Miscellaneous housing alongside and in the direct vicinity of a stretched strip of green once was meant to be developed as the continuation of a nearby motorway. The area includes a lot of housing from the 1960's that still functions very well, but is not very pleasing to the eye. Therefore, the quarter didn't have a very alluring prestige. By means of high-grade contemporary new construction and the development of the green strip as a park, the neighborhood has been invested with new life.

The project is a cooperation between the Tilburg municipality, a local housing corporation and a private property developer. The been municipality directed the project. One of the main issues was to create an attractive diversity with different types and sizes of dwellings and a varied but harmonizing use of neutral and inconspicuous materials. The sort and locations of the housing was layed out in blueprint plans. For the layout of the park, landscape architect Karres en Brands was contracted. Based on style, five constructional architects were selected, who all designed several types of dwellings. Besides cepezed, an office with a similar signature managed by two former cepezed-employees also participated. With some preconditions, the architects were largely allowed a free hand.

In total, cepezed designed four types of dwellings. In two of these, steel fulfills an important aesthetic role. For the intersection of the Vlashoflaan and Sweelincklaan, cepezed designed 24 houses originally meant to be fitted with home offices.

However, because there was relatively little interest in these, with preservation of the design, the houses have been remodeled into large single-family houses. The construction is based on walls of calcarenite and floors of hollow core slabs. The front and back façades have a lightweight, clad and insulated wood construction. From the outside, the dwellings look quite closed: the series of residences appear as a dark, high and closed wall because of the anthracite-colored corrugated steel cladding. In front of every dwelling there is a lower glazed volume originally intended as the home office but now containing the kitchen on the ground floor and the bathroom on the second floor. The houses open up towards the garden at the back, and have a wood-clad façade there.

Three of the dwellings are linked and are being used for assisted living. In the curve between the Vlashoflaan and the Sweelicnklaan, every floor of the construction block contains an apartment. Here, the glazed volumes at the front contain the stairs and a lumber and storage room here.

Adjoining the backyard of the houses just described, there are another eighteen single-family dwellings at the Obrechtstraat that also have been designed by cepezed. Somewhat smaller, these are constructed according to the same methods as the other dwellings. Here, the steel sheeting at the front façade is silver-colored though, which gives the residences a more vivacious appearance. At the back, these dwellings have a wood-clad façade as well.

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Learn more about cepezed, winner of the 1^st International Architecture Competition for our Warsaw demonstration project.

Key information

Number of storeys	2
New-build home

Location of steel solutions

External wall
Interior wall
Cladding
Floors

Location of steel solutions

Long carbon steel
Metallic coated flat carbon steel
Organic coated flat carbon steel