M127
Antwerp, 2023

Between Harmoniepark and the Leien, along Mechelsesteenweg, large mansions have often been replaced by apartment buildings from the interwar period and later. The flat facade walls together form an urban cavern with little porosity. Between the Heilige-Geestkerk and the music academy stands a well-integrated office building from the 1960s, featuring a rational concrete structure enriched with aberrations and unpredictabilities. The building was hermetic and did not engage with the street. It was energetically problematic, and the limited open space on the site was completely asphalted over the underground parking. The only nearby untouched soil was built over by a single-story, elongated storage volume of the church.

By consulting with the church and demolishing the annexes, the opportunity for a garden extending up to the buttresses is created. The new community garden offers an escape from the urban confinement, introduced by a double-height loggia, similar to the porticoes in Bologna. This meeting place at the street level initiates the accessible ground-floor program with a coffee bar, a shared reception area, a versatile foyer, and meeting spaces. Two generously cut voids connect the lunch area and library with the spatially enhanced ground floor. Above, the individual offices for lawyers are alternated with floors featuring co-working spaces.

The beauty of the concrete framework, previously hidden behind wafer-thin sterile claddings, is fully exposed. Where concrete, initially located indoors, is exposed to the outside, additions such as concrete coverings and sculptural (art) column enclosures are applied. The interaction between the structural rhythm and the asynchronous insulated facade shell, made of simple red-baked clay, creates a great deal of variation. Red and paper-white shade sails add a touch of joy on top of the sun. The wooden exterior and interior joinery define the homely interiors. Tiles and carpet, in the color of red earth, define the workspace.