Reconstruction of The Tower at Sint-Amandscollege – K-Tower in Kortrijk, Belgium by Philippe SAMYN and PARTNERS sprl, architects & engineers

Article source: Philippe SAMYN and PARTNERS sprl, architects & engineers

The importance of the vertical development of cities

The vertical development of cities is one of the foundations of future urbanism for the sake of preserving the natural and agricultural territories.

The verticality is the result of common sense but the livability of vertical housing remains, as its architecture, to be elaborated in order to give rise to a community of inhabitants.

For decades, Philippe Samyn conceived proposals in this direction (see, for example, his essay “The Vertical City” published by the Royal Academy of Belgium in September 2014).

The project of the K-Tower is an integral part of this vision. It is about offering quality apartments instead of beautiful villas arranged in the periphery, the latter being too excessive, both in land consumption and in the development of urban networks.

Image Courtesy © Quentin Olbrechts (Philippe SAMYN and PARTNERS)

• Architects: Philippe SAMYN and PARTNERS sprl, architects & engineers
• Project: Reconstruction of The Tower at Sint-Amandscollege – K-Tower
• Location: Kortrijk, Belgium
• Photography: Carol Kohen, Quentin Olbrechts (Philippe SAMYN and PARTNERS)
• Client: Van Roey Vastgoed nv (Van Roey group) and Koramic Real Estate
• Design partner and direction: Dr Ir Philippe Samyn, architect
• Partners in Charge: Liesbeth Gestels, architect and Jacques Ceyssens, architect (since 2011)
• Collaborators: Giuseppe Cardillo, Antoine Colback, Sam De Dobbeleer, Dimitri Debougnoux, Maarten Franssens, Nathalie Masumbuko, Nacer Hosna, Elodie Noorbergen, Alexio Rava, Paolo Ruaro, Pawel Sieradzon, Gerrit Stevens, Gaofei Tan, Thomas Vandeweyer, Roeland Van Lammeren, Christophe Van Raemdonck, Monika Wielocha, architects.
• Landscape: BUREAU DEROOSE
• Renderings: POLYGON GRAPHICS
• Structure (Building): Design office STEDEC nv
• Structural Engineering (Terraces): Design office CLAEYS Engineering bvba
• Building Services: Design office INGENIUM nv
• Acoustic: Design office VK ENGINEERING nv

Image Courtesy © Quentin Olbrechts (Philippe SAMYN and PARTNERS)

The site

The site of the Sint-Amandscollege is located inside Kortrijk’s periphery, on the bank of the river Leie. The current school buildings strongly vary in appearance as they were constructed at different ages.

The “Collegetoren” was built in 1960 to house a boarding school; its base houses additional educational facilities. As the “Collegetoren” no longer meets the current needs, the Kortrijk Urban Development Board launched a competition in 2005 for its reassignment and the rehabilitation of the Collège buildings themselves. A thorough analysis of the existing situation concluded that the tower had to be demolished and that the base should be maintained.

Image Courtesy © Carol Kohen

Image Courtesy © Carol Kohen

The implantation of the tower

A tower does not set itself anywhere.

The new tower is thus situated on the east side of the remaining base, next to Albert Park. This position reinforces the image of the base and closes the ensemble in a logical way.

Placed on the bank of the river Leie, the tower is the visual link between the dense city and its vast green periphery.

It offers views of an exceptionally wide extent.

Image Courtesy © Carol Kohen

Image Courtesy © Carol Kohen

The form

Based on a rectangular plan of 1 to 2, the tower is slender to limit its shadow. It presents the city with its finest silhouette.

Its visual slenderness is accentuated by the luminous appearance of its envelope of white or stainless steel sheet metal plates and mirrors.

Image Courtesy © Carol Kohen

Image Courtesy © Carol Kohen

The senses

The book “A Pattern Language” by Christopher Alexander, qualified by Françoise Choay as the only theoretical work on architecture after Vitruvius, forms, with the “plastic number” of Hans Dom Van der Laan on the proportions, a part of the theoretical foundations on which all the reflections of Philippe Samyn are based.

Philippe Samyn has likewise always been concerned about the respect of the five human senses and particularly the respect of natural light. A special attention is paid here as well to the visual, acoustic, olfactory and tactile qualities.

The most striking feature is the significant use of mirrors and glass with a high color rendering index on the façade, which increases the brightness in the building as well as on the terraces.

Image Courtesy © Carol Kohen

Image Courtesy © Carol Kohen

Orientation and views

The proposed development for the interior of the tower, consisting of 65 apartments, is flexible. Around a central core containing circulations and techniques, it is possible to provide two, three or four apartments per floor. A loft, including a double height living room, occupies the top floor.

With its east-west orientation, the tower offers far-reaching perspectives on the river Leie while its slim south facade enjoys views over the historic center of the city. The plan allows at least two orientations for each unit and their alternating wide terraces.

Image Courtesy © Carol Kohen

Image Courtesy © Quentin Olbrechts (Philippe SAMYN and PARTNERS)

The double height of the latter provides abundant sunshine and natural light of high quality inside the apartments. The mantillas of perforated sheet around the terraces ensure the privacy of the apartments and protects them from the draughts.

The openings, created at each terrace and each apartment, frame exceptional views in the manner of paintings.

Image Courtesy © Quentin Olbrechts (Philippe SAMYN and PARTNERS)

Image Courtesy © Quentin Olbrechts (Philippe SAMYN and PARTNERS)

The facade

Any construction is characterized by seven orders of magnitude waymarking the visual field, like the keyboard of a well-tempered piano has seven octaves expanding over the hearing field. The readability of these orders is essential to attain visual harmony. Architecture must ensure its materiality.

The large facades of the tower are thus divided into subsets nested in increasingly small dimensions, each of which is materialized by a different treatment based on internal comfort and the intake of natural light: white, mirrored or satin finish reflective surfaces.

Image Courtesy © Quentin Olbrechts (Philippe SAMYN and PARTNERS)

Image Courtesy © Quentin Olbrechts (Philippe SAMYN and PARTNERS)

This découpage, associated with the terraces wrapped in perforated sheet metal, makes it possible to gradually switch from the large urban scale and vast landscape to the size of the door handle.

It also ensues that the kinetic image of the tower is always different depending on the time of day and the day of the year.

Image Courtesy © Quentin Olbrechts (Philippe SAMYN and PARTNERS)

Image Courtesy © Quentin Olbrechts (Philippe SAMYN and PARTNERS)

Image Courtesy © Quentin Olbrechts (Philippe SAMYN and PARTNERS)

Image Courtesy © Quentin Olbrechts (Philippe SAMYN and PARTNERS)

Image Courtesy © Quentin Olbrechts (Philippe SAMYN and PARTNERS)

Image Courtesy © Quentin Olbrechts (Philippe SAMYN and PARTNERS)

Image Courtesy © Quentin Olbrechts (Philippe SAMYN and PARTNERS)

Image Courtesy © Philippe SAMYN and PARTNERS sprl, architects & engineers

Image Courtesy © Philippe SAMYN and PARTNERS sprl, architects & engineers

Tags: Belgium, Kortrijk

Categories: Apartments, Building, Housing Development, Offices, Tower

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