ROTTERDAM PROTOTYPE.

Team Haut's winning proposal for the recent Europan 5 competition is an inventive and ecologically aware reinvestigation of the courtyard block.

One of the perceived traditional disadvantages of urban housing is lack of contact with nature. Yet low-density suburban sprawl wastefully consumes large tracts of land, encouraging social dislocation, boredom and a dependency on the car. Exploring the relationship between urban housing and nature, Team Haut's competition proposal suggests a new prototype; an 'activated suburbia' that combines urban typologies and the advantages of city life with communal green spaces.

The site chosen for the competition is in the Kop van Zuid district, south of the city centre. Taking a conventional courtyard block as its model, Team Haut's variation envisages a narrow 5m wide dwelling zone wrapped around a landscaped garden. Housing about 80 apartments, each block is seven to nine storeys high. Subtle variations in scale and proportions create an elegant rhythm on the busy main street of Laan van Overmaas. Each block is sheathed in a clear glass skin which can be simply slid back, transforming apartments into spacious, airy terraces with views over the city boulevard and green courtyard heart. During winter, the courtyard can be enclosed by a clear polycarbonate roof, so that it becomes a winter garden. The concertina form of the roof is designed to reflect and transmit sunlight. Ventilators fitted just under the roof circulate heated air and recycled heat from the apartments around the winter garden.

Like stacked Farnsworth Houses, the transparency of the blocks softens their mass. Internally, the long thin plans can be subdivided, or left as a single volume of floating space. Once occupied, the demands of privacy and general inhabitation will add further layers of colour and texture to the ethereal elevations, enriching the blocks' abstract formal qualities and expressing the inhabitants' characteristics.

Historically, the notion of a large, almost industrial housing block with generous communal spaces constitutes an important aspect of Rotterdam's urban development. Team Haut's inventive reinterpretation builds on this tradition, suggesting a flexible modern prototype that encourages high density living informed by ecology and a sense of civitas.

Architect

Team Haut, Rotterdam, The Netherlands

Project team

Andre Kempe, Oliver Thill 

Services engineer

Battle McCarthy

Landscape architect

Luke Engleback

Model photographs

Bastiaan Ingenhousz

1. Interior of typical flat, with views out over both the city and the green internal courtyard. The long thin plan can be subdivided or left as a single volume.

2, 4. Models showing the four blocks in their urban context.

3. Collage of glass elevations, animated and enriched by layers of colour and texture provided by occupants.