Chapel De Zande, Conversion chapel into school for special education
Campus Ruiselede is located in West Flanders, surrounded by farmland. It is part of the Community Judicial Institution De Zande for boys aged 12 to 18 years, with a closed and an open section. Dating from 1856, the chapel is now a historic landmark. The chapel, which has been converted into a special school with indoor sports facilities and a media center, stands at the edge of the campus and has the size of a small church. It is not common in Flanders to transform a monument drastically, especially if it is a church building, even though the chapel deconsecrated long ago. The former Flemish Government Architect Marcel Smets insisted on keeping the chapel recognizable.
At the heart of the church a two storey box has been erected, like an oversized presbytery. It aligns with the structural grid, high above the basement. This building within a building has wooden double walls that serve as cupboards containing educational equipment and all the HVAC ducts. The straight staircases that connect the three floors are also enclosed in these walls. The pillars of the chapel, the arches, all the architectural details, the decorations and the insides of the outer walls remained untouched. The exterior of the chapel has also been left in its original state, apart from a new door. In the corridors around the box containing the classrooms and a few other places, the full length and height of the chapel is visible. These corridors are also practical, the circulation makes it possible to keep the closed and open section strictly separated from each other by using separate entrances.
The classrooms are lighted with high windows that allow indirect daylight into the building. Chapel and school are not only connected by daylighting but also through beams of direct sunlight. Learning well is not without natural light. Light beams from the circular windows in the upper part of the chapel pierce the box, like the holes in an Emmentaler cheese. Not only are the walls perforated, also in the ceiling and the floor between ground floor and upstairs are holes of light. School and chapel have been interwoven by light and space into a duality. For the direction of the beams the position of the sun on the shortest day of the year and the longest day has been determined. Once a year the orbits of light reach their ultimate point creating the mystical feel of a sacred place. The light refers to the chapel of yesteryear, but also has a more earthly denotation; on July 21 the summer holiday starts and on December 22 Christmas break, at least for the open section of the campus.
