Community Centre

The community centre in Deurne is conceived as a supportive yet distinctive community centre within the village centre: a place that offers generous, practical space for meeting, sport and shared use, while remaining deeply connected to the surrounding landscape.

Its ambition is social as much as architectural. The building is intended as an inviting and dynamic place that strengthens community life, brings together different generations and functions, and gives the wider site a clear civic focus. Rather than acting as an isolated object, it becomes the spatial and social hinge within a larger public setting.

The project is positioned at the centre of a masterplan and establishes a new heart between football fields, play space, green areas, future school and childcare infrastructure, soft connections and parking. Its placement follows the central axis between the two football pitches and is conceived to reinforce relationships rather than dominate the site.

The central architectural idea is clear: organise the building and its landscape as one coherent meeting structure, in which greenery, movement and programme are interwoven. The community centre is therefore both building and landscape anchor, shaping the future growth of the site into a green lung for Deurne.

The programme is organised around a central north–south foyer that connects the different uses and clarifies movement through the building. On the ground floor are the meeting rooms, supporting spaces for the football clubs and the divisible multpurpose hall with its associated storage, kitchen and bar.

The foyer provides access to both meeting rooms and hall, while allowing the large hall to operate as one space or as smaller sections through movable partitions. Football functions have a separate entrance and direct connection to the pitches, reducing maintenance and avoiding conflicts with other users.

The café is positioned on the first floor to take advantage of views, sunlight and dual orientation. It can operate independently or in connection with the rest of the building and extends onto two terraces overlooking both the play landscape and the football fields.

The building is conceived as a compact volume in which different programme parts are carefully stacked to reduce footprint and preserve open ground. The central foyer acts as an orienting spine, while the larger polyvalent volume and upper-level café give the building a clear internal hierarchy.

The structural concept balances robustness with flexibility. The project proposes a selective use of timber systems: CLT and glulam where exposed structure and mass are meaningful, timber frame construction where lighter, more adaptable walls are more appropriate. This allows the building to remain efficient in material use and adaptable over time.

The exterior spaces are treated as equal to the interior. The public route for cyclists and pedestrians bends through the site towards Langestraat, while local paths and contrasting paving patterns guide users naturally towards the building’s entrances. Green transition zones between all facilities reduce the presence of hard surfaces and help the site read as one continuous landscape.

The terraces of the café function as outdoor rooms and informal tribunes, while the southern play field and wadi reinforce the relationship between recreation, water management and cooling.