BAST architect & engineers

Kindergarten Lentetuiltje, a circular childcare center

The current child day care center 'Lentetuiltje' was in need of renovation. The client issued a competition in which his ambitions were very clear: the new Lentetuiltje had to be a sustainable, future-oriented and circular.

The basis of the design of Bast architect & engineers is therefore a childcare center built with natural materials according to the layer principle of Stewart Brand (see also: Leerhub Vlaanderen Circulair Bouwen, teaching package 'Circular materials'). The construction is conceived as a flexible wooden column grid with a shell of timber frame walls, supplemented with recently developed ecological materials such as blown-in straw or hemp. The techniques are placed in superstructures so that they are easily accessible and adaptable.

For small boards and non-profit organizations such as Lentetuiltje, which only rarely or once start a building project, it is not easy to tender according to the complex public procurement regulations. Moreover, implementing circular procurement concepts poses another obstacle.

With a multidisciplinary team, the partners within this project therefore focus on:

1. the design research for suitable, widely applicable circular construction methods for the day care center, with attention to reusability, disassembly and adaptability,
2. a measuring research in which different known measuring methods are applied side by side (a.o. LCC, totem, GRO, C-calc, ...) to validate on the one hand the circular ambitions of the choices made and on the other hand to stimulate long-term circular choices,
3. the mapping of the most suitable procurement methods for circular projects and the development of a guideline that can give other (small) building owners a push to also go full steam ahead with their circular ambitions.