PROGRAM
The newly built residential building south of the Microlab building contains a ground floor with public retail and gym functions facing the street in between the buildings. On top of this, there are three floors of apartments. At four points the longitudinal building is broken up. The diagonal parts taken out form shared gardens on multiple levels. This design choice breaks up the long circulation space and allows for more sunlight to reach the inside of the building and the street north of the residential building. Lastly, it creates a pleasant outdoor space for residents of the building with greenery and terraces. Opting for a low rise apartment building reflects the designers’ choice to facilitate a smooth transition from the densifying Strijp-S to the traditional Philips Dorp, while contributing to creating a human scale resilient landmark.
FLEXIBLE
APARTMENTS
The modular approach to the building creates a puzzle of 50, 75, 100, and 150m2 apartments placed in a five by five-meter grid around the main circulation axis. Because of this, the amount and size of apartments are flexible and can be changed freely in the structure.
This modularity is also evident when zooming in on the layout of the apartments. All the apartments have a spine with all installations and storage space, while the apartment spaces around this core remain flexible. A 100m2 space can, for example, be both a selling apartment designed by the residents, as well as two 50m2 rental apartments.
The added timber cladding framing the structural grid forms a connection between the façades of both buildings. Modular elements are used to shape a human scale living environment, which merges with the context and smoothly connects to the public space through internal gardens and structures for exhibitions.
The apartments are designed as adaptable and divisible spaces around a spine, with a height of no less than 3.6 meters. Wood is chosen for the interior finishes of the floor and ceiling to create a warm quality and connection to the timber construction. Thanks to the large window that each apartment has, there is always enough daylight and a lively view.
FACADE
HOW
IT'S
MADE
HOW
IT
OPERATES
PANEL VARIANTS
The façade of the whole building is created by modular façade elements, to enhance the adaptability and represent the modularity. Using day- and sunlight simulations the optimal amount of glazing is determined for each orientation. This ranges from full glazing on the north façade to smaller glazing with shading on the south façade. The sDA values represent the amount of natural daylight and the ASE represents the percentage of overlit areas.
BLOCKS
The residential building is built with seven basic blocks: three facade panels, three floor slabs and one column type. With these elements the entire structure and shell of the building can be constructed. This process allows for prefabrication of all elements with high quality control and little waste materials due to the off-site manufacturing. Less transport of materials is required and on-site less materials are present. The building blocks can be assembled relatively fast when they arrive on-site by a small team of carpenters. This results in a more organized and efficient workflow reducing labor costs and construction time.
STRUCTURAL SYSTEMS
The timber frame of the residential building consists of glulam columns and Holz100 floor slabs. No beams are required for this construction type, which is developed by connection manufacturer Rothoblaas in collaboration with Innsbruck University. These elements are the main load-bearing members transferring forces to the foundations. The foundations themselves are made of concrete in order to create a long-term, durable base for the building, as it is more resilient to moisture. The building is separated by internal gardens and therefore it is required that each block of the building can guarantee its own stability. The main system realizing this is created by perpendicular shear walls. In the larger, outer blocks a core contributes to this as well. This core not only provides stability, it also includes vertical circulation and fire escapes.
Zooming In
The load bearing system is designed according to the Rothoblaas Spider and Pillar connectors. These connectors allow for spans of up to 7m without the use of beams. This is possible due to the special connectors, which hold the floor slabs in place that are resting on the columns. Due to the large spans and transport restrictions, the floor slabs cannot span the entire 5m of the 5x5m grid. Therefore, the slabs need to be connected somewhere mid-span. This must be a rigid connection such that the floor slab retains its diaphragm action. This is realized by perforated steel plates connected with epoxy. The floor slabs are deliberately not connected at mid-span exactly, this is done such that the forces on the epoxy connection are not maximum. The benefits of this system are that less materials are required and it allows tremendous freedom in the design of the interior, both in height and grid spacing.