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.