FAC

The question was to transform and connect existing buildings (one being an office building, the other one a former small industrial workshop), and transform the whole site, located in the city fabric of Mechelen, in a kind of complex and imbricated way, mostly open towards the back façades into a new hub for creative activities (including offices, workshops, but also exhibition spaces, coffee,…) for the city. The aim was to work in a circular way. With Bob Mc Master and the whole team of engineers, we organized and transformed the existing buildings around the “empty plot”, that we transformed into an inner garden, an outdoor and qualitative space to activate, to look at, to open to the neighborhood. We felt that the whole site was dense and built enough and that a qualitative outdoor space was the missing link. How to be more circular than not building more that what is already there ?

status: competition (not selected)
program: hub for creative activities
area: 4000m²
location: Mechelen
year: 2022
staff :
architecture : OUEST + BobMcMaster architecten
stability + circularity : Robuust
acoustics : Defonseca
HVAC + energy savings : Gevelinzicht