Pastorij Beverst - Arch

In the centre of Beverst, part of the city of Bilzen-Hoeselt, the former rectory returns to public life after years of dormancy, not as a revived ecclesiastical relic, but as the spatial expression of a renewed civic ground initiated by the City.

Conceived as one coherent spatial strategy, the project integrates urban vision, landscape, architecture and interior into a single framework, ensuring continuity across scales rather than a collection of isolated gestures.

The introduction of a semi-public program - an ice cream parlor with community spaces set within a park garden - shifts the rectory from clerical enclosure to civic interface. The garden establishes a gradient between public and private, between collective openness and sheltered interiority, framing the building as part of a broader social field. Operated by Heide Atelier, a non-profit organization supporting people with acquired brain injury and autism, the parlor functions as a training environment. Architecture here becomes a framework for care and reintegration: spaces support the gradual rebuilding of skills, autonomy, and social participation.

Through restrained intervention and spatial integration, the project transforms a former rectory into a porous civic place, where architectural continuity and social renewal converge.