Den Haag, Netherlands

EUROPAN 10 - DEN HAAG

URBAN DUNES

INNER PUBLIC SPACE

One of the most important point of the concept for the redevelopment of the Nieuw Waldeck area is the idea that to enhance the qualities of the site and also change the actual attitude of that area from be a place for middle age and old people to be a place attractive also for young family, we have to bring new program which can fit in that area and provide new important services . Retail functions, a café and a fitness center are combined with the existing green areas and the well restored houses units. The design includes an urban landscape with two focal elements: the fluid shapes of the volumes dedicated to fitness and shops. Combinated at the new colored facades and the squared black overhanging volumes, these components form a design approach that is sensitive to the area’s qualities and generates architectural synergy effects. This approach furthermore offers a simple yet striking programmatic organization that aims to create a new spot area in this surroundings of Den Haag. Retail functions are central to the design: shopping today is an important part of urban life and a social and leisure activity. Shops are indispensable to create a zone that is attractive to new inhabitants. The area’s position, thanks the nearness with city and sea, offers the perfect location for an exciting urban mix with functions ranging from exhibitions to performances in the new internal green zone, concerts and offering to inhabitants to experience the life of this beautiful neighborhood. The designing of the shopping volume will perform as a public platform, offering open green spaces that in their layouts are flexible enough to house a variety of functions. The architectural presence and transparency are designed to emphasize and encourage people to enter the building, go up on the roof garden, and spend time in and on the building. In some ways, the two volumes are nothing more than a three-dimensional, roofed-over, vertical and transparent movement of the land, like the not so far dunes on the North Sea. The urban dunes take life from the ground and give movement to the area’s landscape. The new shapes of the dwellings are like ships, due the using of naval materials like metal and wood, that lie in the urban sea, near the artificial dunes. Daylight is brought into the houses taking off the non structural part of the façades, increasing the actual dimensions of the windows and replacing it with a new glass construction, and in the two new volumes from side curtain walls. The terraces are closed by glazed façades, making new covered zones where the inhabitants can enjoying the sun also in the winter period. In the summer sliding windows allow to open the terraces to the scents and colours of the Dutch seasons. Together with other dynamic, programmatic, infrastructural and social events, this will lead to a sustainable development and create an atmosphere that is compatible with a new green life of the zone.

STREET VIEW, MAIN ACCESS AND SHOPS

MASTER PLAN

FITNESS AND SHOPS

CIRCULATION SCHEME

TECHNICAL DETAILS

Europaconcorsi Beta

EUROPAN 10 - DEN HAAG