Clarenhof - Arch

Hidden behind a four-metre wall in Hasselt, the former Colettine Poor Clares convent has become a residential and health care centre. Its contemplative spirit lives on in a secular form of care, in a place that keeps the peace and silence the sisters left behind.

In the search for a new use for the convent, the ‘health care’ theme was a deliberate choice. A secular extension of the contemplative care’ that the sisters always represented. Today, the complex is a residential and health care centre, with service flats and public meeting areas, such as the redesigned chapel, the new ‘living room’ of the health care centre.

The premises have been extended. New buildings, leaning against the outer convent wall, were added. The new volume contains the service flats. The service flat units are stacked as individual cells, a reference to the cells in the former convent.

The new building volume is U-shaped, its location creating another courtyard garden. This garden is raised above street level and marks the natural boundary with the public area. It heightens the sense of privacy.

A suitable location for every health care function was found in the existing convent complex. The boundaries between public, semi-public and private derive logically from the existing situation and create interspaces that can be used for meetings within a protective environment. Design and materials are in keeping with the existing formal idiom of the previous convent and retain the atmosphere of security and silence exemplified by the Colettine Poor Clares.