The old police office of the Merksplas village is to be transformed and expanded for a social service office. The design starts from the interrelation between architecture and landscape on the scale of: a room, the building and the surrounding garden; the village center and the surrounding agricultural landscape. The building is located at the heart of the village, on the crossing of 2 main streets, on a strategic point within the village´s fragmented open and public space. The building will be surrounded by an open garden, a fragment of the local ‘kempen’ landscape in the village center. The building is clarified by turning it into a 3 volumes composition, connected by a greenhouse structure.
[Barbara Roosen, Ana Beja da Costa with PT Architecten]
