The Rotterdam architecture firm Powerhouse Company has unveiled Valckensteyn, an eco-friendly home that will be Holland’s largest wooden residential building. The project was developed by order of the Woonstad Rotterdam corporation.
Valckensteyn is a 12-storey building 40 meters high. The main material of all floors, except for the first one, will be multilayer glued wood panels. No glue will be used to connect them. This will allow the house to be dismantled if necessary and reassembled elsewhere.
The construction is supposed to be erected in the Rotterdam district of Pedrecht, on a site where a residential complex was previously located. The foundations left over from a building demolished ten years ago will form the basis for Valckensteyn.
It was possible to adapt the old supporting structure for the installation of a twelve-storey building due to the relatively small mass of wood panels. This will reduce not only the cost of finance and time, but also the volume of greenhouse gas emissions accompanying the construction.
The stability of the new house will be ensured by the first floor and the central core made of concrete. The lobby of the building will be faced with travertine, a rock that used to be often used to decorate buildings in the area. According to the architects’ plan, the ground floor of Valckensteyn will house a large, cozy living room “the most beautiful bicycle parking place in Rotterdam”.
“Woonstad Rotterdam as part of the Valckensteyn project has set itself the goal of creating affordable, sustainable housing for middle-income families,” explains Robbert Greneweld, Senior Project Manager. “Woonstad’s commitment to timber construction has been translated into a design that combines sustainability, living comfort and unity with nature.”
Each of the 82 apartments in the house will receive floor-to-ceiling windows and a west-facing loggia. The landscape around the building, designed by LAP Landscape & Urban Design, offers a wide variety of vegetation. The residential complex’s car park, which will look like a living green carpet, will be lined with cement-free paving stones and equipped with a water filtration system.
Construction on the Valckensteyn home is expected to begin in January 2022.
