© Tim van de Velde
Many details of the new primary school in Lebbeke, Belgium, a small municipality in the triangle between Brussels, Antwerp and Ghent, are not evident at first sight. Extending along the main street is a two-storey, steel skeleton frame with white-painted brick infill. Only at certain points is this continuous walling interrupted by latticework gratings. Built for 450 pupils between the ages of three and twelve, the school building itself, which is open on all sides, is separated from the outer facade by a roughly 4.50-metre-wide buffer zone.