On the Linkeroever (Left Bank) in Antwerp SVR-ARCHITECTS designed the Hof ter Schelde Care Campus, commissioned by the Maatschappij voor Kristelijke Liefdadigheid (Society for Christian Charity). It was in the first place a project on a human scale. A number of buildings with different volumes, squares and gardens now create, thanks to its architecture and positioning, a real village feeling in the city. Also from an urban design point of view this new health campus is integrated into the fabric of the surroundings.
It effects a soft transition between the high apartment blocks and a residential villa district nearby. The ambition of the architects is that the inhabitants feel at home here. It is as if they were still living in their own neighbourhood or village. Spaciouslydimensioned, intelligently-arranged rooms, wide windows with a view on the surrounding green areas and a cosy interior with homely lighting, provide, just as the life-size cityscapes of the Groenplaats, Hoboken, Deurne, Wilrijk, Berchem, Borgerhout, the large districts of Antwerp, which we encounter everywhere and on every floor.
Although the programme comprises 14,000 m² with a housing care centre with polyclinic, a nursing home and care apartments, the architects opted for low-build and spread. At the same time they designed a unity in variety thanks to form language and the choice of materials. Between the buildings is a ‘city park’ which
gives out onto the surrounding green areas. Finally the open and inclusive character of the whole campus is also a result of the global plan. The architects wanted here after all a place that would be ‘permeable’ for all the neighbourhood residents and passers-by from the surrounding district.
Hof ter Schelde never becomes therefore a ‘complex’, but an inviting meeting place for residents and neighbours who will quickly get to know each other better.