Het zwarte huis / the black house,

109, Lange Nieuwstraat, Binnenstad, Utrecht, Netherlands

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Het zwarte huis / the black house,

109, Lange Nieuwstraat, Binnenstad, Utrecht, Netherlands

Firm

Bakers Architecten

Type

Commercial › Office

YEAR

2010

SIZE

100,000 sqft - 300,000 sqft

In Utrecht’s museum quarter, just south of the city centre, there was for many yearsa vacant plot on the corner of Lange Nieuwstraat and Vrouwjuttenstraat. This site inthe midst of historical buildings is now occupied by ‘Het Zwarte Huis’ (The BlackHouse), a complex containing six apartments with semi-underground parking and thenew premises of Bakers Architecten.The streetscape is characterized by heterogeneous, lot-by-lot development withdistinctive corner buildings. Het Zwarte Huis is a contemporary addition to theexisting urban fabric, in which the notion of ‘living above work’ has been accentuatedby placing the dwellings in a solid volume on top of a glazed podium.Lange Nieuwstraat begins at Domplein and runs via a gentle curve to the CentraalMuseum. The site lies at the mid-point of the curve from where there is an overviewof the entire street. This unique vantage point is fully exploited with a large baywindow. [bay window]An internal courtyard has been created by placing the black volume parallel to theLange Nieuwstraat. This volume also contains the various means of access for thecomplex as a whole. The semi-underground car park is reached via a car parking lift,while a communal staircase leads to the walkways along which the apartments aresituated. The wide walkways also serve as outdoor space for the dwellings.Het Zwarte Huis was constructed using 55-centimetre-long ‘Kolumba’ bricks. Theapartments facing Vrouwjuttenstraat have a white rendered facade. The party wallson this side form a cantilever on Vrouwenjuttenstraat, thereby relieving the podiumfacade of any structural function and allowing it to be entirely of glass.