Het Buro/De Bovenkamer, designed by Krill (Office for Resilient Cities and Architecture) and Chrstian Müller Architects, is a project specially developed and designed for young people. In the Bovenkamer 24 studio’s are realised, twelve of which for former drop-outs, getting a few hours of professional guidance a week, while the other studio’s are for young professionals, acting as role models. With 475m2 office space the Buro offers the possibility for easy start-up of small enterprises. The glazed corner will serve as a coffee corner, a meeting place for the youth, entrepreneurs from the Buro and people from the neighbourhood.
Five apartments and a shop on the corner of Duysstraat and Rochussenstraat in Rotterdam West have been combined, transformed and sustainably enriched to serve this goal. Because the buildings is a municipal monument, the architects used both restoration techniques and modern detailing.
During the preliminary design phase, Krill Architecture asked Christian Müller to participate in the design process. The building was in a deplorable state after being neglected for years, nonetheless it was granted a monumental status during the design process. Krill/Christian Müller Architects decided to deal with this by revealing all time layers in this building, thus not only the architectural-cultural layer was treated as a monument, but also the used material, and traces human intervention, from the earliest notes of the original builders, drawn with pencil on previously covered beams, the traces of black coal on the walls where the chimneys were removed, to the new Cor Ten steel roof additions with structural glazing.
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