Illy Klerckx
Machine à Guérir: a sinking healthcare building for mining-city Genk. UHasselt (Belgium)
A Sanatorium for Zwartberg (Genk).
Zwartberg, the first mine in Genk to close, became the site of social and spatial catastrophe in the 1960s.Thousands lost their jobs, and the community its foundation. Most mining structures were demolished, erasing both architecture and identity. What remains is an artificial landscape scarred by abandoned galleries, still capable of causing subsidence. This tension between past and future makes Zwartberg fertile ground for design: a city in transition seeking healing and new meaning, a city-in-recovery.
What remains of a city that must continuously reinvent itself? And how can architecture contribute to its recovery? With Machine à Guérir (“Healing Machine”), I explore how architecture can transcend mere functionality to embody aesthetic and restorative qualities. Why not return to “good” architecture?
At its core lies the design of a contemporary sanatorium within Zwartberg’s hypothetical mining subsidence zone. Anchored to the former mine shaft, the building shifts along with the sinking ground. An ode to slowness, is what I like to call it. This choice stems from the conviction that architecture can heal not only the human body, but also the land itself. Whereas conventional care facilities often feel clinical and alienating, my project seeks to create an environment of domesticity, tranquility, and the human scale. Therefore restoring both people and landscape while redefining Genk’s post-industrial identity.
My design envisions three intertwined forms of recovery. First, landscape: embracing subsidence to form a dynamic park where nature and heritage meet. Second, material: reusing Red Mine Stone, a mining byproduct, to tie circular construction to local history. Third, care: replacing the sterile institution with a home-like environment attentive to light, air, tactility, and contemplation.
Machine à Guérir thus becomes a manifesto for renewed care architecture: not factory-like institutions, but spaces of healing, encounter, and reflection. A catalyst for ecological and societal renewal.
SCHUNCK cannot guarantee the correctness of content and expression. The participants themselves are responsible for their entries. The copyright of the projects underlies to the authors, any reproduction or use of the shown material is strictly forbidden.