Extension SHP Flemish Ardennes

This extension of the offices of the Housing Association Flemish Ardennes aims to facilitate the organisation’s internal operations, which are growing, and to prepare them for the future.

Following recent mergers and the expansion of its responsibilities as a housing company recently had to significantly increase its staff capacity. The housing company commissioned us to realise an extension of its existing offices, with the aim of creating a logically organised whole once again, enabling the smooth internal operation of the headquarters, while also providing additional possibilities for future expansion.

The existing building consists of a ground-floor office plinth, topped by three storeys of social housing apartments. A defining feature of the architecture is the interplay between the horizontal articulation of the ground-floor “plinth” and the vertical division of the façade materials on the upper floors. The building is crowned by curved zinc roofs.

At the location of the new extension, several ancillary structures will be demolished and replaced by a new volume raised “on stilts”. This results from the functional requirement to preserve the street level as a parking area, combined with the need to convert the first floor of the building into an extension of the office spaces.

The volume of the extension was determined by its connection to the existing building and by functional requirements. The façade and roof edge of the flat roof align with the offset in the existing joinery. In relation to the façade plane situated further back opposite the traffic lane, a certain distance is maintained. Beyond the existing joinery, the new entrance area of the extension re-establishes the connection. This allows the existing window frames of the apartments to remain fully preserved.

Architecturally, the extension adopts its own neutral formal language, referring to classical industrial architecture with structural piers and infill panels made of either window frames or masonry. Within its own proportions, the window layout echoes the three-part vertical division of the large window sections of the existing building.

A new interpretation of the metal grating leading to the bicycle storage area of the existing building creates a visual link between the old building and the extension, by applying the same formal language as the enclosure of the new waste storage area.