Crematorium of OFFICE Kersten Geers David Van Severen

In the middle of the polder landscape just outside the Belgian coastal town of Ostend, OFFICE Kersten Geers David Van Severen and Richard Venlethave realized the Polderbos crematorium . The landscape design comes from Bureau Bas Smets and embeds the building sensitively in its surroundings.

The competition brief for a new crematorium on the outskirts of Ostend called for a public and pluralistic space that would enable a dignified and quiet farewell to the deceased. The building should therefore have a ceremonial character, but must of course also meet the technical requirements of a crematorium. The building design by OFFICE Kersten Geers David Van Severen explores this ambiguity. The result is a single-storey building made of in-situ concrete with a striking, sloping roof. The flat structure is isolated and somewhat secluded in the flat landscape and rises gently between woods and meadows. The volume blends artfully into the designed landscape and at the same time conceals its technical character.

The roof is the central element of the crematorium’s external appearance. It was developed in collaboration with the Belgian artist Richard Venlet and is pierced with skylights. In addition, abstract shapes rise up from the sloping roof surface. Viewed from a distance, it looks like the hugely enlarged board of a board game on which abstract figures stand. When studied in detail, the holes and shapes fulfill individual functions. In the ceremonial rooms, the holes in the roof serve as skylights, in other places they are chimneys or air shafts. The sloping roof is supported by a colonnade. And at the edges, around the entire building, it forms covered outdoor areas. Here, the transitions between architecture and landscape become fluid and anchor the building firmly in its surroundings.

The architects organize the complex program of the crematorium on one level with an area of 2000 square meters. The floor plan is divided into strips of different widths, each of which fulfills a function and is arranged diagonally to the square roof area. In this way, public, administrative and technical functions are located next to each other. The program includes reception areas, waiting rooms, the central mourning halls, technical rooms and narrow areas for ancillary functions and passageways.

The main entrance is located at the lowest point of the building, while the incineration chambers and an air purification system are housed below the highest point of the building. The technical rooms take a back seat in the overall appearance of the crematorium and are located away from the central access in the western part of the building. They have a separate entrance.

The ceremonial rooms are located in the center of the building and are accessed via the main entrance in the southeast. Visitors then reach the two mourning halls via a long atrium. The two halls are separated from each other by partition walls and can be combined if necessary. The crematorium has to meet particularly strict sound insulation requirements at this location so that several ceremonies can take place at the same time. The architects therefore decided to cover all the interior fittings and furniture around the bare concrete wall surfaces with special wool textile upholstery.

When choosing the materials and colors, attention was paid to a pleasant uniformity – with grey exposed concrete and yellow metal doors for the building structure, light wood for the furniture and black wool textiles for the upholstery, as dividing elements and sound insulation. In combination with the skylights, this creates well-lit and atmospheric rooms

The crematorium is a reinforced concrete structure. The in-situ concrete still shows the wooden structure of the formwork as an imprint. The roof elements consist of in-situ concrete covered with shotcrete. In contrast, the façade is broken up into large glass walls in several places, with perforated corrugated aluminum sheets placed in front of the windows as a second skin. The double façade thus subtly mediates between the interior spaces and the surrounding landscape, letting in daylight while creating a protected and calm lighting atmosphere inside.

OFFICE Kersten Geers David Van Severen also knows how to stage other transitions: “Tondo” turns a pedestrian bridge into an architectural event.