Apartment Building Grootstal Nijmegen

Apartment Building Grootstal

Nijmegen

Apartment Building Grootstal

Nijmegen

The plan consists of 33 flats for first-time buyers with 5 to 7 floors.

The location is an open strip of land (the site of a demolished sports centre) flanked by allotments from the sixties on the one side and the nineties on the other side. A positive feature of this location is the fact that it is bordered by a line of existing trees, including an avenue of beech trees alongside the Mollenhutseweg. The block with apartments rises high above the line of trees and thus marks as well as ends the green zone, the so-called ‘Special Purpose Zone’ that runs through the Grootstal area.

Apartment Building Grootstal
Marie Curiestraat
Nijmegen
2007-2009

Program: 33 flats for first-time buyers
Client: AM Wonen
Designteam: Winfried van Zeeland in collaboration with Abt Delft (Tom Huizer)
Contractor: Van Grunsven Groep
Photography: Thea van den Heuvel

As far as architectural details are concerned, simple and austere forms with a twist are chosen. The simplicity of the apartment block is expressed by the austere style of the facade by means of aluminium frames, emphasizing the individual apartment.

Property boundaries between private and public areas are designed as either high or low beach hedges, in harmony with the current character of the site; a former sports site fringed by hedges.

The starting point for the flats is the parking space that is half-underground with a building above situated on columns. Hence parking is hidden from view in a simple way and at the same time an open view underneath the building has been generated.

In order to maintain a sense of unity in the total scheme, materials and use of colour of a similar nature were chosen; pale yellow bricks (size of a Waal brick), deep-set anthracite-coloured joints, deep-set anthracite-coloured sliding doors and window frames, protruding window frames in white. To a large extent the facade of the stair case is made out of glass.