HHF . OFFICE Kersten Geers David Van Severen

Elderly House . Lommel

HHF . OFFICE Kersten Geers David Van Severen

A care centre is a big house with everything within hand’s reach. It should be designed to provide it’s inhabitants with as much spatial and landscape stimulants, while keeping in mind their limited mobility.

Garden Residence, a care centre with 120 rooms, is designed as an island, framing its surrounding landscape. It offers a set of different spatial qualities while maintaining its natural character. The apartments, organised in 8 groups, are situated in the perimeter of the building, defining its prismatic shape. Two squares within the borders of the building create two inner gardens. The hallways between the flats, their shape defined by the regular square gardens and the irregular outer facade, double as communal spaces for the inhabitants, overlooking the gardens. The centre of the complex, accesible via the gardens, forms the entrance and houses all administrative functions as well as a communal hall.
The organisation of the complex is underlined by its structural concept and materiality. The perimeter of rooms is a solid concrete structure, which insures the necessary thermal mass and stability. The communal spaces are considered as ‘garden rooms’: light wooden additions in close contact with the gardens.

Competition
Lommel, Belgium, 2009