Chassé Park Apartments

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Chassé Park Apartments

Urban Design

Main objectives of the project

Date

  • 2002: Construction

Stakeholders

  • Architect: Xaveer De Geyter Architects

Location

Continent: Europe
City: Breda
Country/Region: Breda, Netherlands

Description

This apartment block is part of an urban plan by OMA, focused on preserving open space in a former military base for a new public park while achieving housing density similar to the city center. The project includes five residential towers on a parking ring surrounding a sunken inner garden. The towers are positioned closely together, with different orientations based on factors like views, sunlight, and the composition of the parking ring and inner garden. The towers vary in the number of apartments per floor, resulting in minor differences in ground plans. The façades feature white glazed brick, vertical windows alternating with concrete panels, and glass panels with a concrete structural mesh. Each apartment has a spacious winter garden that can be used as an external space or an extension of the living room. This apartment block forms part of an urban plan by OMA, which was focussed on preserving as much as possible of the open space of a former military base for conversion into a new public park, while creating a housing density similar to the one in the city centre. This was achieved by a campus model, in which very different building types are juxtaposed inside the park. Given the diversity of scale, typology and materials involved, the coherence of the plan is provided by the park. The project consists of five residential towers on top of a parking ring, which surrounds a sunken inner garden onto which the entrances to each tower open. The light, transparent parking ring rises 1.5 m above ground level. The towers are positioned tightly together, each with its own orientation, their position relative to one another determined by factors such as outward and inward views, exposure to sunlight, the layouts of the parking ring and the inner garden, and the transparency of the composition. Three of the five towers have two apartments per floor, the fourth has one and the fifth has four. The varying relative position of the towers creates minor differences in ground plans.

The façades overlooking the inner garden are of white glazed brick to reflect sunlight, and have small horizontal windows. Other façades feature vertical windows alternating with anthracite prefabricated concrete panels with a slate inlay. The third type of façade consists entirely of glass panels, some with a concrete structural mesh behind the glass. The parking garage roof is of translucent polyester. Each apartment has a large winter garden, with sliding glass walls opening both outwards and inwards, which may be used as an external space, as an extension of the living room or as a separate room.

Authors: