In 2007 Deventer Hospital decided to transform the monastery of the former catholic St. Jozef Hospital into a new health care center. The architectonical interventions set up a dialogue with three major aspects of the building; the structure of the complex around the gardens, the sacral identity of the building and the catholic brick-hiding-the-underlying-concrete-architecture from […]
The center for mentally disabled people ‘ Willem van den Bergh’ is relocating more and more of its clients from their too secluded campus to homes in normal residential neighbourhouds. Reshuffling the campus, selling part of the terrein to a project developer, the center saw it unavoidable to relocate its daycare and leisure facilities. Bart […]
The Overamstel business district in Amsterdam is nearing the end of its monofunctional industrial lifecycle. The city demands more diversity, more space for small scale business, more housing and better access. Fatboys attempts to develop a prototype for a pioneering project. It integrates housing, commerce and a community sports center in one on a vulerable […]
The residential lowrise is One Architecture’s winning proposal in an invited competition for the marina buildings in the Ajman Freezone Marina development, in cooperation with Urbanberry. The project consists of two buildings with apartments and public amenities along the new marina. The concept of this project is to create a small scale, lively environment in […]
Super iconical design for the corporate headquarters of the Al Rostamani Group in Dubai. The company logo, a bird flying out, symbolises the company’s ambition to spread their wings and explore new business opportunities. The logo has been adopted in the floorplan of the tower, rotating towards the top to creates a wave like expression […]
Z1 is a concept house study for a 10x10x10 meter site in Groningen. Sunlight conditions for a house behind the plot and parking space underneath the house created radical preconditions. Building it would have meant choosing only one. That was too painful, so we never built any of the 35 plans. Karelse Aptroot architects, 2005
In 2005 Karelse Aptroot Architects designed a series of concept homes for IJburg (Amsterdam) together with bureau van Dillen to demonstrate the architectural possibilities for private clients to build their own house. The concept Rear Window was to demonstrate that the plots on IJburg could easily and elegantly accomodate a two-under-one-roof villa with a generous […]
In 2005 Karelse Aptroot Architects designed a series of concept homes for IJburg (Amsterdam) together with bureau van Dillen to demonstrate the architectural possibilities for private clients to build their own house. The concept Bonanza is a compressed estate around a blue courtyard, including a house, a shed and a greenhouse. Imagine a horse in […]
For the 8th edition of the international architecture competition Bart Aptroot, Joachim Karelse and Chantal van Dillen proposed their idea ‘Symbiosis’ for a site in the former docklands of Deventer. Key element of the proposal is an urban layout that creates maximum transparancy and a condition for flexible development. The architectural elaboration of one of […]
Around 1865 a project developer built a small house along a ditch in a polder just south of Amsterdam. To maximise the use of the plot the house was built as far to the ditch as possible. In the decades afterwards the ditch became a street, the terrain was raised almost a meter and new […]
All cities either have landmarks, or wish they had one. The city of of Ames, Iowa has one and it’s right in the center but it’s a power plant. The city of Ames raised a question in the form of an open competition how to transform their old but functioning power plant into a true symbol for their city.
The Ernst Sachsbad in Schweinfurt, Germany, a pool and sanatory, was built in the 1920s in a style resembling a monastery. The building, a protected heritage, will be transformed to an art house, a place to host a permanent collection as well as changing exhibitions, a use which seems to fit the building even better […]
The village ‘s Graveland was a popular residence for the wealthy from Amsterdam in the 17th century. A few centuries later the clean water in the area later atrracted many dry cleaning companies. Now the wealthy are again seeking attractive residencies in the quiet village. Many old buildings are being renovated and inhabited by young […]
The farm, converted in a dwelling, is located on an estate in the green, spacious surrounding of the upper noth of the Netherlands. A new studio extension was added to the group of buildings, which include a guesthouse, a barn and a kitchen that is connected to the main building through a glass hallway. To […]
Why can things that serve such ugly purposes still be beautiful? For the occasion of a competittion and a Christmas card Karelse Aptroot decided to deal with these unconfortable esthetics. Various military designs have been given a new positive meaning through a series of collages and models.
The new residential development on the former harbour islands Java and KNSM in Amsterdam required a new bridge to connect the area to the city center. The 200 meter long steel bridge is both traffic and strolling space with its gently inclined stairs on all 4 corners as its main feature. On the city center […]
A narrow ecological zone around a creek is situated as a green buffer in a new residential area in Tilburg. Venhoeven CS won an invited competition for the difficult task to situate a housing project inside the ecological zone. The urban plan and architectural design consists of 145 dwellings on stilts, positioned as herds of […]
A study into new concepts for the library in the information age resulted in a simultaneous architectural exploration into a building with no context. The library concept features a main hall as an interface for exploring electronic data, be it the web or digitized printed media, offering a large part of the inside of a […]