Terwijde
155 apartments, parking & landscape, Utrecht
Public sector
Clients: Bo-Ex, Utrecht & Habion, Utrecht
2022 – 2025
Although the south and west edges of the building site are favourably oriented to the sunlight, the view is not pleasant: a railway embankment with parking lots to the south and a supply street to the west. The complicated topography has been answered with a diagonal bisection of the plot. This creates two separate building blocks that are roughly the same size and allows the property of the two clients to be separated, which has advantages in maintenance, operation, and management.
The blocks have a similar layout. The homes face a triangular court, on which all lifts, stairs, galleries, and front doors are located. It is a semi-private space based on residential palazzi, such as are common in Italy.
The blocks have a comb structure on the south and west sides. This encloses gardens. The houses are primarily oriented towards the gardens. The planting creates distance between the houses and the railway embankment or the delivery doors of the supply street. The gardens on the supply street are on the first floor, allowing views over the supply street from all flats. On the east side, the blocks continue the building lines of the heavy tree lined lane Rijnkennemerlaan. The diagonal intersection is given the character of a yard by narrowing the passage at both ends.