Location: Rijswijk
Year: 2020
Area: ≃10.000 m2
Status: concept
Client: private
Team: Remko Remijnse, Emanuele Saracino, Kristina Barbalat, Agnese Argenti

The plot of the project is located between Maurik and Rijwijk, in a beautiful location, along the Nederrijn river. On the site there is still a huge industrial complex, belonged to the Steenfabriek Roodvoet, a 126 years old brick factory, shut down in 2009, considered a monument for its historical and architectonic value. The site is part of a big restore plan for the whole riverside between Maurik and Rijswijk municipalities, which involves a series of interventions to attract tourism in this area, including a recreational park on Roodvoet site, a watchtower in the north-west corner and a trekking path to reach it.
The site is so big and vast that already has different environments: the central and biggest area is a flat concrete platform hosting two big warehouses, around there are a forest area to east, a series of ponds, created by the extraction of clay from the river banks, to north and flat grass fields to west. This variety was a good input for the development of the design, using the current environment and empowering them.
The design revolves around the re-use of the two existing warehouses: the simpler one used as parking shelter and the main one transformed into a greenhouse-like building, keeping the steel structure and using it for all the service function as reception, restaurant, shop and swimming pool.
The landscape is treated in different ways based on the area: the central concrete platform marks the borders of the “industrial landscape”, is still used as base for the industrial buildings but is progressively more broken and scattered towards the forest area and the grass fields around the ponds. This area hosts the more industrial-like cabins, who use bricks, rough wood and dark steel as materials. The forest area is more calm, with the concrete pavement slowly transitioning to natural paths, and hosts the tree-houses, small wooden towers with fewer windows well mixing with the more dense part of the forest. The pond area has lodges facing the water, with terraces floating above the pond, or in the shape of towers overlooking the ponds. The grass field area becomes a big orchard, with paths between lines of fruit trees, while the lodges have a farm house appearance, with the use of different woods and pergolas.