The provincial services of East Flanders were spread over about seven buildings in the center, and the provincial government wanted to centralize them within the Leopold Barracks and create a new provincial house.

For its design and construction, the provincial government worked with the THV Leopold consortium, a partnership between DMI Vastgoed, Democo and Matexi. From 2021, the new provincial government building was given a location within the Leopold Barracks at Ghent's Citadel Park. For the architectural design, THV Leopold surrounded itself with Sergison Bates (London), 360architecten, B2Ai, heritage specialist Maarten Dobbelaere and Delva Landscape Architects. In addition to the various administrative services, it also integrated the political section (provincial council, deputation, etc.), the public section (public services, meeting rooms, etc.) and the logistics section (lending service, archives, depot space, parking, etc.). In total, the area requirement was about 30 000 m² of which about half was underground.

In the new story, the Leopold Barracks no longer remained the closed massive building, but transformed into a lively urban neighborhood, where living, working and meeting were central. In this, the Leopold Barracks retained its identity. In addition to the provincial house, we integrated the art school HISK, offices for Defense, a hotel, childcare and various housing typologies in the barracks. The functions extended around the Parade Square, which was redesigned into a green neighborhood park.

Future orientation, sustainability and flexibility were central to the design process. The concept went far beyond the imposed sustainability requirements for the various buildings. THV Leopold's vision looked at sustainability at the neighborhood level. This translated into measures in the areas of integrated water management, energy, mobility, waste stream management, etc. to, for example, the green stock, the heritage vision and extensive participation with the provincial government. As far as technical installations are concerned, a BEO field under the underground parking lot of some 160 boreholes will be connected to water/water heat pumps. This would take care of the total heat demand. As end units, low temperature solutions such as climate ceiling and convectors would be used. In order to minimize the energy consumption of the ventilation, there was a strong focus on recovery, VAV controls, low speeds, night cooling and the like. The heat released from cooling the data center was recovered. A PV installation of about 250 kWp additionally provided a large portion of its own energy generation. Lighting energy consumption was reduced by using the latest LED lighting, combined with presence detection and daylight control.

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In this project we are involved as a consulting party in a design and build assignment. The tasks performed: concept determination in preliminary design and building permit phase, follow-up of preservation of concepts in the design phase in close cooperation with the contractors, follow-up of the execution and finally supervision of preliminary and final acceptance. During the course of the project, we also carried out a number of feasibility studies special techniques.

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