ATAMA

Keperke Dilbeek 2012-2015

The municipality of Dilbeek has converted a disused school building located in the district of Itterbeek into offices for the finance department. In doing so, it wants to counteract the tendency to give up patrimony and to centralise services in new, sometimes oversized administrative centres, as a result of which the boroughs are impoverished in terms of programming.

An extra room, with exactly the same dimensions as one of the existing classrooms, was added to the sequence of rooms. All offices on the ground floor are placed in enfilade by making strategic openings in the separation walls. The classrooms were transformed into one elongated space that is midway between a landscape office and a series of room offices. Contact between staff is encouraged. The high classroom windows allow daylight to penetrate deep into the room and the solid materiality is an alternative to standardised, lightweight office environments. As many characteristics and details of the school as possible were carefully preserved and complemented with panelling and faience where scars arose. The new building continues the tradition of refined craftsmanship. The facade of the new room is rotated a few degrees in relation to the room itself as a gesture to welcome visitors.

atelier for transformative architecture & masterplanning