Experience center,city park and multifunctional space, Borgloon, 2022-
Project team: IEA together with Beeck & Hermans Architecten, Bailleul and Team van Meer

On the historical site of the medieval beguinage chapel, the neo-Gothic chapel and the care home fort he elderly and social services, a transformation and re-allocation is started which will lift these 3 different entities to a new experience in the center of the city.
The particularly valuable heritage chapels from the 13* and 19* centuries will be respectfully restored and equipped with logical indoor and outdoor interventions with a scenographic experience. The outer zone between the two religious buildings will be designed as an enclosed garden and information trail. The first newly built pavilion-volume in the armpit of the large chapel functions as a welcome-circulation and reception area for starting the cultural journey through time. From this new volume, one physically travels through time portals along the older buildings and through the history of the County of Loon and the creation of the Province of Limburg. In the oldest building, the beguinage or Graethem Chapel, today rests the remains of two important protagonists in this story.
The nearby nursing home is reoriented towards the experience center and renewed through the construction of a new second transparent pavilion wing with a public consumption area that is open in several ways: to the visitors and residents of the nursing home, the public for the experience center, the city residents and travellers.
Between the new pavilions, the historical chapels and the retirement home, a new urban park-landscape between the center and the periphery will emerge, with a connective impulse. A green lung with water features conceived as an inviting experience and spherical corridor in the heart of the historic city.