Graphical analysis: Chasse Park

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CO P I E D ON T E XT A GRAPHICAL ANALYSIS OF THE CHASSE PARK APARTMENTS BY XAVEER DE GEYTER, BREDA, 2001

SANNE DE VRIES & JOB WASSENBERG

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INTRODUCTION

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ACTORS

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REFLECTION

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BIBLIOGRAPHY

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CONTENT

CC URBAN CONTEXT

CC ENSEMBLE

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DWELLINGS

position in city

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seperating collective

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dwelling types

public buildings

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ground floor plan

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dwelling plan + facades 50

autonomy 18

parking garage

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informal network

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pedestrian area

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dwelling plan on city scale

lines of sight

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circulation 38

icon for chasse park

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facades 42

heights in city context 26

solar orientation

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INTRODUCTION The Chassé park apartments form an ensemble that is part of the Chassé park in Breda, a former militairy terrain of 13 acres accommodating mostly residential buildings but also several public functions. The initiative for the development of this area came from the municipality of Breda, and the Office for Metropolitan Architecture received the task to designed a masterplan. In 1996 Rem Koolhaas together with Xaveer de Geyter presented their vision for the area.

Following this, eight architects were carefully selected to give meaning to the masterplan, with the task to create comfortable living for the various target groups that abundantly meet the requirements of the 21st century.

As a result, eight residential buildings were developed, each with their own identity but nevertheless forming a uniting whole.

Our case study is the Chassé park apartments, an ensemble in the east of the Chassé park, existing of five towers connected through a ribbon of parking. The building is designed by Xaveer de Geyter, soon after he started his own firm - XDGA. The building was finished in 2001 and houses 140 luxury apartment dwellings.

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GEMEENTE BREDA

ONTWIKKELINGSCOMBINATIE CHASSE C.V.

PRINCIPAL CHASSE PARK

PRINCIPAL CHASSE APARTMENTS

Breda is a municipality in the province of Noord-Brabant, the Netherlands. The main city of this municipality is Breda.

Originally the municipality only captured 30 acres of the city.

From 1927 it started expanding in different directions. About 272.000 people nowadays live in the agglomeration of Breda.

The Chassé Park was developed by the Ontwikkelingscombinatie Chassé C.V.: a joint venture of Proper-Stok Estate BV and Wilma (now belonging to AM Wonen BV). The total investment volume for Chassé park is estimated at 365 million euros, 110 million public and 255 million private.The parties agreed that a percentage of the difference between initially estimated price and final market price would belong to the dwellings, enabling improvement of the public space quality.

ACTORS

XAVEER DE GEYTER

REM KOOLHAAS

PROPER-STOK ONTWIKKELAARS

ARCHITECT MASTERPLAN CHASSE PARK & CHASSE APARTMENTS

ARCHITECT MASTERPLAN CHASSE PARK

SALES CHASSE APARTMENTS

De Geyter is a Belgian architect, born in Doornik in 1957. He spent ten years at the Office of Metropolitan Architecture with Rem Koolhaas, where he worked on projects such as the Villa dall'ava in Paris, "urban design, melun sĂŠnart paris", the sea terminal in Zeebrugge, the zkm centre for art & media technology in Karlsruhe and two libraries for Jussieu University, Paris. in 1988 de Geyter started his own firm; XDGA. The chassĂŠ towers in Breda is one of the firm's first projects.

Rem Koolhaas, born in 1944, is a Dutch architect, architectural theorist, urbanist and professor at the Graduate School of Design at Harvard University.

Koolhaas studied at the Architectural Association School of Architecture in London and at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York. is the founding partner of OMA, currently based in Rotterdam. The first large project by OMA to be built was the Kunsthal in Rotterdam (1992). In 2000 Koolhaas won the Pritzker Prize and in 2008 Time put him in their top 100 of The World's Most Influential People.

Proper-Stok is part of Heijmans Vastgoed en Woningbouw, operating independently under its own name and identity.

Proper-Stok is a Dutch project developer with a focus on sustainable urban challenges.

Besides housing construction it is also involved in development of social and commercial facilities. Daily management is conducted by Peter van der Gugten, Rob van Kalmthout and Petra Rutten.

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C URBAN CONTEXT C

The ChassĂŠ park, situated on the inside of Breda's canals, is a unique location for housing. The area of 13 acres directly borders the historical city centre with the church as an iconic point on one side and the Wilhelminapark with the water tower on the other side. The combination of living in a green environment in direct connection with the atmospheric city centre offers great potential for the residential buildings on the site.

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position in city

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C URBAN CONTEXT C

On and around the site one sees a series of buildings that were before not connected to the city tissue. Some of them are a reminder of the area's rich history as a military terrain, such as the monastery and the barracks. In the Chassé park masterplan these are incorporated as objects in the plan. As much as possible of the buildings that already existed before the development of the Chassé park is being re-used, often with a new function. They also play a new role because of their new interaction with the new buildings and the public space.

The public functions that are incorporated in the masterplan play an important role for the area, since they stimulate intergration with Breda's city centre.

1. Holland Casino (former monastery/barracks) 2. Chassé theater 3. Breda municipality 4. Breda's museum (former barracks) 5. Popstage

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public buildings

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C URBAN CONTEXT C

Parking An important idea in the park is that the car should be optically averted. There are only a few aboveground parking spots, while underground there are plenty. Underneath each residential building residents are able to park their car in small-scale, safe and private parking facilities.

For visitors a big underground parking garage is provided, folliwing the shape of the public plaza on top. The boundary of this garage forms one of the preconditions for the park apartments. The map shows underground parking facilities.

The design takes the model of the university campus as point of departure combining urban living with openess. In order to achieve this, old and new buildings of different scale and typology are loosely placed next to and in front of each other on an underlayment of urban green. The different buildings are each autonomous and react together to the surrounding city and to each other by setting different directions, remove obstacles or by making compositions of the isolated objects. The buildings are positioned in such a way that there is a maximal perspective in the campus from the different points of access.

Important in the plan is the large variety in housing types in the different categories: patio houses, ground-bound houses, appartments, gallery houses.

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autonomy

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C URBAN CONTEXT C

An important element of the ChassĂŠ park is the green urban space with a dense planting of oak trees which give the site its coherence.

Its identity is primarily determined by two pedestrian zones; the park and the square.

The base layer of the park’s campus plan is made up of large grass fields that bind together the individual buildings. In the grass are groups and solo oak trees that provide a sense of continuity and character. The square is positioned as a continuation of the Oude Vest and the Molenstraat in the direction of the watertower, as part of the series of open spaces in the city center.

The parking takes place underneath the buildings. This turns the ChassĂŠ-terrein, for the most part, into a low traffic area with an open and informal atmosphere crossed by a network of paths for pedestrians and cyclists.

The only streets in the park lead to parking areas: there are no passing through streets to avoid cut-through traffic.

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informal network

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C URBAN CONTEXT C

Viewing lines play an important role in the park. They make the iconic buildings in the surroundings - both inside and outside the borders of the area - into recognizable orientation points. Walking through the park, one comes across many unexpected peaks at the church, water tower, Wilhelmina park, Breda's Museum and the Holland Casino. These views are an effective design tool used to strengthen the park's advantageous position.

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lines of sight

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C URBAN CONTEXT C

The idea of the campus model for the ChassĂŠ park arose from its context in the city - this way existing unconnected buildings are incorporated and the connection with the city centre is emphasized.

Furthermore it optimizes the living experience, combining a green environment with the comfort of the city on walking distance.

In order for OMA to achieve their idea, they made use of a set of clear straightforward princples: 1. One pedestrian area as informal network 2. Autonomy in buildings 3. Lines of sight For the ChassĂŠ park apartments, the same holds true on a smaller scale, De Geyter is given a prominent position in the park for his design, located next to the park and square. All prominent lines of sight run through the building site.

In response to this, de Geyter determined that the site is perfectly suitable for a new ICON, one that is a representation of the ChassĂŠ park. To make the building recognisible as an icon, he designed five towers all of 40 metres high, functioning as a powerful whole.

The perfect representation of the park is the park itself. For this reason, all the design principles of the park are COPIED to a smaller scale, becoming a mini-park within the park

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icon for chasse park

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C URBAN CONTEXT C

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heights in city context A striking feature of the towers compared to the rest of the park is its height. There are few buildings around as high as the park apartments (40m); the church (96m) and the water tower (42m). This makes the ChassĂŠ park apartments stand out as one powerful eyecatcher in its context. Its height links the building visually with the other city icons.

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C ENSEMBLE

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seperating collective

This section shows how the ensemble connects with its direct context. The three towers are connected through a ribbon folded around them, facilitating the parking area. This ribbon at the same time forms the boundary between the public and the half sunken collective pedestrian area. The ribbon is opened up towards both public and collective space, in order to make it a safe and pleasant place to be. Views are framed in an interesting way: from the outside the view on the towers is not blocked but at the same time it is possible to see inside the parking area (image 1). From inside the parking garage one can look both to the public space - although feeling less connected because of height difference (image 2) - and in the collective space, where one can acually see their neighbour through a more direct connection (image 3).

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C ENSEMBLE

The plan illustrates the configuration of the collective space and the organisation of the parking area. There is only one entrance to the inside of the ensemble. Just like in the ChassĂŠ park, cars are being avoided in the pedestrian area and they can only go directly to the parking area. It is a one-way garage, entering next to the first building and coming out under the last. The comparison can be made between the park bordered by streets and traffic and the minipark, where again a street forms the boundary with its surrounding context.

When entering the park by foot or bike, one comes onto a path meandering through dunes of green, touching upon all the buildings. The entrances of the buildings are all directed inward, accessible only from the collective pedestrian area.

Bikes can be stalled at the entrance of the building or in the storage underneath the building.

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ground floor plan

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C ENSEMBLE

Entrance of the collective space, Cars can only go one way and enter the parking garage here.

Big stones prevent the car from going further into the area.

Exit of parking garage. Also shows how the height differenct is being solved in a shortct with stairs on a talud.

Inside the parking garage. A wide one-way street with footpath on the side. Parking on both sides, with visibility from and to public and collective space.

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parking garage

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C ENSEMBLE

public area - park

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pedestrian area

The setup of the collective outside area is similar to that of the park: a base layer is made up of large grass fields that bind together the individual buildings. In the grass the trees provide a sense of continuity and character. A path meanders through the green connecting the building entrances. A transition zone between the path and the green is created in the park with use of a sidewalk, in the minipark this is imitated with a zone of grit. Benches in both the public and collective space add to the park model. collective area - minipark

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C ENSEMBLE All traffic - car, bike and pedestrian - pass through one entrance. The car has to directly turn right and enter the garage and then drive to its own private parking spot. From there the residential tower can be entered through a 'back door', arriving in the hallway giving entrance to the stairs and lift.

As a pedestrian or cyclist, one comes onto a path leasding to all tower entrances. from there the same hallway is accessed.

The double stairs and lift in the core of the tower lead to a surrounding communal hallway with entrancens to the dwellings wrapped around.the core.

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circulation

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C ENSEMBLE

4 fac

3 different cla

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facades To address to the intention of creating autonomy among the five towers, not only the buildings are set in different directions, also the facade contributes to this principle. As illustrated in the elevations, three cladding types are wrapped around four facades, creating different combinations and thus enabling more variety and a less clear sense of the logic of the arrangement.

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adding types

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C ENSEMBLE The combination of the arrangement of the towers on site and the variation created in the facades work together in creating autonomy among the towers: from most points of view two or three towers are hidden behind another one, leaving several facades in direct sight. As can be seen in the pictures, this leaves for enough combinations in the facade to make a different image from all viewpoints.

The autonomy among the towers is important as a representation for the autonomy of the ChassĂŠ park.

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facades

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C ENSEMBLE

In the solar study it becomes visible that even though autonomity is aspired through a seemingly random composition, the positioning of the towers is very well thought out. The towers are arranged in such a way that none of them stands 'in the middle', all gaining an excessive amount of sunlight during the day without blocking other towers. The upper three towers receive sunlight in the morning and late afternoon, the other two from either morning till afternoon or afternoon till evening.

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solar orientation

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C DWELLINGS C

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dwelling types

The five towers provide luxury apartments of different sizes. In total three different tower setups can be distinguished with a total of seven variations in dwelling type.

The most common is the tower with two dwellings per floor. The dwellings are three zones wide and have facade on three sides of the building, providing them with a wide view over the city.

One of the tower accommodates four dwellings per floor Each dwelling is slightly different but they all have a wide setup with facades on two sides of the building.

The last and most luxury tower has one apartment per floor wrapped around the core, providing the residents with a 360 degrees view.

Because of the subdivision of the dwellings among five towers, it is possible to create wide dwellings that all benefit from the hight of the building by providing them with a broad view.

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C DWELLINGS C

The dwellings all follow the same principle; when entering on your one hand the more functional spaces are organised and on the other hand there is one open living space including a patio. The patio has sliding doors all around so can be an open outside space or can be closed off and included in the living room.

The facades and the dwellings are tuned into each other very carefully: The most open cladding type is always orientated on the open living space., which are always orientated towards outside the ensemble. This way none of the other towers will block each other's view. The relatively closed cladding types correspond with the more closed rooms in the dwelling.

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dwelling plan + facades

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C DWELLINGS C

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city view on dwelling scale

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C DWELLINGS C

city church

Breda's Museum

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city view on dwelling scale water tower

Wilhelminapark

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REFLECTION The goal of this seminar was to find out about the Architect's intentions and design tool in a particular case study, in order to strengthen our own visions and to enrich our personal range of tools. We think that although it was quite a struggle for us to discover de Geyters intentions with the ChassĂŠ park apartments, the setup of the seminar has been succesful for its purpose. The autonomy which was a contextual starting point for our case study has given the architect a lot of freedom, freestanding in its context.

Furthermore it was difficult to find sufficient literature about the case. For these two reasons the concept was not quite clear from the beginning and this has resulted in a process with a lot of research in different directions.

The beginning of the process was characterized by documenting our case study. This existed of a site visit and a literature search. Soon after that the analysing started on different scales at the same time and developing a 3D model. This resulted in a broad range of subjects being analysed where the depth of the research was still lacking. One of the main reasons was that it was hard to get a grip on the intention of the architect; since we were missing a clear project description by the architect. We searched in different directions and got various clues out of this, but the overall concept was still unclear.

After a few weeks we realised this and tried to unite our analysis into one storyline.

The strong point of the seminar was the focus on presenting and selling a project.

Presenting almost every week has consumed a lot of time but has proven to be very useful. An interesting working method that we applied once during presentations was to sell your case study as if it were your own design. This is when we made the biggest leap towards our final product, because using this technique the weak points in our storyline became obvious. From here we worked towards one all-embracing story with this booklet as the result.

The collaboration as a team went rather smooth, since we already knew each other beforehand. For this reason we knew each others strenghts and weaknesses and divide tasks effectively. Also it enabled us to have a very critical attitude towards each other.

We worked together closely resulting in one coherent product, both with regards to content and to layout.

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BIBLIOGRAPHY Bokern, Anneke. "5 Türme." Bauwelt, April 11, 2003: 15-17.

Koster, Egbert. "Regelmaat en uitzondering; woontorens Chasséterrein Breda." Cement, September 6, 2002: 12-15, 120.

Trelcat, Sophie. " Chassé Park apartments, cinq tours de logements. Breda, Pays-Bas" Architecture d' Aujourd'hui, September-Oktober, 30-33.

"Office of Metropolitan Architecture", accessed Oktober 20, 2013. http://www.oma.eu/projects/2000/breda-chass%C3%A9-campus "West 8", accessed Oktober 20, 2013. http://www.west8.nl/projects/all/chass_terrein/ "XGDA", accessed September, 2013 http://www.xdga.be/index.php?section=projects&project=38

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ARCHITECTURAL STUDIES, 2013