As a result of a highly detailed urban development analysis by the architectural team, a concept was put forward in which the 'head' of the new city hall acts as a lighting beacon in the street where-as the supporting pedestal houses the administration functions. The wedding and aldermen hall are within the 'head' of the city hall, thus corbelling out over the passage (4m at the street side, and 6m at the side of the courtyard), on top of the pedestal.

The console’s facades parallel to the street are entirely glassed. The corbelling volume (10m wide) seems to be 'floating', an image which is even enforced by extensive use of glass windows. The front facade also corbels out for about 1 m relative to the basis of the building structure. To guarantee a sufficiently high comfort level to building occupants, oscillations must be avoided at all cost.

It was decided to design the building ‘head’ as a steel structure (where-as all other parts of the building are made of concrete). By adding 4 sloping bar elements (2 in the front facade and 2 in the rear facade), a truss structure is being created in both facades. The horizontal forces in the rear facade are taken up by the concrete elevator wall. The side wall below the floating superstructure supports the front facade through a high (concrete) console.

Overall structural stiffness is created through the use of stiff truss structures and by clamping floor beams into the vertical columns, along 2 directions (perpendicular and parallel to the street). This results in a first eigenfrequency of about 5Hz, ensuring a good comfort level to building occupants. For fire safety reasons, a double supporting structure was conceived, thus ensuring stability of the building ‘head’ even is case one of the supporting elements would fail.

New city hall Deerlijk image 1

 

Structural Engineering Office Mouton

Mouton Structural Engineering Office originates from the professional activities of Guy Mouton, who started in 1976 to practice as an independent engineer-architect. Over the years, the core business gradually evolved from architectural design to structural design. As a result of this, Mouton Structural Engineering Office was formally established in 2002.

Mouton Structural Engineering Office is fully focused on structural design of steel, concrete and timber structures. The link with architectural design remains however remarkably present, as the office continues to strive for a close collaboration between all designers involved in a project. The result is invariably an optimal architectural design, respecting all imposed constraints. As a result, the Mouton Structural Engineering Office received several awards, and was also nominated for the prestigious Cultuurprijs Architectuur 2005 awarded by the Flemish government.

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