The Helix campus, a secondary school offering both technical and academic courses, is situated on the main road running through Maasmechelen. In 2018, architectural firm De Gouden Liniaal drew up an ambitious masterplan, reimagining the campus as a small village with streets, squares, green spaces and buildings. Within this framework, the firm designed a new STEM building which was completed in the spring of 2024.

“What are classrooms today must be able to become a canteen, a practical training room or even a crèche tomorrow,” reads the architectural firm’s project brief. This ambition was realised with a dodecagonal plan, in which each ‘slice of the pie’ has an area of 60 m², based on the standard size of a classroom. Apart from the two segments housing the stairwells, the remaining spaces can easily be combined, and large spaces can be subdivided into smaller rooms. At the heart of the plan is the atrium, a space on the ground floor that can be transformed into a multifunctional area, complementing the classrooms. On the first floor, a gallery offers a view of the atrium, whilst the central space on the top floor functions as a multi-purpose study area. The atrium and the classrooms are separated by an inner shell of prefabricated concrete porticos. These open porticos are alternately filled with storage space featuring lockers or serve as passageways to the various classrooms. By duplicating the porticos, technical shafts are created that control each ‘slice of the pie’ individually, allowing spaces to vary from a minimum of 60 m² to a maximum of 450 m² – an intelligent structural choice that enhances the design’s flexibility.

The interior has a sober and robust appearance. The concrete supporting structure and prefabricated elements give the interior a grey and monotonous tone. Only the wooden door frames and the blue-painted steel balustrades of the open gallery break up this austere palette. Theory and practical classrooms are separated by transparent walls, allowing the spaces to be bathed in abundant natural light. On the exterior, the twelve (almost) identical façade surfaces convey the same austere architectural language as the interior. A subtle interplay of brick types and bonds attempts to break up this uniformity. By raising the roof edge, the design team succeeded in preserving the monolithic form and concealing the technical installations from view. The robust appearance underlines De Gouden Liniaal’s ambition to design a school building that is both radically flexible and future-proof.