Tucked away in the country side town of Breda, the Netherlands, sits a renovated old ‘flemish barn’ converted into an office. Developed by dutch firm arend groenewegen architect, the structure takes the ingredients of the original architecture form which consists of the wooden construction, low black facade and large thatched roof; and transforms it into a functioning work space. When the owner decided to stop his livestock business, the use of the existing barn built in the 1800, originally used for storage of hay and equipment needed a new vision. The renovation of the structure was in breach of the applicable zoning where the plot was designated as an ‘agricultural building block. The municipality changed the purpose of the area allowing an office to function in the space.
De Opmaat, an extended school located where a meadow landscape meets the outskirts of Arnhem, houses a primary school, a nursery, a playgroup and a gym. The building has sloping roofs, staggered in relation to one another, with stairways, tribune steps, rooflights and roof vegetation. The form fits in with the surrounding area. Thanks to the green on the roofs, the view of the landscape from the houses on the other side remains intact. The glazed frontage on the north side refers to the nearby glasshouses.
The assignment involves the transformation of a labourer’s house into a ‘pied a terre’ in Leiden for a Dutch family living in Paris. The clients wanted to give the relatively small house of 76m2 as much space and light as possible.
What would you expect, when entering a 250 m2 loft at De Rotterdam, the biggest building of The Netherlands, (designed by OMA/Rem Koolhaas), at the height of 143 meters, on the 43rd floor? Rotterdam seen from the air shows the omnipresence of water flowing through the city centre. The 25 meter total glass façade stretching from floor to ceiling, offers you a view of the Maas river, flowing through the city towards the Rotterdam harbour. You will look down upon the Erasmus Bridge (designed by UN Studio), the Markthal (designed by MVRDV), the city centre, Delft and on a clear day even The Hague is part of the view.
The newly build multifunctional accommodation (MFA) Zichtwei is the closing piece of the education campus in Barendrecht (just South of Rotterdam). The term MFA is commonly used in The Netherlands for a combination of occupants sharing one multi-functional building. In the MFA Zichtwei two schools are sharing the available class rooms, a sports hall is included and a youth center occupies offices and an event space. The sports hall is daily occupied by the school and can also be used by neighborhood associations during evenings as a separate entrance is designed.
With Dreamhouse, the new life that lies dormant in the old Modernism of the Lijnbaan has been extrapolated. A new Modernism, with a variegation of volumes and nuances of colour and light, seems to have been the right catalyst to reawaken the Lijnbaan’s élan.
The skilfully renovated building, housing jewellers Schaap en Citroen and fashion retailer COS on the corner of Karel Doormanstraat and Kruiskade, is the result of a well-balanced design that is based on both past intentions and present ambitions. Optimistic investment has brought about sparkle where decline had become apparent. Within a strategy of sustainable renewal, closed off facades and shop fronts have been reopened with architectural ingenuity.
Urban design In the Eastern Harbor Area, next to the KNSM and Java island lie Borneo and Sporenburg islands. West 8 (Adriaan Geuze) has created a very inspiring urban plan. The question for West 8 was how to create a water-city along the kilometers of 19th century harbor cays. West 8 did not solve this problem by attempting to subdue the scale with huge blocks, such as Jo Coenen has done on the KNSM island, nor by trying to reduce the scale by creating cross-canals, such as Sjoerd Soeters, but by repetition of a small scale.
‘House as a rock’ is a modern dream villa, developed as a private commissioning project in the dunes of the Westlandse Zoom in the South of Holland at the beach. The residents asked for much space, light and a minimalist, modern design. The urban building requirement was for a gable-roofed house and a gutter of maximally 6 metres high.
V’ House was constructed for a couple that collects vintage cars, and is stitched within the medieval tapestry of Maastricht. The city dictates all new structures remain within the envelope of pre-existing buildings, and so a cut was created in the house’s front façade to generate a triangulated surface, which leads from one neighbor’s sloped roof to the opposite neighbor’s vertical bearing wall. As the house’s site is long and narrow, voids were cut into the maximum permitted volume to ensure that natural light spills throughout the interior. The ground floor is both open to the exterior elements and sunken to the rear of the site, which makes possible the maximum two-story height allowance. A covered portion of this exterior space serves as an outdoor parking garage for the owners’ collection of Aston Martins.
The a.s.r. headquarters in Utrecht have been completely renovated by Team V Architecture. The colossal office building of 86,000 square meters now complies fully with current standards of sustainability, comfort and appearance. The new climate facade, spacious voids and green winter gardens provide a pleasant office environment with plenty of natural light. The renovation made the outdated seventies building much more energy efficient; the energy consumption has been reduced by over 50%. Remarkably, the building remained in continuous use during the renovation.
Contractor: Building combination Archimedes (Ballast Nedam and Kuijpers)
Subcontractors: Oskomera (facade), Verwol (interior and furniture)
Project management: AT Osborne
Landscape / garden design: Michael van Gessel
Graphic design of signage: Reynoud Homan
Area: Ca. 86.000 m2 gfa including 10.500 m² parking and 1.300 m2 newly build main entrance and underground meeting center. Roof gardens and winter gardens: 4.700 m2 Climate facade: 17.000 m2
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