These two glass and steel pavilions erected by architecture collective De Kort Van Schaik Van Noten in the gardens of a disused presbytery form a neighborhood hall and youth club for a Belgian village .
The Moorsel Local community Centre was conceived by De Kort Van Schaik Van Noten – a collaborative produced up of Rotterdam-primarily based De Kort Van Schaik and Antwerp studio Van Noten Architects – for the site of a listed 18th-century pastor’s house and its walled gardens in Moorsel, a village about 20 miles north-west of Brussels.
Related story: Neighborhood Centre by Dierendonck Blancke
The architects left the existing constructing unaltered, including two new structures along one particular side of the internet site to house the multi-purpose hall and self-contained youth club. They also opened up the existing walled gardens to generate a public park.
“In incorporating new buildings to the presbytery complicated, the purpose was to find a way of integrating them with the characteristic ensemble of presbytery and walled garden,” the De Kort Van Schaik team told Dezeen.
“The guiding principle was that the new architecture must confirm the presbytery’s status as the most expressive creating at the leading of the backyard and extend, as if it were 1 of the backyard walls, along 1 side of the garden,” they explained.
The two structures feature glass walls with black steel frames, concrete floors, and a flat timber and steel roof. The glazing is set away from the edge of the concrete floor and roof slabs to create a narrow covered walkway along the edges of both buildings.
The community hall is situated closest to the outdated stone church, while the youth club sits at the bottom of the backyard in a more wooded spot of the site.
The hall is utilised by village residents for events, meetings and the occasional movie night, although the second construction kinds a new home for the village youth group.
Within, concrete walls are left exposed and chunky timber ceiling beams conceal lighting and ventilation methods from view.
A strip of landscaping containing a stage and seating location separates the two buildings. Low concrete walls and bracing steel trusses offer some privacy and shelter for the backyard, even though breaks in the wall offer links with the more substantial gardens and give views of a church steeple.
“The new architecture enables the public to knowledge the unique ambiance of the historical heritage,” extra the architects.
Photography is by Filip Dujardin.
Task credits:
Architect: De Kort Van Schaik Van Noten
Client: VZW Parochiale Werken Sint-Martinus
Group: Robert-Jan de Kort, Sander van Schaik, Sophie Van Noten
Structural engineering and constructing providers: Shut to Bone
Contractor: Van Herreweghe Bouw, Alpas NV, De Jonge & Zoon
Scenario strategy 
Site prepare 
Basement floor plan 
Ground floor strategy 
Section Dezeen
