‘t Laar Tilburg, The Netherlands (2006–2008)
Tilburg currently has to deal with an increasingly heavy volume of traffic on the western access route to the city. The municipality asked four market parties to produce a comprehensive vision for improving Tilburg’s accessibility, and at the same time to give a new impulse to its identity with new office and residential construction. A ‘fluent’ junction between two important traffic arteries divides ’t Laar into four quadrants, each with its own distinctive character and programme: offices, a park, industrial premises and residential housing. The public space gives identity, is recognizable and Tilburg-specific: a synthesis of the three most prominent landscape types in Tilburg’s surroundings: the Loonse and Drunense Dunes, with heathland, coniferous woodland, deciduous woodland and grasslands. The landscape is the connecting element, making ’t Laar recognizable as a unity from the motorway.The existing
park retains its natural character, while the landscape around the different office concentrations can be summed up as representative and somewhere between natural and cultural. The residential area and the care complex appear the most cultivated in terms of planting, furniture and lighting. Paths go through the landscape, which, like the seven villages from which Tilburg originally grew, come together to form so-called Franconian triangles: originally gathering places for livestock. In the design, these spots are assigned importance as special meeting places, with play facilities, seating elements, exotic trees or special plantings. The great rotunda in the middle of the plan area has a depression in the middle: a reflecting pool that changes colour in accordance with traffic volume and forms a strong, recognizable element in the landscape – a landmark for motorists either entering or leaving Tilburg.
Type: Urban Plan, Utilitarian Green, Infrastructure Client: AM/BAMVastgoed
Designteam: Bureau B+B stedebouw en landschapsarchitectuur in collaboration with Sauerbruch Hutton Architekten Program: 71,500 m2 housing, 31,000 m2 offices, 8,600 m2 of commercial functions, 2,030 parking spaces, parkland Surface: 178 acre Budget: -
from natural to artifical
triangulars shaped pathways and squares
dunes with grasses
forest
laneways and parking
heather
febuary
july
march
april
may
august
september
october
a variety of plants colour the different areas in a monthly changing pattern
planting calender I Crocus vernus Scilla siberica Vinca major Campanula portenschlagiana Allium sphaerocephalon Hydrangea macrophylla Echinacea purpurea Amelanchier lamarckii Cornus alba Sibirica Elymus arenarius Molinia arundianaces Stipa tenuissima Calamagrostis acutiflora Deschampsia cespitosa Festuca amethystina
II
III
IV
V
VI
VII
VIII
IX
X
XI
XII