The youth hostel with 76 beds (20 rooms) belongs to the environmental education center "De Hoge Rielen". This center is located in a forest with an area of 300 hectares, and this forest is not quite "real". The pine forest was planted here to provide fuel to the nearby metallurgical plants, and during the Second World War it was the base of the Royal Belgian Navy with an ammunition depot, bunkers, embankments and moats filled with water. In times of peace, the forest was used as a recreational area, and later "De Hoge Rielen" appeared here. It is also interesting to study ecology here because the pine forest created by man is gradually "running wild", turning into a natural deciduous forest.
The hostel is circular in plan and covers an area of pine plantations; a glazed corridor, a “winter garden”, faces this “courtyard”, blurring the border between the interior and the environment. As conceived by the architects, the green roof, slightly sloped inward, should function as the roof of an ancient Roman house, collecting rainwater into an impluvium pool.
The main materials used are concrete and European larch wood, which was chosen for its resistance to negative environmental influences.
