Building a care campus is not just an assembly of the separate program components. The intention is to supplement the way of life of the children and the way of working of the staff. All this while connecting the building in terms of urban development, but also functionally with the neighborhood and the surrounding landscape.
The campus plays an enormous part in the children’s perception of the world. We do not see the answer to the assignment in an isolated building, but in an active interface, in which building, landscape and neighborhood are connected. An overall design in which perspectives gradually change, overlap and perspectives arise.
The outdoor layout forms an essential link between the neighborhood and the care campus. The multi-armed structure of the entire building hides the scale of the building program. There are also various front doors along the various building arms. The school has its address at Leo Baekelandstraat. The boarding school has its address at Herman Vosstraat. In this way visitors do not perceive the large scale as imposing. Along the courtyards are other entrances that provide a pleasant dynamic of passages and more intimate moments.
The living environment of the children is limited and mainly takes place in the interior. By interweaving the interior with the landscape and offering a wide variety of sensations, the enriched interior becomes as if it were an outdoor space. The corridors offer playful views to the courtyard and to the surrounding landscape; interior and landscape are intertwined.
Committed to sustainability, limiting the CO2 impact, we decide to use wood as much as possible, both structurally (CLT – cross laminated timber with PEFC label), and for the interiors. In this way 4000 tons of CO2 are captured in the building!