Kappaert Campus

Team: BDR bureau, carton123 architecten, Trafique

First prize Open Oproep OO4103 Vlaams Bouwmeester

Kappaert is a school campus that includes a variety of activities; a school for children with special needs, an art academy and summer recreational activities. It fits into a heterogeneous built environment, characterised by underutilised public spaces and a cemetery, that will disappear over time.
With the aim of creating an open and permeable campus, welcoming for all the different groups of users that will live its spaces, the project is defined by an ambiguity between dissolving boundaries and creating boundaries.

A system of interconnected landscape “rooms” organizes the layout of the campus, giving it clarity and ensuring visual coherence. Within this landscape, the new architectural interventions act as visual anchor points, offering reference points while walking through the campus.

The spatial articulation of the new building adapts to and reinforces the urban layout. The large program is split into three smaller volumes, that contribute in completing the urban ‘rooms’ structure, as well as creating a harmonic insertion in the surrounding landscape.

Together with the urban structure, the architectural configuration of the new interventions contribute to generating soft transitions. A big shelter invites entrance, guides the passage and encourages to play. A sequence of covered spaces connects the three buildings, acting as a gradient that blurs and expands the limits of built space. The courtyard is conceived as a permeable threshold that enables a fluid transition between spaces.