Primary school goes for gold with new entrance and reception area clad with Rockpanel Metals

A clear entrance 

In the old situation, the school had no clear entrance. It was decided to take down a small part of the school, which included a number of very small classrooms to make room for a new-build area. Delphine Boeston, ‎engineer architect and partner at Architecten Groep III, explains: “This way, we created a central reception area that also functions as a link between the primary education department and the school canteen.” 

As two classrooms are now located on the first floor of the new building volume, the school facade stands out more now. Bostoen: “The emergency staircase is located behind a striking gold-coloured louvre structure. Thanks to the striking architecture of the new build part, the school site now has a clear appearance in the street.” 

Rockpanel Metals design tailored to exterior carpentry 

The architects opted for a sober brick architecture by analogy with the existing buildings. The exterior carpentry provides stylish accents with its golden colour. “For the reception area, we started looking for a durable material with the same colour image. Thanks to Rockpanel's Metals range, we were able to have boards made that match the colour of the carpentry as closely as possible. The building now forms an iconic element in the area, ”says Bostoen. 

The school management wanted to visualize the pedagogical concept of the school at the entrance. Draftsman Jimmy Hostens provided an inspiring illustration that was applied as a sticker to the Rockpanel boards. Bostoen: “We deliberately chose stickers instead of milling into the panels, because the stickers can be renewed without problems when the pedagogical vision may be updated.” 

Facade boards with a high ease of use 

Christ Blanquart, who owns and runs a small carpentry and joinery company, mounted the boards together with his team. The cladding boards were placed on the ceiling at the level of the emergency staircase and the escape terrace behind gold-coloured slats. The Rockpanel Metals boards were also used as facade and ceiling cladding for the roofed entrance area. Blanquart: “After we cut the boards to size in our workshop, we mounted them onto a wooden sub-construction on the construction site.” Blanquart likes to work with Rockpanel cladding. “The boards are very easy to cut. In addition, they are very light, which ensures excellent ease of installation on site.” 

Architect Bostoen is very satisfied with the result. “The project shows that, with only a limited intervention, you can still make a big difference in terms of organization and appearance. The sober architecture supplemented with some fine eye-catching details takes this project to a higher level.”