The design proposes a new spatial and programmatic composition that opens up radically on the levels of both neighbourhood and network city.

The potential of the square’s strategic position between the regional axes (A10, metro and train) and the major thoroughfare is capitalized on by spanning the square in between these different axes and introducing programs that are relevant on both regional and local levels. Relocating the metro station to the western side of the August Allebé square does away with the anonymous condition which it currently has along the Postjesweg and puts the square on the regional map literally and mentally.

In order to program and differentiate the larger space of the square, while at the same time safeguarding its openness, a new type is introduced: the so-called square-building. An amalgam of building and public space, the square building is capable of adding programmed mass as well as charged emptiness to the square as a whole.

In dialogue with the existing buildings and/or embedded within the infrastructural network, a sequence of square buildings will enrich the open space with a number of urban archetypes (the podium, the colonnade, the canopy, the plan oblique and the frame).

This post was submitted by Oana Rades and Thijs van Bijsterveldt.

Tags: new ideas