Location : Den Haag, TheNederlands
Type : Refurbishment and Conversion
Studio : Building Engineering, TU Delft
Year : 2023
B67
Conversion of The Ministry of Foreign Affairs, House of Parliament
The concept rests on rethinking today’s concepts of sustainability and conversion of existing construction. The building, instead of demolition or new construction, offers a new approach to thinking about historical heritage. Instead of being passive in the urban context, the building becomes an active machine that uses the natural sustainability of the system in its use, offers the conversion of space, due to its monumentality, into a multifunctional city within the city.
With the introduction of the mixed use program, the building becomes a self-sufficient community that defines new postulates of living, thus becoming an example of how existing buildings in an urban context can become a base for the community of the future - enriched with greenery, but also with a new approach to space.
The concrete structure with six-sided columns and ceilings remain intact, the necessary thermal and acoustic insulation is added, as well as the floor and balcony layers. The top coat, the facade, is completely changed and with it the program. After analysis, there are 3 different main proposal for the facade according to needs and external conditions (noise/ light pollution, sun radiation).
The first solution is based on moving facade inside the building which results in the creating of circumferential galleries that are qualitative spaces for new users and also form a natural shadows from excessive sunlight, pots of prefabricated material from old elements are added to the facade to create intimacy and allow greenery into the space.
Another option are the pots at the level of the windows which makes looking outside we can almost feel as in the garden in the middle of the city. Third designing option is steel mesh routed between floors on which vegetation can foam upward creating a natural sun, light and noise protection.