L-Michiel van Zeijl

Michiel van Zeijl The Thermae of Ockenburgh A new life for the Ockenburgh country house in The Hague www.NaLaArchitects.com

Amsterdam Academy of Architecture Graduation Projects 2014-2015 Landscape Architecture

Landscape Architecture

Michiel van Zeijl The Thermae of Ockenburgh A new life for the Ockenburgh country house in The Hague

Country houses and estates are the flowers of the landscape. And the birthplace of landscape architecture. They are places where people think about the landscape and architecture with great care and an almost philosophical reflection. A rich palette of spatial design tools have been developed by big designers like Marot, Zocher etc. Ockenburgh country house in The Hague illustrates, however, what has happened to many of these country houses in the Netherlands: when the last private owner disappeared, the park and the house fell into disrepair.

The ideal of Jacob Westerbaen Ockenburgh was established in 1652, at the spur of a series of beach ridges on which the city of The Hague is also built, by poet and physician (but especially epicurean) Jacob Westerbaen. The proximity of nature and the peaceful effect that has on humans was an important quality. Following the example of favourite thinkers then, such as Vrigilius, Westerbaen thought that poetry and the cultivation of the land had a stimulating effect on the health of body and mind.

In the meantime, The Hague has grown up to the doorstep of the country house. Between the city and the park, there is the ring road of The Hague, the International Ring Road. The dunes still lie on the south-west side. These facts make a wellness centre ideally suited as new function. Not in the classical way, a building in a beautiful landscape, but in the way that suits a country estate: an interweaving of culture and nature.

The Roman bathing ritual for the future The components of the Roman bathing ritual form the point of departure. This ritual entails a fixed sequence of different baths, which are alternated with physical exercise. People have already bathed in this way for many centuries. In Ockenburgh, I incorporate every separate component of the bathing ritual spread out across the country house. Each component in a personal ‘park atmosphere’. This atmosphere is essential to the design of the bath. The six separate baths are like follies, as it were, in the park. They are connected by a route which spa visitors walk on in one direction. Accordingly, they follow their wellness programme.

Two country houses is better than one Because Ockenburgh is loved by many people from the surrounding area, the park will maintain its public function. As a consequence, a field of tension is created between the guests of the wellness centre and visitors to the park. In the design I have, with spatial design tools that have been developed in the long history of country estate design, developed a solution for every place separately in order to remove this field of tension and sometimes to accentuate it.

I have designed a personal entrance for the wellness guests and the park visitors. The old entrance across the avenue for visitors, as a result of which the country house is given a central spot as catering establishment, and a new entrance for wellness guests, which borders on the International Ring Road. They are received in the existing building on the north side. The wellness route starts from this building.

A second country house with its very own organisation is thus added, as it were, to the existing public country house. These two worlds are carefully interwoven in the design. Moreover, the new baths, the differences in height in the park and the separation of the routes play an important role, so that Ockenburgh ultimately becomes, for both the wellness guests and the park visitors, a beautiful place once again, which otherwise would have been lost.

Graduation date 11 11 2014

Commission members Rob van Leeuwen Bram Breedveld Dingeman Deijs

Additional members for the examination Mirjam Koevoet Paul Achterberg

Michiel van Zeijl

Landscape Architecture

country house

Ockenburgh: a place of beauty...

...and a place of decline.

country estate

public park

From country house (1650), to country estate (1916), to public park (2015)

Schiphol

A44 A4

INTERNATIONALE RING

A12

Ockenburgh

Porch A13 Apodyterium

Sudatorium

Frigidarium

Latrine

Cold plunge

There are many country houses around The Hague

Tepidarium

Calveus

Caldarium

A4 A20

Rotterdam The Hague Airport

Ockenburgh is easily accessible via the ‘International Ring Road’

+ The Roman bathing ritual as basis...

Design

...but interwoven with a country house.

The baths are spread across the park along a new path, interwoven with public paths

Michiel van Zeijl

Two country houses with a formal vista

Programme - a component from the bathing ritual occurs in every park atmosphere

Warm water bath in the woods: the woodland path

Experience and staging

Routes never cross each other at ground level

Differences in height present are used at the spots where the network of paths cross each other

Warm water bath in the woods: the woodland path

Landscape architecture

Swiss bath with view of the surroundings

Vista from the rhododendron meadow

Michiel van Zeijl

View over the water, with view of the Swiss bath, the parterre bath and the reception building for the wellness guests

The parterre bath is in the large pond

Amsterdam Academy of Architecture

Architects, urbanists and landscape architects learn the profession at the Amsterdam Academy of Architecture through an intensive combination of work and study. They work in small, partly interdisciplinary groups and are supervised by a select group of practising fellow professionals.

There is a wide range of options within the programme so that students can put together their own trajectory and specialisation.

With the inclusion of the course in Urbanism in 1957 and Landscape Architecture in 1972, the Academy is the only architecture school in the Netherlands to bring together the three spatial design disciplines under one roof.

Some 350 guest tutors are involved in teaching every year. Each of them is a practising designer or a specific expert in his or her particular subject. The three heads of department also have design practices of their own in addition to their work for the Academy. This structure yields an enormous dynamism and energy and ensures that the courses remain closely linked to the current state of the discipline.

The courses consist of projects, exercises and lectures. First-year and second-year students also engage in morphological studies. Students work on their own or in small groups. The design

projects form the backbone of the syllabus.

On the basis of a specific design assignment, students develop knowledge, insight and skills.

The exercises are focused on training in those skills that are essential for recognising and solving design problems, such as analytical techniques, knowledge of the repertoire, the use of materials, text analysis, and writing. Many of the exercises are linked to the design projects.

The morphological studies concentrate on the making of spatial objects, with the emphasis on creative process and implementation. Students experiment with materials and media forms and gain experience in converting an idea into a creation.

During the periods between the terms there are workshops, study trips in the Netherlands and abroad, and other activities. This is also the preferred moment for international exchange projects. The Academy regularly invites foreign students for the workshops and recruits wellknown designers from the Netherlands and further afield as tutors.

Graduates from the Academy of Architecture are entitled to the following titles: Architect, Master of Science; Urbanist, Master of Science and Landscape Architect, Master of Science.