CAMPUS 44
a2o + WIT to give new life to the Pacheco building with the new university Campus 44
The Pacheco plinth will once again fulfil its original role as a lively place for meeting and development. The programme of a contemporary education and research environment with auditoria, classrooms, library and learning centre, practice rooms and meeting areas can be perfectly fitted into the flexibility of the existing structure and the layering/diversity of spaces and circulations.
The pedestal volume provides a basis for the spatial development of a dynamic higher education according to the idea of a "Living Campus". The Living Campus aims to create added value by stimulating and facilitating encounters within and between the activity domains present (research, education, learning and life).
On Ommegangstraat, the heavy concrete parking structure is stripped to the bone and made ready for its new purpose as a university. A light steel structure will be added to this skeleton to make a 5-storey rise possible. The structure of the plinth (with heavy, round columns) and the lighter structure of the new superstructure (with deeper supporting discs) interlock like a Tartan pattern: a fine interplay of heavier and finer patterns that defines the atmosphere of both the interior spaces and the façade.
