Utrecht - Uithof

Utrecht Uithof

Gate, square, street, courtyard In order to build student accommodation at a density of 1,001 rooms per hectare, a high-rise building was inevitable. By creating a maximum diversity of housing types and atmospheres within the project, and paying great attention to the design and the treatment of materials, we were able to present the unmistakably large-scale character of the development as attractively as possible.

The accommodation was built on the initiative of the University of Utrecht. The Uithof was the obvious location, although the layout of the university quarter did not seem to provide many possibilities for housing or student rooms.

Our conceptual model was to preserve the fine, almost Arcadian, landscape as far as possible in its original state. A very dense building model was chosen, so that a large part of the roughly triangular-shaped site could remain open and be developed as a garden. We aimed to create an urban character which would allow the public spaces within the project to serve as the shared heart of the community.

The project was set up in two parts: with one high-rise section in the form of a monumental ‘gatehouse’ with the entrance square, and another section with stacked low-rise buildings, known as the ‘village’. This combination of high-rise and low-rise buildings was explicitly designed as a single compositional whole.

Principal Stichting BO-EX 1991/SSH Contractor Wilma Bouw B.V. Architect Hugo Boogaard Rudy Uytenhaak Design team Jérôme Adema Jaap Hikke Function 1002 rooms for student housing Square meters 36,000 m²

Building total € 19,000,000 Building commences 1995 Building finishes January 1999

situation

section cut

first floor

east facade

west facade