The Ghent firm headed by Jan de Vylder, Inge Vinck, and Jo Taillieu transformed Sint-Jozef, raised in the 19th century, into a facility with communal spaces for the psyquiatric center of Caritas in Melle, in Belgium’s Flanders region.
A group of physicians, therapeutists, and patients was formed to conceive a design addressing the needs of the clinic’s users in a building that, though lacking a specific function, would also cater to the desires of the community at large. An experimental public space is created where the lines between interior and exterior are diluted, within an existing construction whose demolition was halted when the tiles of the roof and some windows had already been removed.
The roof is now glazed and the window openings have been closed with concrete. The renovation includes a series of scattered glass boxes, juxtaposed with a three-floor volume that leaves the traces of time exposed.
