Ensuring that children with behavioral and mental health challenges are cared for within a community is an admirable ambition, but not one that is easily achieved. Often the desire to protect vulnerable children leads to hiding their care away from the community, when in fact ensuring that they are treated as part of it helps them and their families most. When VK architects+engineers was invited by Groep Zorg H. Familie, a Belgian nonprofit health care trust, to renovate an existing children’s mental health care facility in the provincial Belgian town of Kortrijk, the firm sought to take on these issues in a way that was sensitive to both the patients and nearby residents.

After discovering that the trust had earlier purchased a school building adjacent to the facility they were to refurbish, VK’s design team suggested an alternative strategy. “Following several design meetings with the client, we came to the conclusion that it would be better to invest in a completely new hospital that’s more integrated into the streets of the city,” says VK senior architect Frederique Lievens. The firm, which has considerable experience designing behavioral and mental health care facilities throughout Belgium, replaced the school building with a purpose-built children’s mental health care center that is closely tied into the surrounding neighborhood.