NEXT 10/78

Type: Urban plan Location: Purmerend Client: Municipality Purmerend Team: Bart Reuser, Marijn Schenk, Michel Schreinemachers with Ronald Rietveld, Jurriaan Hillerström, Agathe Osika, Betty Aarts, Michel Mandersloot Collaborator / associate: Ronald Rietveld Floor area / size: 150.000 sqm Construction: Ingenieurs Bureau Amsterdam (IBA) en ABT adviesbureau voor Bouwtechniek Status: Preliminary Design

The starting point for this design was the commission to tie the new centre, the Kop van West, to the old historical centre of Purmerend.

To do so we developed a three-element coupling, embedding the new canal area into the existing context. The Nieuwe Haven, Theaterplein and Mart Stamplein are connected to each other by a boardwalk and two new bridges.

These six elements are coherent as far as character and materiality are concerned and together create the identity of Purmerend’s new waterfront. Similar principles and materials were used for the two bridges and this univocal effect further strengthens the unity of the canal area.

The pedestrian decks of both bridges reach a height of over 12 m, which provides a beautiful view over Purmerend and makes the connection between the old and the new visually perceptible.

Type: Urban plan Location: Overamstel, Amsterdam Client: Department of Spatial Planning, Municipality of Amsterdam Team: Bart Reuser, Marijn Schenk, Michel Schreinemachers with Jurriaan Hillerström, Ieda Alvarez Dogo, Bouke Veurman Floor area / size: 150.000m2

At the invitation of the Amsterdam urban planning department we developed a strategy for the development of the southern section of OverAmstel, the NUON grounds.

NEXT architects started from this contrast and also used it typologically. The result is a concept for a type of building block shaped like a ‘U’ that surrounds an area of earthbound houses with stacked housing blocks.

The open shape faces south: the sunny side and also the side on which the existing canal can enhance the quality of the environment. Folding the envelope of the stacked houses in at the passages accents the entries, differentiates the public spaces inside the block and also extends the programmatic capacity.

Routes and layout mark the transitions between the public and the private domain. The different levels created by the parking facilities bring the inner area into relief and divide it into different types of collective spaces, such as alleys, streets, gardens and squares.

Type: Urban plan Location: Amsterdam Client: De Principaal Team: Bart Reuser, Marijn Schenk, Michel Schreinemachers, John van de Waterwith Joost Lemmens, Maria Salinas

This project is a study of the building prospects of the Scholendriehoek area in the Amsterdam Bos en Lommer district. 

Essentially, the proposal contains a combination of low-rise two- or three-storey buildings accentuated by eight-storey high-rises. In this way a living environment is created that feels relaxed and village-like, but nevertheless has the density that befits its urban location.

The usual Bos en Lommer building height – five storeys – is expressly avoided, so that the area contrasts positively with its direct environment. Building lines and building heights within the plan vary subtly, creating a smaller size and scale.

On an urban planning level, however, the area is connected with its immediate surroundings in various ways. Sight lines from the adjacent streets are continued inside the area, for instance, and the plan has the flexibility to absorb existing buildings.

Type: urban planning Location: Scheepmakerskwartier Haarlem Client: Heijmans BV, Proper Stok Team: Bart Reuser, Marijn Schenk, Michel Schreinemachers with Joost Lemmens, Jeroen Bos, Federico Caputo and Rolf Pederson Collaborator / associate: Rudy Uytenhaak Architectenbureau

Property developers Heijmans and Proper Stok invited NEXT architects to compete for the development of a beautiful site adjacent to Haarlem’s city centre. The challenge was to build compactly without obstructing the view of important buildings in the vicinity, like the famous panopticon.

The design, called “Het Spaarnehof”, shows an enclosed residential area: a route of narrow passages over the entire length of the area that opens up in unexpected locations where small squares, courtyards and views of the water appear.

There are clearings on the whimsical waterfront that refer to its shipbuilding past. Where possible, the compact buildings have high features. This results in a strong connection between the houses and the public area and, at the same time, in apartments with a wonderful view.

Client: Platform Gras Groningen Team: Bart Reuser, Marijn Schenk, Michel Schreinemachers, John van de Water with Duzan Doepel, Jeroen Weijs en Gernout Erens (Innovaders) Collaborator / associate: Duzan Doepel / ADD en Innovaders, Amsterdam Competition: honorable mention Status: Competition, honourable mention

Strategy for an environmentally sustainable business park

The starting point for the development of the Milieu Boulevard (Environment Boulevard) was the natural cycle that makes it possible for any transformation to turn back to its initial situation: it is a characteristic industrial estate that never reaches a final situation but is always in the process of transforming.

The entire area can be seen as an ecosystem, with ever-changing cycles on each lot. Within a fixed length of time the lot will return to its initial situation. Each lot has a different time frame, from several days for storage, to a season for crops, to decades for buildings. We distinguished different cycles: the knowledge cycles, the resources cycles, the recycling cycles, the storage cycles and the surplus cycles.

The changing dynamics are used to set up the area. Its basis is the low dynamic functions within the body of the granted land (lots) and the water structure that goes with it.

An adjoining light ringway with buildings for the knowledge infrastructure lends access to all of the lots. The lots are the supporters within which faster changes take place. 

Inside, the body is continuously changing. Some things change fast (crops that alternate and bloom every season), others slowly (long-term waste storage).

Type: Masterplan reconstruction Location: Woensel West, Eindhoven Client: Stichting Trudo woningcorporatie en Dienst Stedelijke Ontwikkeling en Beheer Eindhoven Team: Bart Reuser, Marijn Schenk, Michel Schreinemachers, John van de Water with Erik Wiersema, Jeroen Bos Collaborator / associate: ADP Architecten Status: In progress

In Eindhoven’s Woensel West district, NEXT architects is working as an urban designer. This 1930s neighbourhood has many social and spatial problems and is about to undergo a major transformation.

As it is essential to preserve the quality of the current neighbourhoods during this transformation, an urban design for gradual district renovation was realized through an intensive process with resident workshops, complying with the wishes formulated for the living environment.

Determining a broad viewpoint that is open to different interpretations is central to the approach, and in addition we developed a “tool box” with very concrete interventions. The overall vision was provided with the name “Omdat smaken verschillen” (Because Tastes Differ) because we want to emphasize the wide variety both in the neighbourhood and of its residents. In it, the district is divided into neighbourhoods, lines and places with different identities.

The strength of the plan is that the various projects can be set up separately, which enables a decisive approach. Several parts of the project are currently being carried out, including a community school and a residential nucleus of approximately 100 houses.

Type: Research Location: Rotterdam Client: High Rise Team Rotterdam Team: Bart Reuser, Marijn Schenk, Michel Schreinemachers, John van de Water, Jan van Teeffelen, Iris Dudock, Arnold Reijndorp with Frank Hornis Collaborator / associate: Department of Housing and Town Planning (dS+V) Material: Publication, 60 pag. full-color, ISBN 90-72498-18-6 and CD-rom with interactive computer program

The Atlas of Cultural Ecology of Rotterdam was commissioned by the High-Rise Team and has been drawn up by Arnold Reijndorp, urban sociologist at Rotterdam and member of the High-Rise Team, bureau NEXT Architects from Amsterdam and the Department of Housing and Town Planning (dS+V), working in combination. The High-Rise Team was set up by the city of Rotterdam to further the spatial and programmatic quality of the planned high-rise and other large-scale developments in the city centre. The atlas, being a new instrument, plays an important role in this process.

After more than 50 years of rebuilding, the centre of Rotterdam starts to show the appetites of a real inner city. The cultural dynamics are driven from within, and are no longer the result of planning and project development. This atlas tries to capture the new ‘sense of place’ in Rotterdam, which is the result of spontaneous and informal developments. It shows a series of maps that reveal the city in different formal and informal layers. 

The project aims to inspire policy makers, urban designers and developers to become more sensitive to the fact that urban areas are ever-changing organisms; new developments should be finely tuned to suit to their surroundings.

Type: Urban plan Location: Kortrijk, Belgium Client: Municipality of Kortrijk Team: Bart Reuser, Marijn Schenk, Michel Schreinemachers, John van de Water Completion: September 2000 Status: Competition, honourable mention

In this urban design for an abandoned factory site, the existing factory wall is doubled and the required programme is positioned in the cavity in between. As a result, it is now feasible for a large part of the vacuum that the departure of the textile factory left in the building block to remain empty. The new wall is used as a framework that organizes the new programme. In addition to houses, this new programme consists of parking space and a number of specific outdoor spaces such as a sports garden and a rose garden.

The existing English garden is naturally incorporated within the new framework. The remnant of the factory complex that is central to the unprogrammed space left at the heart of the plan will be equipped as a community centre.

Type: Research Client: Bouwfonds Nederland Team: Bart Reuser, Marijn Schenk Status: Competition, 2nd prize, first prize Archiprix

First Prize Archiprix 2000

Accessibility is a basic condition of urban development. Accessibility as an article of faith has resulted in one-way thinking: the more connections, the merrier. More and more the Netherlands, dominated by fast means of transport, is turning into a thoroughfare. It is dragged along in the wake of acceleration and slowly, the question is arising of whether there is any place left to stand still. We raise spectres: will the Netherlands soon be exactly the same everywhere? The same shops, the same houses, the same people? 

As a result of the increased accessibility of the big cities in the Randstad, the relative distances between the centres themselves have dwindled over the years. Now that ever more connections completely invalidate the concept of distance, perhaps the question is if we should discard the geographical notion ‘randstad’ and reintroduce ‘time’ as a spatial element in the cartographic exercise. 

The 2030 Tempographic Map of all movements paints a tempting picture of ´Holland – Layer by Layer’. It illustrates the possibility to use both acceleration and deceleration to make progress. If we vary accessibility, we can equip a country of extremes: a land of metro-poles that contrast sharply with rural areas.