| Type | New construction and renovation of grain silo into offices |
| Builder | Vaartkom |
| Location | Vaartkom in Leuven |
| Architect | Jaspers - Eyers Architects |
| Surface area above ground | 10.884 m² |
| Study Office Stability | Group D. Engineering |
| Surface area underground | 2.062 m² |
| Study Office Techniques | VK Engineering |
Assisted housing combined with renovation and restoration of existing grain silos
Project Vaartkom includes the new construction of 111 assisted housing units with 1 common underground basement and 2 above-ground buildings with 7 floors and 9 floors respectively. On the same site, a listed silo building and unloading and loading dock were also restored, renovated and converted into offices by Interbuild.
Interbuild built the project on behalf of Vaartkom nv on the Vaartkom in Leuven. The site is located on the Leuven Vaart, a traditionally industrial area that fell into disrepair after World War II. Since the 1990s, however, this area has been in full development.
The new building is constructed in exterior plaster, complemented by aluminum elements and natural stone. The facade of the historic silo tower has been restored under the watchful eye of Real Estate Heritage. Furthermore, the existing unloading and loading dock has been integrated into the facade of the new building. The challenge was to demolish the current load-bearing wall and integrate the quay into the load-bearing structure of the new building.
To realize the underground parking lot, the existing foundation walls of the surrounding streets were broken out so that the fully enclosed construction pit could be realized here with berliner walls. For the adjoining areas with the existing building, a combination of secant pile walls and under-pile walls was used.
The project had a total implementation period of 21 calendar months, with the office portion commissioned after 10 months.
The major challenge of this project lay in the site organization to finish 2 different types of buildings in the very short execution time without any stockage space where the different deliveries should be finished "just in time".
