Brussels-based architecture office Burobill has built up a portfolio of assignments relating to various care projects. The five medical practices they were commissioned to build by Geneeskunde voor het Volk/Médecine pour le Peuple – in Molenbeek, Hoboken, Marcinelle, Zelzate and recently also in La Louvière – are each very different. And yet a red thread runs through them all.

Geneeskunde voor het Volk is a network of group practices offering free primary care to 25,000 members in Belgium. The organisation has grown over the years from small initiatives in working-class neighbourhoods. It is in these neighbourhoods that Burobill was commissioned to build several new community health centres. In each case, the project involved the conversion of an existing building, retaining the load-bearing structure and as much of the existing fabric as possible. For example, in Zelzate, Burobill converted a retail premises; in Sint-Jans-Molenbeek, a former storage space; and in Hoboken, they converted an office building designed by Georges Baines in 1969.