Ontmoetingsgebouw Westrozebeke

URA Yves Malysse Kiki Verbeeck was commissioned, by means of the WinVorm Call, to design a building that could house a new cafeteria for the football club, an out-of-school childcare centre and a multipurpose community hall on the edge of the village, between residential estates and adjoining the grounds of the SK Westrozebeke football club and the local Catholic scouts building. In this peripheral cluster of public amenities with a car park at its heart, the interplay of carefully conceived public space and adjacent public architecture in the rebuilt village centre seems a million miles away. Yet URA’s project makes the best of the situation. It takes up an elongated position between residential estate on higher ground and the football fields lower down. This small ‘assembly shed’ acts as a surprising infill which, because of its outline, materials and orientation, brings together several elements from its surroundings without losing any of its own character.

This text is based on the essay of Maarten Liefooghe, which has been published in the Flanders Architectural Review N°14. When Attitudes Take Form