Wulpen - Koksijde – Wulpen cultural centre

For a new community center, we reconfigure an old school complex that occupies the site, making the new out of the old. We want to build on the memory of the place and the importance of the school building to the community. Repurposing the old, our new community center preserves the atmosphere and familiarity of the existing, while also creating something entirely new.

The teacher’s house and the school are gutted, the interior walls, floors and the roofs are demolished and the exterior walls are preserved. The school building becomes a new multipurpose room, and the teacher’s house meeting rooms on the ground level and staff areas above.

A concrete ring redefines the new courtyard space, magnifies the character of a beloved tree, and frames views of the teacher’s house, the school, the church and the polder landscape beyond. It becomes wall and roof, storage and circulation, and offers protection and a sense of intimacy.

The ring also intersects with the school building, at the same time defining the entrance lobby, subdividing interior programs.  The ring pushes the teacher’s house to the foreground, with two new areas of public space orientated to the street along its side. Linking old and new structures, it connects the past with the future.

Youth areas are given independence by being located outside the ring, but still connected to it, tangent to its curve. Given access to both the intimacy of the courtyard, and the surrounding village and broader polder landscape, the older children begin to see themselves in many worlds. Instead of an interior lobby dividing older and younger children, the open courtyard unites age groups and their community.

Wulpen is a small, rural polder village and forms part of the coastal borough of Koksijde. Wulpen has undergone an enormous metamorphosis in recent years as a result of the renovation of the village square and surrounding area and the refurbishment of the Dijk and Conterdijk near the Nieuwpoort-Veurne canal.

An important factor for the improvement of the quality of life in the small village centre is the strengthening of social cohesion. Koksijde local authority therefore believes that it is important that each sub-core has sufficient infrastructure to support social life in the local community. There are already numerous clubs and societies active in Wulpen. Work will soon begin on the construction of a new 27-hole golf course near Wulpen which will undoubtedly further strengthen this dynamic.

Until 2007, the old vicarage on the village square next to the church, of which tower is a protected monument, was the meeting place for various clubs. In 2007, the local authority decided to restore the vicarage and put it to a new use. A cafe was the first new function to be housed in the building. At the same time, it was decided to provide new infrastructure for the clubs, adapted to contemporary wishes and norms.

The new location for Wulpen cultural centre will be the site of the old village school. This site, on which the old buildings are still standing, is somewhat hidden behind the churchyard wall, but still has a clear link with the village square. To the rear, the site borders on open space (agricultural land). A distinctive feature of the site, which is owned by the local authority, is the large and visually-defining tree which is currently located in the middle of the playground and which we would like to preserve as far as is possible.
With the building of this new community centre, the local authority aims to create sufficient space for local community life by providing, amongst other things, meeting rooms, a multi-purpose hall, storage space, sanitary facilities etc.

Architecture: between 7% and 8%

Stability: between KVIV-1% and KVIV of the total construction budget

Technical installations: between KVIV-2% and KVIV of the total construction budget