Vetrotech has provided the glass solutions for the Forensisch Psychiatrisch Centrum (FPC – Forensic Psychiatric Centre) in Ghent, Belgium. Costing 80 million euros to build, the FPC provides care and rehabilitation in high-specification treatment units for up to 272 patients. The building features a large interior space with entrance hall; administrative building; visitors’ complex; observation and crisis department; nursing, social and educational services; rehabilitation facilities; medical complex; workshops and sports facilities. There is also a large outdoor area with walkways linking a garden, farm, vegetable patch and greenhouse.

The toughest test methods in Europe

As a government building and a close-care facility, the FPC had to meet the very highest standards in terms of attack and fire resistance, as set by the Belgian authorities – standards that are higher than those in any other European country.

To meet them, Vetrotech developed a highly durable, fire-resistant, single-pane glass, which was installed throughout the building. This glass is also designed not to splinter when under attack.

To make sure that it achieved the required anti-intrusion (splinter-proof) classification required by the Belgian government – we put the glass through a series of rigorous tests. Among them, we tested its integrity to the maximum with a real-time splinter test, which involved trying to break the glass using hammers, wedges, crowbars and heavy chisels.

Equally important was the glass's resistance to fire, the tests for which were carried out at the University of Ghent. The fire-resistant glazing is double-sided, so both the inside and outside surfaces of the glass were tested. There was no doubt about the integrity of the glass by the end of the tests: it displayed fire resistance lasting 150% longer than the time required by the Belgian authorities' strict guidelines.

Flanders’ first forensic psychiatric centre has opened in Ghent, with space for 264 male detainees. The justice system has finally tackled a longstanding and nagging problem: that of detainees being put in ordinary jails when they need psychiatric assistance, after a court has judged them to be of unsound mind. The building is surrounded by a 6.5-metre high wall and camera surveillance, but it has also has a transparent fence in the less protected departments. Perhaps the biggest difference from a common prison is that it has no bars in the rooms, so the detainees don’t constantly have the feeling that they’re locked up. The arrangement of the various departments in the FPC in Ghent also resembles the treatment path that every detainee has to pass through. There are separate departments for orientation and observation, for specific and enforced treatment and for resocialisation – the eventual goal is that a detainee can integrate into society and function normally again, often with assistance in daily life.