TER POORTE
TER POORTE
Using a run-of-the-mill residential building rehab and code compliance project into an opportunity to enrich its architectural expression and the surrounding landscape
Year → Ongoing
Status → Permit
Team → de baes architects
Our client for this project asked us to reinvigorate a crumbling post-war building situated along Brugge’s main canal. The damage was extensive, and the renovation also had to address new parking and fire safety ordinances that came into effect after the original construction. But, the canalside site had too much potential to turn it into a parking lot, and adding new fire stairs would require an expensive reconfiguration of the existing structure.
We approached the project as an opportunity to enhance the building and surrounding landscape while fulfilling the utilitarian brief. In addition to a total shell renovation, we designed a rounded metal box stair structure that adds fire escape routes cost-effectively and acts as an architectural insertion that lends a contemporary edge to the post-war building. The materials for the facade and stair are light and reflect the green colours of the surrounding landscape, blending and embedding the building with its context.
To accommodate parking without paving the entire site, we designed a non-hierarchical landscape that blurs the distinction between places for stay and movement. The design invites people to use connective spaces as places to hang out and to find their own paths on a network of loosely defined connections between buildings, parking spaces, and the landscape. Pixelated pavers embedded into the ground allow grass to grow between them, creating a space halfway between landscape and hardscape parking lot. The result is an inviting, green space where children can play during the day when it usually empties of cars.