Kanaal, Wijnegem
client:
Vervoordt re nv
general contractor:
THV Besix/Vanhout
location:
Wijnegem Stokerijstraat
gross surface (m2):
37000
status:
completed in 2015
On a former industrial site along the Albert Canal in Wijnegem (BE), Vervoordt Real Estate realized a live/work development ‘KANAAL’. The site consists of some hundred apartments.
The existing buildings (warehouses and silos) were largely conserved, rebuilt and extended. The ‘cubes’ and ‘waterhuis’, along 10 000 m², were newly built on top of an underground car park of 11 000 m². A number of old silos were demolished and replaced by a 7 000 m² high-rise.
GREY SILOS
Six of eight silos were kept and provided with perforations, responding to a structural logic in size and position. Inside of the contours of the silos new slabs were placed. Glass corridors connect the grey silos with the space of circulation they share with the white silos. A transparent square volume replaces the two remaining silos and is built upon the original lower floors and foundations.
WHITE SILOS
For reasons of stability, the existing white silos were replaced by a new edifice for living on top of the existing ‘karnak’. This ‘karnak’ is made up of a grid of robust round columns in concrete. To reuse this grid to the fullest and trying to connect to the grid of the upper tenements, an intermediary floor is introduced. This double up space connects floor and ceiling by four oblique lines of slender columns with a diameter of 22 cm of solid steel.
CAPAWOOD
Heavily damaged by fire, the former warehouses were topped of on the highest floor level, while conserving the underlying structure. The new volumes were placed on top of these buildings, by means of an external structure of welded steel tubes. New floors are hanging in between these tubes, topped by the roof slab that forms a portal frame with the tubes.
In the highest building these portal frames are replaced by vierendeel trusses of welded tubes enveloping four facades. Jointed to the stiff roof slab, a rigid box arises on top of the existing edifice.
CUBES
Five square volumes contain atelier- and dwellingspaces and an underground parking. A concrete base containing parking and ground floor is topped with concrete columns and masonry, which gives room for split-level dwellings.
The CAPAWOOD section was the laureate of the Staalbouwwedstrijd 2016, a biennial competition for steel constructions organized by Infosteel.
client:
Vervoordt re nv
general contractor:
THV Besix/Vanhout
location:
Wijnegem Stokerijstraat
gross surface (m2):
37000
status:
completed in 2015