The Blox
Vertical neighbourhoods in an urban ecosystem
The Blox, The Hague
New city entrance
Anyone entering the Hague via the A12 motorway will see the raw industrial business park De Binckhorst on their left. The site is strategically located in relation to the surrounding region and the city centre. Excellent conditions for a commuting area. The Hague municipality decided to transform the monotonous area into a city entrance for living and working. A testing ground for sustainability and greening. The assignment for a sustainable green residential tower is one of the new construction plans for the future characteristic Binckhorst residential area.
The inclusive city
Residents identify with the neighbourhood and their neighbourhood. The neighbourhood traditionally represents a safe living environment where people know each other, play together, eat together and live together. The street, the square, the corner pub are places where people can meet. These places give the neighbourhood a unique character that residents identify with. The Blox is a tower of vertical neighbourhoods.
The wide variety of housing typologies in The Blox attracts a mix of target groups. Combined with collective spaces and a unique character, this results in a piece of an inclusive city. This inclusive city requires a new type of building, one that connects residents, a vertical city that accommodates the entire spectrum of city residents.
The size of up to 60 dwellings per neighbourhood has been the starting point for dividing the tower into neighbourhoods and spatial units. Which creates close-knit and small-scale residential communities.
Banning anonymity
In The Blox's concept, the neighbourhoods are stacked, creating the vertical city. This makes The Blox also there for 21st-century families and, with the vertical neighbourhoods, provides an answer to the typical use problems of the building typology ‘high-rise’.
Often, a tower is an anonymous volume, unsuitable for families, with social monotony and lack of typological variety. By dividing the volume into recognisable spatial units and assigning specific collective spaces, neighbourhoods are created with their own recognisable identity in which people can find themselves, which connects them and makes them proud.
Mix of residential environments
Stacking neighbourhoods creates a great mix of living environments and housing typologies. Each neighbourhood has a strong identity due to its position in the tower, a unique collective spot and its relationship with the surroundings. Different target groups can find a place that suits their needs. Residents recognise their neighbourhood at different scale levels, allowing them to identify with their place. In this way, vertical neighbourhoods contribute to the inclusive city.
Vertical neighbourhoods
The urban Binckbuurt connects with the avenue, the Park neighbourhood connects greenery with urban farming and outdoor play on the roof of the car park. The Werkbuurt has a wide view of the city centre. The tranquillity and history of the Trekvliet define the view of the Duinbuurt which is prominently visible before entering the Victory Boogie Woogie Tunnel. The Speelbuurt has a meeting place at 80m high. The Crown neighbourhood contains larger flats with lots of glass, metropolitan living pure and simple. The Crown itself is a place where everyone meets in a collective rooftop park overlooking the city and the sea.
Nature-inclusivity
Including nature in a plan produces a range of benefits. Plants collect and filter fine dust particles, green facades mitigate heat stress and plants generally contribute to the experience of wellbeing with residents. Public green spaces enable outdoor recreation, improving health and social cohesion. Plants and flowers along the outside of the bundling will attract birds, insects and bats. Considering nature and city as part of a natural symbiosis can create new ecological cycles. Thinking of a building as an ecosystem helps translate biodiversity questions into concrete design solutions. In our approach, biodiversity and building melt together in a hybrid form that is truly nature-inclusive.
Hague tower with a Binckhorst feel
Architecturally, the tower seeks a connection with the history of the Binckhorst and The Hague's high-rise buildings. An industrial grid of metal profiles, glass and the colour mixed red determine the façade image. The colour is inspired by the palette of the iconic buildings in the Binckhorst, such as the Fokker Terminal. The steel boxes are characteristic of the industrial district.
Ostensibly, the blocks appear randomly stacked, but aligned with wind and sun, spaces for greenery and collective use emerge. Besides the dynamic staggered arrangement, the differentiation of neighbourhoods is subtly accentuated by an alternating grid of glass, bronze panels and aluminium panels. Glass down to the floor gives the flats a metropolitan living quality. The bottom layer distinguishes itself from the tower blocks in its articulation and transparency. The top seeks a connection with the recognisable Hague high-rise buildings with expressive crowns over several floors.
Smart building
By linking up with the façade builder at an early stage, the industrially developed element façade is completely demountable and therefore circular.
A landmark in Binckhorst
At The Blox, a conscious choice was made to create a particularly sustainable living and nature concept that architecturally suits The Hague. The sturdy building has become a fluid entity that is visually restrained but substantively profound. A vertical combination of biodiverse and urban communities. The human scale, the size of the neighbourhood, but also limitation of wind nuisance, optimal sunlight and good conditions for nature-inclusive building have been leading for the spatial construction of the tower. A tower that forms an icon, a landmark, on the scale of the city.
