Luxury surface and depth of color
Diederendirrix architects’ design of the Krimpen aan den IJssel City Hall is a true building for the city. With its strategic approach to reuse and sustainability, the building promises to be one of the most innovative city halls in the Netherlands. Mosa Facades’ ceramic facade tiles proudly contribute to this ambition while visually distinguishing the city’s new landmark.
Raadhuis Krimpen aan den IJssel
diederendirrix architecten
With the existing city hall in disrepair, the municipality of Krimpen aan den Ijssel launched a competition to design a new building with one condition: the new city hall should reuse the existing building in some way. Simultaneously, sustainability needed to play a central role. Diederendirrix architecten responded to this challenge, and won, with a clever design that reuses all the existing foundations as a basis for the new building, and provides the city with an elegant, contemporary civic landmark.
The building’s sculptural form that juts into the water presents a friendly face to the city. The prominent waterside site overlooks a park. Divided into two, the 5000m2 building not only accommodates the City Hall but also houses the regional office of Rabobank Krimpenerwaard. The L-shaped city hall opens southwest towards the village square while Rabobank’s main elevation faces the city’s retail hub.
The City Hall’s ground floor contains the lobby with public counters, staff canteen, meeting rooms and council chamber. The layered volumes correspond to different functions. Distinguished by a double-height glazed facade, the council chamber occupies a prominent position perpendicular to the main entrance facing the entry forecourt. A stepped volume that extends into the water accommodates offices. An elongated contemporary bell tower is encased in perforated steel adorned with the city arms. The flexible edge between the City Hall and Rabobank enables the building to easily accommodate future changes internally.
A lightweight, demountable steel structure is placed onto the existing foundations, thereby retaining the memory of the old building. Reusing the existing foundations avoided a new pile construction thereby saving resources, time and noise issues. Measures including a geothermal pump, solar panels, green roof and Mosa’s Cradle-to-Cradle Silver certified facade tiles contributed to the high sustainable nature of the building that is energy neutral with an A++ energy label.
The facade material needed to fulfil diverse criteria for sustainability and aesthetics. “We needed a material that would appear solid to represent the public function of the building yet not formal or cold, have both a classic and modern feel and look natural to suit the surroundings,” explains Rob Meurders from diederendirrix. “It also needed to be light: both in weight for the lightweight structure and in colour.” A large format was preferable.
Used to clad the entire building Mosa Facade’s Solid collection in Sand Beige 5114 ticked all the boxes. Available as 60 x 60 cm, it’s used here in custom sizes of 60x120 cm, 40x120 cm, 30x120 cm and 20x120 cm, and even clad the arches in the water. “We were also drawn to the tile’s rich surface and depth of colour,” adds Meurders. The tiles beautifully complement the slim, anodized bronze windows. The recessed windows break up the building mass to make it less monolithic and create depth, especially with the changing shadows. To create a harmonious outer shell, the tiled cladding continues into the window recess, which required a special mitre joint detail. The facade is also designed to be demountable whereby, if necessary at the end of the building’s life cycle, Mosa’s Cradle-to-Cradle Silver certified tiles can be easily removed.
Meurders: “I like how different the facade looks from every angle and how it’s not immediately obvious what material it’s clad in, which creates an element of surprise. Every tile is different, and together, they create a lively facade that has both an abstract and crafted quality.”
Project details
| Project: | Raadhuis Krimpen aan den IJssel |
| Architect: | Diederendirrix architecten |
| Location: | Krimpen aan den IJssel (The Netherlands) |
| Completion: | 2014 |
| Mosa series: | Core Collection Solids |
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