Wenckebach, 137 apartments

The corners of the eight-storey volume are rounded. This shape is continued in the L-shaped low-rise building and marks the entrances on the Noordpolderkade and the Wenckebachplein. The double-height entrances offer a view of the garden in the surrounding building block. The rounded corners have windows with curved glass. These specific windows give the design an iconic appearance.

The building, which is intended for older tenants, has 137 apartments, all of which are accessible via the atriums. The atriums, which extend over the entire length of 82 metres, form pleasant access routes from the main entrance to the apartments.

The majority of the homes consist of 2-room apartments of 45 m2. On the corners are 3-room apartments. All homes have their own outdoor space in the form of loggias.

The homes are accessed via a wide central corridor with long, narrow voids.

The loggias are applied alternately in the facade, creating a chessboard pattern. The homes that are directly above each other are each other's mirror image. As a result, the living rooms are always directly on the facade and the bedrooms are on the loggia.

The design of the building is based on a few principles that have been applied with a high degree of repetition. This creates a calm and balanced facade image of an all-sided building, which at the same time connects to the direct neighbors in the building block.

1. The building is a simple composed mass of 4 and 8 layers.

2. The corners of the volume parts are rounded. Where the high part sinks through the low part, as it were, the entrances are marked. This volume detail (on the scale of the building) determines the abstract character.

3. The chessboard pattern of loggias. By alternating the loggias, the facade gets a regular pattern without a dominant vertical or horizontal division. This contributes to the abstraction

4. The voids in the building. The voids are the same width everywhere, but differ in length. They all have the same rounded corners. The void balustrades are finished in bright white in contrast to the warm red that colours the floors, walls, doors and ceilings.

The apartments have a one-sided orientation and all have their own loggia. An important target group for this project are older tenants. The layout of the apartment plan is tailored to the specific needs of this group. The apartments are ‘care-ready’, which means that they can be easily adapted for wheelchair users.

A mirrored version of the two-room apartment is located above the standard floor plan, so that the loggias form a chessboard pattern in the facade view. In order to be able to continue this pattern on the corners, there are two versions of the three-room corner apartments.