THE FORMER FARM SCHOOL IN WATERLOO

RESTORING A PRECIOUS PAST

Driven by a passion for patrimony and for cities, we are naturally interested in sites and buildings steeped in history, be it architectural, urban or industrial. In the context of ever evolving towns and cities, our motivation is to help create the city of the future through renovation, whether by rehabilitating rundown neighbourhoods, transforming abandoned industrial sites or finding new functions for prestigious buildings.

THE FORMER FARM SCHOOL IN WATERLOO

On the initiative of the educationalist Ovide Decroly, in approximately 1910 it was decided to build a farm school for slightly disabled children. Waterloo was chosen as the site due to its unspoiled rural environment, bringing the children into close contact with nature. In proposing a range of workshops – carpentry, basket making, tailoring, cobbling, agriculture and livestock rearing – the educational programme was designed to help the children acquire a trade as a means of integrating into mainstream society. The project’s architecture prize was won in 1912 by Fernand Bodson, assisted by Théodore Clément. Interrupted by the First World War, it was 1926 before work on the project was completed. Fernard Bodson, who was interested in the concept of the garden city, designed a row of rectangular buildings to create a shared space and fluid circulation between the various functional elements (classrooms, kitchens, workshops, gymnasium,educational farm, etc.).

The style was Anglo-Normand in its inspiration with its many roofs, dormer windows, crossbar windows, and lines of columns forming passageways. Registered as a site of exceptional period interest, the Waterloo Farm School was subsequently restored as part of an intergenerational innovation project.

>see the project : BELLA VITA.

Client: Bella Vita sa (JCX Immo - Immobel)
Architects: Baudouin Courtens & associés, FCM Architects, JNC International
Contractors: CIT Blaton, Les Entreprises Louis De Waele, Reform