PAC - Plastic Arts Centre
Basic information
Project Title
Full project title
Category
Project Description
PAC’s project wants to regenerate an area inside the historical city centre of Leuven (Belgium) realizing a performing art centre which create a dialogue with the historical neighborhood. The main topic is the sustainability: it's developped using a structure in recycled plastic materials and analysing the performance of the building (lighting and energy). PAC is zero energy building which ensures user’s comfort.
Project Region
EU Programme or fund
Description of the project
Summary
Based on an actual competiton, the PAC’s project wants to regenerate an area inside the historical city centre of Leuven (Belgium) realizing a performing art centre.
The main topics of the competition notice are the sustainability and the historical heritage of the city: the objective is to convert a dismissed hospital area into a new district that can create a dialogue with the surrounding neighborhood but also bring the Dijle back to the surface, because it’s curently an underground canal.
The name of the project is Plastic Arts Centre. It not only underlines the use of recycled plastic materials but also the purpose of the building: a center for plastic arts. The indoors of the building will be used as much as a museum, than a multi-functional theatre and a dancing-musical school.
After an accurate analysis of the context, the masterplan’s design also wants to integrate the area inside the urban road network, creating a new park inside the city centre to promote the Dijle canal and a smooth mobility.
The architectural project creates a dialogue with the existing architectural heritage in terms of volumes and external materials, meanwhile the interior shows the innovating side of the project: a pultruded-profiles structure with recyled plastic bricks.
As requested by the competition notice, a particular attention has been addressed to the user’s comfort: the interior design tries to reach a high level of acoustic in the theatre only working with recycled materials, in particular PET bricks.
Regarding the thermal comfort point of view and focusing on the sustainability, the project has analysed the performance of the building
(lighting and energy) in order to define the best technological solution, also taking the location into consideration adn trying to reduce
the energy consumption.
Key objectives for sustainability
The main objective of the project is to promote circularity. As known, it's difficult to recycle plastic materials and so I've find out a way to reuse these materials: a pultruded-profiles structure with recyled plastic bricks.
The second important objective is to ensure a good comfort for the users in terms of thermal, acoustic and lightning one. It's possible analyzing the energy performance of the building (for light and energy) and working on the shape of the recycled plastic bricks (to reach a high level of acoustic in the theatre).
Key objectives for aesthetics and quality
PAC wants to convert a dismissed hospital area into a new district that can create a dialogue with the surrounding neighborhood but also bring the Dijle back to the surface, because it’s curently an underground canal. This dialogue is created in terms of volumes and external materials.
Moreover, it wants to be an inclusive building, accessible to all: thanks to a outdoor slope which can be used as a stage during summer.
Key objectives for inclusion
PAC is accessible to all: the museum, the theatre and the art school are accessible by a slope from the new Dijle park.
Innovative character
In my opinion, the most important innovative character is the pultruded structure: it's underlined in the interior, but not visible from the exterior (volumes and external materials create a dialogue with the existing architectural heritage)
