-
Melopee School
195_Melopee- ©Maxime Delvaux
Melopee School
In the harbour area a narrow stretch of land along a dock is freed from port activities. A very simple ‘chop stick’ urban plan is developed by O.M.A. in which green open pockets alternate with dense construction. In order to offer a notion of centrality to the linear plan, a public path is meant to cross the whole strip. The site for the school faces one green area at its south side, the dock on its west side, a square and a housing block on the north and the harbour road on the east. The requested program for the building, a combination of a primary school, an after school care centre, a nursery and sports facilities for both the school and its neighbourhood, is diverse and extensive. On top it requires a great deal of specific outside playgrounds. In order to counter the lack of space, deal with the inside-outside complexity of programs and allow for the public path to pass, the maximum building envelope is divided in two halves: one compact building housing all interior functions, and an outside space in which the playgrounds are stacked. In between both, and under a first level playground realized in glass tiles, the path crosses the volume.A galvanized steel skeleton unifies the two halves. On the side of the interior volume, the façades of the building are designed as a patchwork of opaque and translucent polycarbonate, glass, and aluminium louvres. The outside structure will be overgrown with vegetation climbing along a steel mesh, in which some large ‘windows’ are cut out.
In the harbour area a narrow stretch of land along a dock is freed from port activities. A very simple ‘chop stick’ urban plan is developed by O.M.A. in which green open pockets alternate with …
- ©XDGA
- ©Maxime Delvaux
- ©Maxime Delvaux
- ©Maxime Delvaux
- ©Maxime Delvaux
- ©Maxime Delvaux
- ©XDGA
- ©XDGA
- ©Maxime Delvaux
- ©XDGA
- ©Maxime Delvaux
- ©Maxime Delvaux
- ©XDGA
- ©Maxime Delvaux
- ©Maxime Delvaux
- ©XDGA
- ©Maxime Delvaux
- ©Maxime Delvaux
- ©Maxime Delvaux
- ©XDGA
- ©Maxime Delvaux
- ©XDGA
- ©Maxime Delvaux
2015-2020195 Melopee School
Competition / 1st prize, Built
CityGhent
ProgramSchool building with sports facilities
Year2015-2020
ProcedureCompetition / 1st prize
StatusBuilt
ClientSO Gent
ArchitectsXDGA
- Project List /
- About /
- Contact
Statement
Ideally architecture is not about fixing activities, fluxes or programs, or worse, about solving spatial problems. On the contrary, it is about opening up possibilities: the potential of a site, the hidden opportunity of a particular situation in time, of a programmatic conflict. It is about dealing with uncertainty, about enabling different and unforeseen scenarios.
In that sense architecture and urbanism are not opposed disciplines with different outcomes, but similar mediators, on different scales and in different degrees of complexity, with the same goal of enabling life.
The basis for architecture in our way of working is to carry out a meticulous scanning of a brief, a program or a context. Context not just as that what physically surrounds a project, but the larger field of social, economic, political, administrative and also technical issues, all on an equal level. This activity of accurate and systematic reading leads to a matrix of knowledge that frames any architectural decision. Sometimes this framework functions as a backdrop for postponed intuitions, sometimes it forms the battlefield for a bombardment of architectural proposals that slowly gain self-evidence through a process of trial and error.
The scanning raises new questions, opens up unexplored fields, reveals hidden opportunities, or brings together so-called incompatibilities. Through this working method all projects are rooted in their context, but as context has a visible and a hidden part, they often surpass their physical context and they sometimes completely transform it.
This explorative approach leads to a working method, not a style. Instead, style is restrictive to exploration. Our approach saves us from dogmatic thinking, from an all too narrow agenda, from the architectural one-liner.
Team
Doug Allard, David Ampe, Vincent Blactot, Tom Bonnevalle, Maud Bouhin, Lionel Bousquet, Jérémie Brault, Karel Bruyland, Rémy Carat, Elena Caruso, Antoine Chaudemanche, Pieter Coelis, Beatrice Colaiacomo, Marie Debraine, Xaveer De Geyter, Joris De Greef, Hanne Defloor, Thaïs de Roquemaurel, Chloé de Salins, Jacqueline De Souza Luduvice, Pieter De Walsche, Nenad Duric, Eleonor Ferragu, Sandra Fol, Eric Gilham, Arie Gruijters, Annelotte Herrebosch, Ingrid Huyghe, Yannis Igodt, Ménélik Jobert, Paul-Emmanuel Lambert, Solène Le Gallo, Jonathan Robert Maj, Leo Mazurek, Philip Niekamp, Emilia Ockerman, Federico Pedrini, Anne-Sophie Rouillère, Yuichiro Suzuki, Hannelore Thomas, Foucault Tiberghien, Greta Torsello, Willem Van Besien, Wouter van Daele, Catherine Van Driessche, Matthias Van Rossen, Marie-Pierre Vandeputte, Dana Vargovčíková, Simon Vellut, Yannick Vergnaud, Samia Wahbi, Ulysse Zehnlé, Rui Zenha
Exhibitions
Books
Awards
Where
Due to the exceptional circumstances, we may not be reachable by phone. You can always still contact us via e-mail at info@xdga.be
Thank you for your understanding and take care.
XDGA XAVEER DE GEYTER ARCHITECTS BRUSSELS
HANDELSKAAI 48, QUAI DU COMMERCE / B – 1000 BRUSSELS
T +32 (0)2 218 88 86 / INFO@XDGA.BE
direct project lines:
+32 (0)2 227 67 66 (080_Place Rogier)
+32 (0)2 227 67 67 (195_SO Gent)
+32 (0)2 227 67 68 (130_Paris Saclay)
+32 (0)2 2 227 67 63 (200_Museum of Fine Arts of Tournai)
Competitions inquiries +32 (0)2 227 67 61
XDGA XAVEER DE GEYTER ARCHITECTS PARIS
18, RUE DU FAUBOURG DU TEMPLE, FR / 75011 PARIS
T +33 (0)1 58 30 99 61 / INFO@XDGA.BE
SUBSCRIBE TO OUR GENERAL NEWSLETTER
Jobs
Architects: Please send a digital version of your résumé, portfolio and motivation letter as a single PDF (smaller than 8MB) to jobs@xdga.be
Press
info@xdga.be
Administration
