The vision of the College of Our Lady of the Thorn, in the
small town of Eeklo in East Flanders, was to reorganise their facilities so that the Middle School would
occupy a distinct part of the campus, and the current rigid distinctions
between the academic and vocational streams of the Upper School would be
mitigated.
We proposed a combination of selective demolition alongside
new and refurbished buildings, and extensive landscape design to revitalise and
unify the large campus. We used our experience with delivery of large BSF
schools, colleges and private school campuses to suggest potential changes to
the brief, both in terms of the building design and revitalising the overall
campus. One such suggestion was moving the location of the new buildings to create
decent entrances to both ends of the large site; another was to do with
establishing new uses for the historically important buildings at the core of
the site
Thinking about the external spaces and landscape design was
fundamental to the competition proposals. We sought to improve the quality of
the spaces and routes within the site, and make much better links between the
school and the town.
Context
The Flemish government’s Scholen van Morgen programme aims
to improve school buildings in Flanders, with substantial capital funds being
allocated to schools which expressed an interest in participating in the
programme. The delivery organisation is a private sector developer COPiD,
working with standardised processes to deliver improvements to school
buildings, and maintain them for a 30 year lease period. The selection process
for design teams was based on pre-qualification through an open process,
followed by a design competition. We were runners up to Herman Hertzberger’s
office competing for a project in Geel, and entered for this project the
following year.
The College’s campus has evolved from the gradual
amalgamation of four catholic secondary schools; boys and girls, and vocational
and academic, into a single unusually large federated school. The site occupies
a series of long narrow plots within the town. These extend from the original church
and convent buildings in the town centre, the historic heart of the school, out
through extensive landscaped grounds and on to the town edge and the wide
agricultural landscape of the Meetjesland. The special quality of the site stems
from its integration with the town and the quality of the landscaped grounds of
the former convent, although this has been diminished by successive generations
of ad-hoc school buildings. However, the buildings and courtyards of the former
vocational schools have a bleak character and incoherent form, which
contributes nothing to the experience of staff or pupils.
How we worked
We entered the pre-qualification and competition as a joint
venture with SMAK Architects, based in Antwerp. We took responsibility for the
design; SMAK Architects took responsibility for the costing, design team and
client liaison and working with the contractor during the delivery stages.
The competition stage landscape design was by Macgregor
Smith, with whom we have collaborated very successfully on several schools.
Since winning the competition we have been working closely
with SMAK Architects and our Flemish design team to develop the proposals. Despite
the differences in architectural practice between the UK and Belgium the
communication has been straightforward, using a digital exchange of BIM models,
drawings and sketches to develop co-ordinated proposals.
Making it happen
We developed the design with the school and COPiD, attending
regular meetings in Flanders and Antwerp, to meet the school, the design team
and the key stakeholders. At an early stage we organised a visit to allow members
of the school staff to see schools we have completed in and around London. This
helped promote a shared dialogue and an understanding of what they wished to
do.
Particular challenges have included the listed status of
some of the buildings, including one which is to be demolished, which has
necessitated research and dialogue with the Monuments Authority of Flanders.
However, the biggest challenge has been the terms of the PFI contract between
the school and COPiD, which are designed to be completely risk averse. As a
result it has not been possible to include the landscape works which the campus
so badly needs, nor has it been possible for the school to benefit fully from
many of the lessons we have learned in the UK education sector.
In 2014 our team secured the building permit approvals for
the proposals and issued the tender documents for the Scholen van Morgen framework
contractors. Construction started in 2015, following a long tender and
subsequent negotiating period, and the building was opened in Spring 2017.