Our office was asked bij the Leiden University to see how the identity and spatial quality of the Leiden Bioscience Park (LBSP) could be improved to better reflect the ambitions of its companies and institutions. The current park lacks legibility and intimate spaces. The question was to strengthen the existing master plan through small strategic spatial interventions.
A series of proposals were presented in a series of interviews with leading researchers, entrepreneurs and policy makers active at the LBSP. The design proposals were subsequently fine-tuned based on a precise understanding of the inner working of the users of the bioscience park.
The final proposal were designed to facilitate public private partnerships and improve collaboration between companies, which is currently lacking. Realization of the project was planned to coincide with Leiden’s bid for the European City of Science.

TITLE: Leiden BioSciencePark
PROGRAM: Spatial Strategy LOCATION: Leiden, The Netherlands
YEAR: 2019
STATUS: Ongoing

In collaboration with: BiosciencePark Leiden, Vastgoed Bedrijf Universiteit Leiden,

In collaboration with : Van Hattum en Blankevoort

The Circular Concrete Pavilion is an experimental construction project that seeks to better understand and communicate strategies to make the concrete industry more sustainable. The project explores the tectonic implications of new recycling techniques, modularity, and co2 reducing binders. The project was conceived in collaboration with van Hattum Blankevoort one the Netherlands largest infrastructure contractors. The project is planned in the Green Village at the Delft University of Technology and is will then travel, thereby revealing the prospects of modular infrastructure.

TITLE: Circular Concrete Pavilion
PROGRAM: Research
LOCATION: Traveling structure / Green Village Delft
YEAR: 2019
STATUS: Ongoing

Formations is an ongoing design research into a type of sandstone, called mergel, that is found in the South of the Netherlands. For centuries is was used for masonry construction until it became a raw material for cement production. Today only one artisinal quarry remains open and is used predominantly for restaurantion works. Mergel is rarely, if ever, used in a more reflective contemporary manner. In collaboration with Fer Rouwet, the oldest active miner of mergel we’ve been seeking to reappraise mergel as a construction material in its own right,.

The proposal envisions a network of above ground pavilions that demarcates the underground territory of the geological formation where mergel is excavated: the Maastrichtiën . The design seeks to emphasise the spatial qualities of the underground mines and specific material qualities of mergel.

TITLE: Formations
PROGRAM: Research
LOCATION: Zuid-Limburg, The Netherlands
CLIENT: Stimuleringsfonds
STATS: Ongoing

In collaboration with: Stimuleringsfonds, Mergel Rouwet b.v.