On Friday, July 7, the architectural firms Studio Nauta & Mulder Zonderland won the design competition 'Biobased and nature-inclusive construction on the Nieuwe Veemarkt in Zwolle'. The jury mentioned it in its jury report as 'ean integral and balanced plan that gives well-considered attention to each of the many challenges the Livestock Market faces. Alderman Gerdien Rots of the municipality of Zwolle indicated his intention to realize the plan.
The New Building Culture is about more than just building houses 'or things made of wood or stone', said Government Advisor for the Physical Environment Jannemarie de Jonge prior to the announcement of the prize winners. 'It's also about building landscapes, societies.' And that is exactly what the De Nieuwe Veenmarkt design does. The idea is based on three pillars, says Jan Nauta: “The first is an integrated environment between nature and city to bring people, plants and animals together. The second is accessibility: we want to create a healthy city that is (and remains) accessible to everyone. This has to do, among other things, with continued affordability. The third is to eliminate as much CO as possible2 by fully focusing on renewable building materials and a positive energy balance.”
The team has created a design that fundamentally helps achieve the Paris goals, Nauta says. “We not only look at material use, but also at energy use and the production process, for example: how do you make it? How do you ensure a quiet construction site? And how do you get materials to the location in a good way, both locally and from further afield?”
Man as part of ecological structure
The plan is a natural connection with the urban structure of the adjacent Kamperpoort district. “That district has a typology of streets and squares through which you can wander. You can see that in our plan,” says Jan Maarten Mulder. “The difference is that our plan is much greener. 39 percent is undeveloped. There is open ground where trees and plants can grow, where birds and animals can nest and where children can play and dig. And there are meandering, car-free routes.” In an explanation, Chief Government Architect Francesco Veenstra praised “this ecological structure as a full contribution to neighborhood development of which people are a part.”
Setting up an integrated team
Immediately after Mulder Zonderland and Studio Nauta had the idea to participate in the competition, they thought about setting up an integral team, “to provide the best answer to all aspects and to create a plan that is as realistic and ambitious as possible. ", says Mulder. It is also one of the aspects that the competition should contribute to, Francesco Veenstra indicated during the meeting in the Zwolle Spoorzone. “There used to be a strong focus on designing parties, but nowadays there is much more collaboration with constructors, installers, ecologists and residents.”
An ecologist, a builder, a developer and an engineer were part of the team from the start. “The latter so that we can develop the most robust support structure possible with as little material as possible,” Mulder explains. “The entire biobased chain is still in its infancy, which means it does not yet have the economies of scale of fossil building materials, such as concrete and sand-lime brick. In order to make it financially feasible, we must really do our very best to put it together as efficiently as possible from A to Z, including in operation.”
Challenges
The search for an optimal balance between feasibility and quality was one of the most challenging aspects of the design process, says Nauta, “as was making connections between different challenges. We cannot just build biobased. There are so many challenges at the moment: in the areas of raw materials, nature inclusivity, circularity and energy, but also when you look at social themes such as inclusivity and equality of opportunity. We should not be afraid to stack ambitions and find complementary relationships between these topics.”
An example of this is the introduction of Community Land Trust (CLT) in the plan: a community-oriented organizational structure with the aim of promoting affordable housing and community development. “Making homes affordable is one thing, but by keeping some of those homes out of the realm of speculation, we can also permanently guarantee that affordability,” says Nauta. The CLT also ensures a clear link between residents and the raw materials transition. “Building with renewable biobased materials results in new maintenance cycles. For example, a wooden shingle facade must be replaced every thirty years. Through the CLT we can create a link between the residents and a forest where those wooden shingles can come from. We want to create another link with agriculture, which also faces an enormous transition challenge, for example for the production of natural insulation materials such as flax and hemp.”
Innovations and special finds
According to Mulder and Nauta, the integrated approach of proven solutions, including the wood-loam floor and the flatpack system, are the most innovative parts of the design. Mulder: “With prefabrication we can greatly minimize the negative impact of the construction phase. We have opted for a flatpack system, in which we prefabricate facades and walls in the factory with frames, glass, insulation, water pipes and electricity. We assemble these 'plates' on the construction site. The format is chosen so that we can transport many elements at the same time, assembly is quick and we retain maximum design freedom. We also use structural walls made of glued wood with a span of solid wooden beams into which clay is pounded. This provides mass, and thus the storage of heat or cooling, good acoustics and good fire safety. It looks very nice. And if it is demolished, it can simply go back into the ground, because both the solid wood and the loam are unprocessed.”
Stumbling blocks
According to Jan Nauta, there are no stumbling blocks to actually realizing the plan.
“Precisely because we have been very critical of feasibility from the start, for example by drawing up a business case. And in further development it helps that everyone involved has contributed to the roots of the project. It also helps that the municipality has always been part of the process.” If it were up to the team, De Nieuwe Veenmarkt would be the benchmark for the entire further development of the IJsselhallen site. Nauta: “We want to demonstrate that it is possible: biobased, nature-inclusive, other types of ownership structures, lasting affordability by setting up a cooperative. The sooner we can provide that hard evidence, the better for broader development. We show that the step towards a new building culture is more than just a step towards different materials and production processes.”
Make connections
The plan is therefore also an example of and a contribution to the task facing the Netherlands, says Nauta. “In recent years, the focus in the Netherlands has been on a quantitative approach to the housing crisis. And not so much in terms of content or quality. The enormous economic opportunity that exists to focus on innovation now, at a time of high demand, is often ignored and thus make the polluting construction chain future-proof. Think of Denmark, which started working with wind energy during the energy crisis of the 70s and is now the largest wind turbine manufacturer in the world.”
Nauta and Mulder think that their plan is an important addition to the impetus that Minister De Jonge has given to the construction sector. “The message above all is: you cannot just do one thing, such as just creating affordable housing, as we would then postpone too many problems. In addition to the raw materials transition, inclusivity, equality of opportunity, the energy transition and the circular economy must be central to the New Building Culture, with architectural quality forming the backbone for the much-needed long horizon. That's what we're trying to illustrate here. And I want to make it happen soon.”
Competition Zwolle
The Design Competition for bio-based and nature-inclusive construction on the Nieuwe Veemarkt in Zwolle is the second competition within the A new building culture programme, with which the Board of Government Advisors wants to stimulate bio-based and nature-inclusive construction. The aim of this initiative is to ensure that innovation and acceleration coincide with the sustainability and beautification of housing construction, whereby construction is in balance with its natural environment.
Our Team
The design was created by Studio Nauta & Mulder Zonderland in collaboration with Schipper Bosch, Solid Timber, Studio Joost Emmerik, Treetek, DWA, BC Materials and And The People.
Source: collegevanrijksadviseurs.nl
