • Design teamDirk Somers, Valérie Van de Velde, Sophie Lauvrys, Didier El-Bacha, Federica Altobelli, Merijn Muller, Myrthe Geelen, Alba Tavares Vanhoutte, William Burgess & Vera Bannwart
  • LocationAntwerp
  • Year2018-2022
  • PhotographyFilip Dujardin and David de Bruijn (2,3,4)