erasmus university college
erasmus university college

1 / 9

Erasmushogeschool Brussels

competition entry, 1st prize
in collaboration with B-architecten
client: Erasmushogeschool Brussel (EHB)

project: 2012 – 2020

Bevk Perović project team:
Matija Bevk
Vasa J. Perović
Andrej Ukmar
Christophe Riss
Blaž Goričan
Radim Louda
Ida Sedušak
Tina Marn
Irene Salord Vila
Luka Nedzbala

photo: Lucid

The location for the new Pedagogical School of Erasmus University is a typical Brussels situation – an accumulation of historical structures in different states of preservation, of very different qualities, with diverse mix of housing and commercial activities, with differing social strata of users.

The area of the new school is an isolated plot, surrounded by semi-private street spaces and the built structure of the city – the new project therefore becomes an opportunity not only to build, to fill in the spatial gap in the city, but a potential for process of ‘rediscovery’ of ‘lost’ spaces of the city. These new, ‘rediscovered’ spaces then become kind of ‘islands’ within the city, an isolated aggregations of programme, injections of activity giving life to entire neighbourhood.

Horizontally, the new building is articulated through the plinth – containing all the public-related programmes of the school and the 2 slabs – old brewery building and new school volume – containing all the more ‘private’ areas of the school.

The school lobby, a large interior space partially sunken into the ground and completely visually connected to the square in front of the building contains the entrance and all of the public spaces – library, information and meeting points. A large semi-public space is created through use of transparent glass that connects all the spaces into a large continuous surface of programmes. The old building of the brewery is refurbished to accommodate large cafe on the ground floor and office spaces on the upper levels. The school building is a simple single-orientation slab of classrooms, a ‘paradigmatic’ model of school building containing all of the simple school programmes.