Team: Jason Slabbynck
In recent years, a new animal shelter has already been built on this site and one of the existing bunkers has been converted into a dog school. The animal shelter wishes to further upgrade the site and to repurpose the entrance building, the guardroom, into a temporary shelter for birds and wild animals. A grazing area for animals will also be linked to this with a quiet area that will also be housed in the waiting room to be renovated. The vacant lot between the waiting room and the gritting meadow to be constructed is being laid out as a green zone with a landscape character.
The structure of the waiting room will be preserved, but the building will be given a new slightly sloping saddle roof with a cantilever that will make the building one volume again. At the level of the entrance doors, the cantilever is sufficiently large to function as a covered space. Playful and colorful window openings give the building a new identity. The color and use of materials refer to older local farmyards.
The spreading meadow forms an enclosed space protected by a high concrete wall and low shrubs. The shape of the entrance gate to the gritting meadow is identical to that of the quiet area in the waiting room. Three columns in Corten steel give the possibility to hang a commemorative plaque of the dispersed animal.
