Seminar School, Hoogstraten, Belgio

Hoogstraten is a small city in the north of Flanders, entirely structured along its north-south main street, the Vrijheid. Along this axis, several significant urban entities are aligned, including the towering St Catharina church and the articulated complex of the Begijnhof. The Kleine Seminar might play an important role in the overall structure of the city itself, just enhancing its already existing main features, primarily the extremely generous courtyard and the English park. In order to reactivate these assets, the complex has to open up to the city, accordingly to the needs for protection that any school should retain. This newfound openness would be able to create a win-win situation for both the school and the city. The specific strategies that the project applies in order to achieve such a result are subtle and respectful modifications to the thresholds of the complex, as the redefinition of the socle of the Voorbouw toward the Vrijheid, the demolition of the existing bike storage and the related expansion of the English park (as such becoming an asset of the city itself), the redefinition of the main courtyard as a proper urban forum. The transformation of the Seminar School into an explicitly urban element will be crucial in this respect, contributing to the creation of a diverse, multi-layered urban landscape in which different elements contribute to the life of the city.