'Sint-Joost-aan-Zee' Primary School Sint-Joost-ten-Node
Sven Moens, principal municipal primary school 'Sint-Joost-aan-Zee', Sint-Joost-ten-Noode
This is a very complex neighbourhood. There's a lot of financial and social poverty. When you're able to send your kids to a school like this, that invested a lot, I think that sends a clear message to the community, to parents and children. People appreciate that.
Kathleen Mertens, BAS
This is no ordinary school, it's a concentration school. It's a Dutch speaking school with around 370 children. Only two or three children really speak Dutch, the others form a mixture of a wide variety of nationalities. That complicates the educational project to a large extent. But it makes people who teach here and who are involved very committed and really open to new things.
Voice over
The 365 pupils were sitting in decayed and moist rooms, with broken ceilings and mouldy walls. They often got classes on the stairs.
Kathleen Mertens, BAS
We didn't have enough rooms, so we needed to come up with solutions to create additional space. And we found it on the roof. We decided to alternate the classrooms and every classroom is connected to an outside space of the same dimensions. One glass wall of the classroom can be opened up to create an extension. It's not really a playground, it's rather a classroom in open air. Thanks to being on the roof, the kids have a view of their neighbourhood.
The existing structure is very nice and has a lot of character. We tried to use it to the full as it has a number of advantages. The monumental façade has enormous frontons towards the outside world. They're meant as decoration. By making the backs visible on the roof, they can now be seen from both sides. On the roof they create a visual relationship with the existing parts.
Sven Moens, principal municipal primary school 'Sint-Joost-aan-Zee', Sint-Joost-ten-Noode
It's a change in style: upstairs very modern, downstairs late 19th century and the stairs form a nice transition. Upstairs we have the older children, aged eight to twelve. We try to create spaces to make it easier to work with other classes.
That's what you can find here. It's some kind of multipurpose room, but it's partly designed as a computer room and here we have a little library. A school is often a big building with huge classes and long corridors, and this makes it a bit more intimate. It also represents tranquillity. Close the door and you immediately hear less noise and can work in peace again. Open the door and you have a passage to another room.
Kathleen Mertens, BAS
We're now standing in a nursery class on the ground floor. In the existing part of the building. They asked us to make duplexes to be able to work in corners in the rooms. We suggested the solution of connecting classrooms through intermediate levels, to enable interaction and cooperation between classes. Teachers and kids can cooperate, but still have their own room.
Voice over
But the old 19th century school is also used for day care and by a number of organisations from the multicultural Sint-Joost-ten-Node.
Kathleen Mertens, BAS
That's the first thing we did, in order to get an idea of what rooms could have a double use, in dialogue with the school. We decided to use a part of the building exclusively for the school and develop other parts in such a way that they're separately accessible so that the users don't need to enter the school itself. I really like being here and I never want to move again.
Sven Moens, principal municipal primary school 'Sint-Joost-aan-Zee', Sint-Joost-ten-Noode
What they realized here, in this neighbourhood, that's really excellent. Nice work from the architect.