Outgaarden Primary School
Jeanine Joris, nursery teacher
We can use this room for many things, we do sports here as well. In summer we open the gates so that the children can play outside. And when the weather is nice or dry, we can also play on the playing hill. This is much more than we asked for.
Pieter Meuwissen, VBM architects
This is Outgaarden, a borough of Hoegaarden. The city of Hoegaarden asked us to renovate the two nursery classrooms and to create an additional multipurpose room. At first we wanted to build that multipurpose room on the street side, but then we'd lose this authentic wall which is characteristic for old schools. That's why we decided to build the multipurpose room further at the back. I'll show you with my hands how exactly we conceived this building. We pulled the space open and slid the hard part underneath the soft part. When the gates open, you'll see that the playground continues inside. That's very interesting, especially for toddlers.
Kristof Vancaudenberg, principal municipal primary school, Outgaarden
We have chosen to have the children do sports outside as much as possible. The pasture shed opens a lot of opportunities. When you open the gates you create a double space: an interior room and the space under the pasture shed where the children can practice sports without getting wet.
Pieter Meuwissen, VBM architects
The building inside is very simple. There's one large multipurpose room. And there's one room for technical installations, toilets and a kitchen. The inside-outside interaction is at the front of the building with four gates which can be opened completely. That way, the entire façade is opened up and the inside becomes the outside.
Inside the building you can see that the entire structure is made of wood. We worked with laminated frames. Thanks to those frames we were able to create a covered outside space as well. We just extended the frames further than the building itself. Then we covered them with transparent corrugated sheets.
Another interesting fact is that we were able to do this in a very limited time. We made this in our workshop and then it took only a day to put it up here. To cover both the roof and the wall at the back, we made use of some kind of surfaced iron sheets, which are also perforated. That's interesting as an acoustic buffer. A large group of small children produces a lot of noise which you want to reduce.
Kristof Vancaudenberg, principal municipal primary school, Outgaarden
The building is not only used as a classroom for children. It's also used as a cafeteria at noon. In the past, children had to eat their lunches in their classrooms. It's also used for pre- and post-school day care for children. And when the weather is bad, we have gym classes here.
Pieter Meuwissen, VBM architects
Now we're going to the back. We can see a patch of grass that grows on top of the building. We used this opportunity to create a lovely playground at the back. Here, the children have a slide and in the lower parts we have other toys. And a part of the playground is situated on the roof itself.
Thanks to the patch of grass behind the building and on the roof, as we have a green roof, we have a layer of earth as well. That creates a very good thermal insulation in winter, and in summer it also keeps out the heat of the sun.