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Architects: Ector Hoogstad Architecten
- Area: 2750 m²
- Year: 2008
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Photographs:Kees Hummel, Jeroen Musch
Text description provided by the architects. The arts building houses Pier K, the cultural organization responsible for promoting activities and art education right across Haarlemmermeer. The design challenge was to find a balance between the desire for a prominent building on the one hand, and on the other the need for a warm, welcoming and low-key edifice. In other words not a cultural temple but rather a club house for culture.
The complex programme extends over three floors. All the rooms, the grand café and all the service functions are situated on the ground floor. The teaching rooms for music, dance and for the visual arts are on the first and second floor. Staggered glazed elevations point-up the site of the entrance area and of the terrace. Daylight penetrates through the glazed entrance elevation, but also through the central well of clear space that runs all the way through the building.
In the interior warm natural materials have been combined with vividly coloured walls. The facades are made up of fully glazed aluminium curtain walls, with western red cedar timber panelling, and are largely clad in slate. The slate facades have been furnished, seemingly at random, with windows of varying dimensions.
From the inside these windows provide a range of interesting views of the surroundings and, conversely, function as shop-window for the activities in the building. During the evening hours, when the building will be intensively used, the building turns into a glowing coal in the new heart of Nieuw Vennep.
