Elementary school De Abeel is situated in the Mahatma Gandhiquarter in Mechelen, which will in the nearby future be connected by a recreational route to the Geerdegem forest. The green inside of the building block Abeelstraat, of which the new school becomes part, will be open to the public. This makes that the school site will become part of the park landscape of the Mahatma Gandhiquarter.
Supportive to the vision of the city about the quarter, the new school opens itself towards the neighborhood. The refectory and sports facilities are cut loose from each other in the design and moved ach to one side of the project site. In between those two functions a public cluster of school functions were implemented. This spatial composition creates two centers on the site, one towards the Abeelstraat in the north, and one towards the park side in the south. The spatial composition emphasizes on the equivalence of both sides of the site.
Historic pedagogic trends show that a school building should be flexible and adaptable. The design translates these trends by introducing a logic and rational architectural language. By the realization of a clear organization and circulation, a clear structural concept and sustainable techniques; the building is designed to be reinvented in the future. The building itself becomes a framework in which the education can experiment and evolve.
