Bezoekerscentrum en uitkijkpunt Het Zwin

A new visitor centre, a circuit of observation huts and a bird-viewing centre was created at Het Zwin in Knokke-Heist, in a landscape exposed to wind and weather. Commissioned by the Province of West Flanders and the Agentschap voor Natuur en Bos (Wood and Nature Agency), this all-inclusive project became a multidisciplinary joint venture involving architects, engineers, landscape architects, nature preservation societies and exhibition designers. The former paved car park, the dilapidated royal villa and the dreary concrete cages on the site of the former Zwin Park were removed. The visitor centre and the Zwin Park form a new link between the polders, the Zwin flats and the North Sea. The viewing centre was concealed in the historic International Dyke and offers a splendid panorama of the Zwin flats. For the nine huts in the Zwin Park, which enable the Zwin to be visited even in rainy weather, the architects collaborated with Koen Van Synghel and Madoc, as they did for the exhibition in the visitor centre. The building was inspired by the typology of the traditional barns of Zeelandic Flanders and provides a sheltered inner area in the flat and windy polders. The Zwin visitor centre combines several functions, but is above all intended to bring about a connection between architecture, nature and the visitor.

Bart Tritsmans

This project is published in Flanders Architectural Review N°13. This Is a Mustard Factory