Postwar church becomes contemporary health center

The San Salvator Church in Orthen, a neighborhood in 's-Hertogenbosch, has a new purpose. Built in 1956, the monument now serves as a health center. With this transformation, "De San Salvator" remains an important, healing place for the Orthen community.

On the spot where church services were held for over fifty years, Orthenians can now visit the general practitioners on duty and other health care providers. The health center consists of two floors with an entrance, general areas and some forty practice rooms. The development and realization was in the hands of Built by De Wildt. Van Boven Architecten made the design. Contractor company M.P. Drijvers was responsible for the construction. The installations were provided by Installatieburo Pijnappels and Van Woesik Elektro. 

Construction Team

Project manager on behalf of Drijvers was Marc Verhoeven. He explains, "We regularly carry out transformations, including for Built by De Wildt. We apply our own construction methodology to these projects, tailored to the situation of the building to be transformed. Specific to San Salvator Church was the large, open space. We had to place the health center in it as a new building component. Within the construction team, we helped to find a suitable solution, which respected the aesthetics and the monumental character of the building as much as possible. In the preparatory phase, much attention was paid to the preservation of authentic elements and the appearance. Among other things, this required a seamless coordination between the structural and installation engineering parts."  

Retain original elements

Verhoeven continues: "Elements that needed to be preserved included pedestals, statues and the instrumentation panel for lighting. However, they did not fit the new function of the building. Therefore, we shielded these elements with walls. They can be brought out again at any time. The stained glass windows, which we removed from the exterior facade to create larger windows, were replaced elsewhere in the building. Otherwise, we left the exterior façade intact as much as possible. For example, in the asbestos remediation and installation of the new exterior windows, we removed as little of the original masonry as possible."

Steel structure on pedestals

Implementation of the transformation began in December 2020. Drijvers realized the health center with a steel structure and floor fields. The structure rests on piers, which were installed in the lowered middle section of the church. In this middle section, which was raised to bring the first floor to one level, Drijvers also constructed the elevator pit and elevator shaft. The construction company also took care of the finishing work and the insulation of the ceilings and cavity walls. Verhoeven: "The installation of the steel structure was one of the greatest challenges. It was quite a puzzle to get the floor-to-ceiling elements inside. Moreover, there was hardly any storage space inside. So the elements had to be delivered in the right order and processed immediately. Thanks to our thorough preparation and the excellent work of steel supplier Van de Camp, this went smoothly."

Fine collaboration

Verhoeven also looks back on the other work with satisfaction. "Everything went smoothly. Built by De Wildt is a fine party to work with. They think along with us and switch quickly. Before the construction period we finished the last details of the health center on schedule. The result is extremely beautiful and does full justice to the building. The San Salvator will have a bright new future."

'Sewerage posed the biggest challenge'

For the realization of the health center in the former San Salvator church in 's-Hertogenbosch, Installatieburo Pijnappels did the plumbing work. Commissioned by Built by De Wildt, the W-installer provided the general areas and practice rooms with water pipes, sewers and plumbing.

"The sewage system presented the biggest challenge," says co-owner Dirk van Helvoort of Installatieburo Pijnappels. "Little was known about the existing situation. Is there a crawl space? Are the floors suitable for trenching? To answer questions like that, we drilled several test holes in the floor. The crawl space turned out to be no higher than 40 centimeters. Getting pipes in there was quite a job. We inspected the existing outside sewer system with cameras. Those pipes turned out to be partly made of vitrified clay and had subsided in a number of places. Those parts we repaired."

Regular partners

Last March, Installatieburo Pijnappels started the on-site installation work. The work was completed in early August. Van Helvoort: "In terms of planning, projects like this remain challenging. Especially in the completion phase, you have to deal with many different parties working at the same time. The fact that we know each other is an advantage. As permanent partners of Built by De Wildt, we have already completed several health centers together. We know what we can expect from each other and we can switch quickly. We find this way of working very pleasant and look back on another successful project with Built by De Wildt."

'More than just painting'

The level of finish of the health center in the former San Salvator Church is high. Lagrouw Schilderwerken made an important contribution to this. The painting company from Nieuwkuijk, permanent partner of Built by De Wildt, gave the existing and new walls a sleek finishing touch.

"As on many of our projects, we did more than just painting," says owner Noud Lagrouw of Lagrouw Painting. "We painted several walls in the church building and we provided the interior walls of the newly built health center with stucco, wallpaper, spray and paint work. We also applied fire-resistant coating to the steel structural members used to build the health center. Prior to the final delivery, we handled the cleaning. By offering all this work under one roof, we relieve Built by De Wildt in the completion phase."

Descending at height

One of the biggest concerns during the finishing touches was the finishing of the atrium at the entrance. "That one was pretty high," Lagrouw said. "It required an aerial platform to do our work in that part of the health center." Last July, Lagrouw Painting completed work in the former San Salvator Church. Lagrouw is pleased. "Together with Built by De Wildt and the other parties involved, we can look back on a project that went well."

Construction Info

Development
Built by De Wildt, Sint Michielsgestel

Architect
Van Boven Architects, Sint Michielsgestel

Contractor
Construction company M.P. Drijvers, 's-Hertogenbosch