Scholencampus

The school campus in Beringen by osar architects is home to the Spectrum College, a group of five schools of lower and higher secondary education, a primary school and a sports complex. This programme is spread over a campus of eleven buildings. They are grouped into three zones on a large site adjoining the centre of Beringen: the primary school, the existing lower secondary school and the sports centre, and nine buildings for the upper secondary schools. To underpin the school management’s view that all professions are of equal worth, from hairdresser to bricklayer, the buildings all speak the same architectural language: white blocks with concrete plinths and large windows, with interiors in white plastered walls, wooden joinery and terracotta tiles. The uniformity of this plan is breached by the adaptation of each building to its specific programme, and by the entrances to the buildings, which take the form of arcades, each in different proportions. The interplay of courtyards, streets and squares between the buildings on the campus has given rise to an educational environment of substantial spatial differentiation, which looks both small-scale and worthy of respect.

- Sereh Mandias

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