Les Ateliers
Brandevoort Studio Third Year, Spring 2007
Project Brief Brandevoort, once a dismal farmland, is now a city of 17,000 inhabitants located in the south-west of Helmond, Netherlands. When Helmond first acquired the area in 1995, a ministry committee saw its potential for urban and economic development and decided to build a new city. After many design entries that sought to transform the area into a modern city, the project was ultimately awarded to “new town traditionalists” Rob Krier and Christoph Kohl in 1996 for their vision that emulated a typical Dutch city in the Brabant style. Krier and Kohl designed the master plan of Brandevoort from scratch, but the ministry invited local architects to create the edifices of the buildings to generate growth and jobs. The architects’ designs strayed from the traditional language and the results were so poor that potential buyers of the homes lost interest. And so, in the Spring of 2007, as Brandevoort was under construction, Professor Ettore Mazzola, along with his studio class, was invited by Krier and Kohl to design two lots of the new city to more accurately align with the rules of the design tradition.
The studio project aimed to create a consistent architectural scheme with the traditional aesthetics and functionality that is typical of the region. Prof. Mazzola and his students spent three days researching and documenting on-site in Brabant, Helmond, Eindhoven, Thorn, Hilvarenbeek, Heusden, and—of course—Brandevoort. As they continued to examine the flaws of the original proposal, the team wished to generate designs of classical harmony. Communication between the studio and the community was essential throughout the project; Prof. Mazzola believes that a successful city should be built by its citizens, not the architects. Buildings of residences and shops, therefore, were all designed with consideration of human needs. In just four weeks, the project— including forty-one townhouses of Lot 18 and forty-three of Lot 22—achieved great success after a final review with Krier, Kohl, and two invited local designers: Erik Aarts and Frank Altpeter. The development committee later granted construction approval to these student designs, which Krier and Kohl adopted and further developed into their full remodeling project. At this point in time, the construction phase of Lot 18 has been completed. Text by Leighton Douglass, Joan Ngai, and Xiaoyu Rayne Zhu
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