Rietwaard, Amstelveen
In collaboration with Eentien Architecten, MAAK Space, and ABT, Orange Architects has designed a new Children’s Centre in Amstelveen. Once a small village in the Bovenkerkpolder, Amstelveen has grown into a “city in the green.” The city is rich in parks, interwoven with greenery, and is the greenest municipality in the Netherlands. The aim is to preserve and enhance this character. On a previously undeveloped site, the design gives something back to the location – creating a space for future learning.
With the new Children’s Centre, a well-rounded environment for learning and discovery is being created, based on the “Whole School Approach” a sustainable vision for the schools of the future. This vision centres on providing a setting for growing children that is fully dedicated to learning and play. It allows children to grow up in a natural environment, while also offering ample opportunities for play and learning throughout the day, both indoors and outdoors. The strength of this vision lies in its natural and seamless alignment with the existing philosophies of the Willem Alexander School and Kinderrijk.
Amstelveen originated in the Amstelland region, more specifically in the peat-cutting area of Nieuwer-Amstel, located to the east of the River Amstel. The resulting polder landscape developed a clearly distinct identity from that of Ouder-Amstel, which lies on the opposite bank. This characteristic landscape defined by grasslands, reeds, and water formed the foundation for the development of the city of Amstelveen. Today, this local polder landscape serves as both a conceptual and identity-defining element in the integrated design of the learning environment, the buildings, and the surrounding landscape.
The school building becomes an elevated landscape in two layers, extending almost the full length of the southern side of the site. This creates a large, sheltered area that is protected from noise, wind, and sun, providing a calm outdoor space for the school. By elevating the gymnasium, the design introduces a clearly recognisable feature, removes parking spaces from the open landscape, and establishes a clear, linear layout that reflects the identity and history of the site. Limiting the learning spaces to just two levels ensures that the surrounding nature and play areas remain close at hand.
Humans and animals as part of the system. The landscape design attracts a wide variety of fauna.
Children, with or without their parents, arrive from the surrounding garden city on foot, by bike, by bus, or dropped off by their parents. Ideally, they primarily use the network of cycling paths that winds through the neighborhood and greenery, eventually flowing onto the green schoolyard, entering safely from the sheltered side, separated from the traffic on the Groenelaan. The main and southern entrances, known as the passage, are double-height and spacious. Students enter their familiar environment through the central learning square of their cluster. Coats and bags are stored in lockers along the central street, near their home group space. The children chat with each other, gaze at the surrounding landscape, and the teacher greets them with a good morning… the school day has begun.
To naturally shape this typical school day, an integrated approach to architecture, landscape, and technology forms the foundation. The architecture of the building is clearly structured, organized, and designed to fit within the surrounding landscape. The building is constructed almost entirely from natural, local materials such as wood, bio-based insulation, and reed. As a result, the school does not feel like a building, but like a layered natural (learning) landscape. The overhangs applied all around wider on the south side than on the north are finished with greenery using reed or a local bio-based product as façade material, enhancing the experience of the concept of the layered local slagenlandschap.
The interior of the school is rational, modern, and light, characterised by its timber structure and finishes.
A textbook example of Sustainable Building! The concept of the local slagenlandschap is integrally applied to the learning environment, urban development, architecture, landscape, and technology. It is therefore a holistic and sustainable approach to the task. In the design of the school, we are taking steps toward CO₂-neutral construction in order to deliver a Paris Proof building. This goes beyond simply reducing CO₂ during the use phase by making the school energy-neutral. The construction process and material use also cause CO₂ emissions. The design focuses on the Whole Life Carbon approach.
Project Details
- Client
- Gemeente Amstelveen
- Size
- 2,600 m²
- Program
- Children’s Centre (primary school, nursery, sports hall)
- Team
- Allard Meijer, Florentine van der Vaart, Irina Vaganova, Julija Osipenko, Midas van Boekel, Patrick Meijers, Tess Landsman, Victoria Tomas
- Collaboration
- Eentien Architecten
- Visuals
- Orange Architects