AZ Sint-Jan Brugge | Belgium
Vandaag, 00:00
Project: AZ Sint-Jan Brugge, Brugge // Belgium
Architect: VK architects+engineers // Belgium
Fabricator + Installer: Limeparts-Drooghmans, Genk // Belgium
Façade system: Tray panels special design
Year of construction: 2020
Product: ALUCOBOND® PLUS naturAL Reflect
Photos: studio PSG
Bag of tricks
This building, or rather its new extension, is not intended to attract attention with its new contours. The existing building, the Sint-Jan hospital in Bruges, already is an immense volume. Built in the 1970s in an otherwise rather sedate small town, it is characterised by strict symmetry and striking contours. The hospital has been undergoing a gradual renovation for some years now: optimising the floor plan, creating a higher and brighter entrance hall, modernising all the operating theatres and locating them together on one floor. Ward by ward, the hospital is being made fit for the future. VK Studio Architects were involved in this lengthy process from the very outset, with a feasibility study for the refurbishment of the existing premises and for several newbuilds on the site. They identified the need for an additional staircase in the existing building for safety and fire safety reasons. Although extending the central corridors to connect with a new staircase on one of the building’s frontages was structurally and technically feasible thanks to the existing building’s compact form, it was difficult from a design point of view. An extension would change the contours of the main façade and spoil its distinctive symmetry. A new staircase would loom large, simply because it was not consistent with the original symmetrical building structure. As a consequence, the extension, even one stretching over the full height of the high-rise, needed to be subtle and inconspicuous. This is where the architects’ response was to reach into their bag of tricks and select ALUCOBOND® naturAL Reflect: mirrored images of the sky on the panels make contours virtually vanish. The uniform, storey-length panel format creates a flat reflective surface over the entire height. The result is a façade where contours are scarcely perceptible, any surface complexity is negligible, and the impact on the original symmetry is minimal. On the narrow, less visible side away from the main façade where the existing building has little character, the situation is different. In this position, the new extension is allowed to be eye-catching. It achieves this simply with large-format windows and angled external window reveals made of ALUCOBOND®. Thanks to the slanted reveals, daylight is channelled into the building interior, light scattered in different directions and the landscape and the sun reflected to create new perspectives. Depth and complexity is added to the new structure and light flows deep into the building.