de Bloemen
Egos must be subordinated to the whole
Three offices designed 249 houses in different types and price ranges for De Bloemen. Apart from the types and price ranges, the requirements for the components of the housing program differed as well. Rental apartments have very different standards than luxury houses. It was our task to unify the district.
Supervision
We also designed one third of the houses. The agencies Loof & Van Stigt Architects from Amsterdam and Groosman & Partners from Rotterdam were responsible for a similar proportion. These kind of projects involve individual creativity as well as a joint purpose. Creativity is essential, but sometimes egos must be subordinated to the whole. The starting point is that the three offices had uniform ideas about the structure of the district. Based on the urban plan, the three offices had a number of workshops. In it we discussed our ideas for the district. This ultimately yielded a list of common principles. We established those in a general urban plan for De Bloemen, which was universally endorsed. Then each office started to work on its own program. In creative processes everyone should be open-minded. We, as supervisor, checked whether a design would fit with our common starting points. It is a game between the soloist and a choir singer. Our responsibility was to ensure that there would be a good balance. The result is a unified area, which also has high spatial quality; a neighbourhood that represents the city where people want to live.
Three issues were critical to the living environment and the sight of De Bloemen: the organization of the public space, connecting the buildings into the existing environment and the quality of the new homes.
Public space
It is a district with a high building density and each household has at least one car while De Bloemen should be a green residential area; the less cars in the street, the better. Therefore we have created garages underneath the apartment buildings.
For the houses in the centre of the district we have chosen a different solution. The 34 semi-detached houses have a long driveway. At the end of it, the garage is situated behind the house. This results in openness in the streets instead of solid walls of buildings. Important is also the border between the green zones and the gardens of the houses. We have chosen hedges or brick walls as a barrier to provide a uniform appearance. Uniformity in the public gardens is important in itself. The parks and green areas are defining elements in the area.
Quality housing
The houses have a flexible layout. In the past children had a room with only a bed. Nowadays it is really a place that has to accommodate space for various forms of multimedia. Because of societal trends, a house has to be useful for other forms of society than just a family with children. Some homes were made to live in infinitely. If the residents are older, they can easily continue living in their home, possibly after a few simple constructive changes. The material is also an important factor in the quality of the dwellings. Not only the technical quality, making the houses architectural fit, but also the amenities. People should find it enjoyable to live in. The houses that were built just after the war are not popular anymore, even though technically they still meet the requirements. We want to design houses that people like to live in for fifty to a hundred years.
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