A school in Belgium that generates public space

Label Architecture’s project in Mechelen redefines in the first place the voids of a dense, chaotic block, and organizes the new constructions around them.

Label Architecture, school extension, Mechelen, Belgium, 2019

Label Architecture, school extension, site plan

Label Architecture, school extension, building 1, ground floor plan

Label Architecture, school extension, building 1, first floor plan

Label Architecture, school extension, building 1, second floor plan

Label Architecture, school extension, building 1, third floor plan

Label Architecture, school extension, building 1, fourth floor plan

Label Architecture, school extension, building 2, basement plan

Label Architecture, school extension, building 2, ground floor plan

Label Architecture, school extension, building 2, first floor plan

Label Architecture, school extension, building 2, second floor plan

Label Architecture, school extension, axonometric view

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Alessandro Benetti
12 March 2020
Mechelen, Belgium
Label Architecture
5,018 sqm
school building
2019

Label Architecture is the firm founded by Jean-Didier Bergilez, Michel Lefèvre and Thibaut Rome and based Brussels. The office was commissioned to design the extension of a school in Mechelen, halfway between the Belgian capital and Antwerp. Two new volumes are realized inside an already dense and chaotic block, where diverse typologies and architectural style intermingle. Label Architecture, though, prefers to describe the intervention starting from its voids: “In an attempt to structure the open space of the building block, the project introduces a series of courtyards (…) forming breathing areas in the middle of the compact urban fabric”.

Label Architecture, school extension, Mechelen, Belgium, 2019

Changes in the paving materials, green areas, metal grids and other pieces of furniture articulate this void in different settings with different programs, while they mark the path from the street to the school’s collective interiors, and back. Buildings take a back seat, they blur in the background. They are monolithic blocks, where few openings are carved following a regular grid, and they are virtually devoid of any linguistic connotations. These brick masses, non-picturesque memories of the plot’s industrial past, are to be glimpsed out of the corner of the eye. Label Architecture’s founders raise the point in the first place: “Maybe the school buildings were there first, have been renovated a few times, and the rest of the block was constructed around them?”.

Label Architecture, school extension, Mechelen, Belgium, 2019

school extension
school building
Mechelen, Belgium
Label Architecture
Jean-Didier Bergilez, Michel Lefèvre, Thibaut Rome
5,018 sqm
2019