The central university campus site stretches over 800 meter
along the Schelde river on its lower side and along a higher situated, sloping
street on the other side. It is situated inside the city and it profits from a
dazzling topography. The campus mainly houses old textile industry buildings
and a few seventies concrete buildings. Several new programs are to be added
and a new coherence is introduced by retracing a historical path as a
semi-public connection. It links all the buildings and a series of gardens,
squares and an existing roof surface. The succession of open spaces and newly
inserted buildings intends to open up the campus towards the city and to reveal
the exciting spatial relation to the river.
The sequence starts with a Rectory Square around which are gathered old and
new administration buildings, with their entrances on different levels. One of
them is the new multipurpose building (UFO)that stretches along the main
street. On the side of the rectory square an outside stair leads up to the main
foyer level; its main entrance is on the other end and one level up, where it
matches the students square. Along a sunken bicycle parking the path leads
behind a student’s restaurant, which is to be reorganized and extended. Then it
runs along existing buildings – among them is a students club- and gardens, and
behind a row of private houses towards the faculty of economics building. It
runs through existing terraces and over a roof on top of this main building, to
end up across a new economics building at the end of the campus and in front of
a baroque church.
UFO building
This
building will become a main gathering area for the university and a new
representative, student oriented building. It houses administrative office
spaces, laboratories, a 1000 seat auditorium dividable into two smaller ones, a
large scale foyer with info stand, congress facilities, a tele-center and a car
park for 100 vehicles. Vertically the building consists out of three parts; a semi-sunken
volume, a transparent foyer level and a top volume which is again divided in
three programmatic parts. The auditorium, flanked by offices on one side and
the laboratories on the other, sinks down to the foyer level. Underneath a
large stairway leads to a lower garden behind the building, providing a view
towards the river from the main street and across the foyer.