OostCampus
City Hall and Civic Centre in Oostkamp, Belgium

The city of Oostkamp acquired the premises of the former Coca-Cola factory, a 40.000 m2 piece of land with an 11.000 m2 industrial shed built in 1991.

The competition brief required a building complex that could gather most of the public services of the city on this central and well-connected plot, in an arrangement to be called OostCampus.

We decided to reuse the spacious industrial shed; not just to recycle materials like the steel, but to reuse the space itself, it's foundations, enclosure, services, access, and all the "invisible" parts; and to turn it into a luminous landscape of clouds; a sheltered public space within a controlled weather environment.