Kessel is a small village that hangs from a road. On its north side, some attempts to bring a garden city model resolved into a duplication of the main road, the nieuwstraat, shutting away building blocks from their natural surroundings. To the south, a different approach is taking place to preserve the forest along the Lindekens brook. Together with the new village’s school, the new community care home will become Kessel’s new development model.

The project consists of care home facilities hosting 120 residents, daycare activities, and a large restaurant intended to provide 500 meals a day. The design takes seriously the assignment to open up the buildings to the landscape while doubling its capacity compared to the former one. The project brings together the site’s different assets: the village, the valley, the new school and the park; with a central open space, performing at once as access to the park, a public square for the village, and the outdoor connection between facilities.

The three new buildings, organised around the central area, openly cascade to the south, directing movement from the village to the forest. In the middle, the day-care centre performs as a ‘villa’, a visible and recognisable house facing the square with a restaurant on its ground floor. The residential buildings, meticulously studied as rich aggregated units, bring intimate spaces for meeting while remaining open and well-connected. A pitched-roof construction, with individual large bay windows and an awning for solar protection, grants residents the feeling of autonomy and being at home they deserve.