NEXT 5/66

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 First design: 2005-10-09

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.

First design: 2004-10-24

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 First design: 2003-10-01 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: Urban plan Location: Kortrijk, Belgium Client: Municipality of Kortrijk Team: Bart Reuser, Marijn Schenk, Michel Schreinemachers, John van de Water First design: 2000-09-10 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 First design: 1999-03-15 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.