Bjørn de Munck

This building does not tell about expansion-structures but about condensed structures, and for a start it deals with the potential remaining spaces in inner cities.

The Netherlands should not fade to an amphibious landscape where mediocrity dominates. To experience space more intense contrasts must be restored, dense cities in a stately landscape.

Condense cities according to a 3D-city model. One should not create monostructures, with a very one-sided use of space, but one should create stratification by piling spaces. The existing inner-city qualities expanding in the third plane.

The stately landscape gets relieved in two different ways. First of all, less expansion of building outside the cities. Secondly, by condensing existing cities. Both will lead to a more efficient use of space and infrastructure. This building piles numerous public spaces, each with their own qualities, based on the kind of use.

In addition, this building is situated near an infrastructural junction in Maastricht. No new infrastructure but using the existing infrastructure completed with a piling of public spaces. Within this develops a maximum inter-weaving and flexibility between living, working and secondary activities. The meeting, the double, triple , fourfold use of space, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, is central here.

Municipally seen, the building functions as a buffer between the existing municipal situation and the railway yard. It develops an interaction between railroad and inner city. The remaining space functions as a front yard for the building and as a barrier between existing habitats and the infrastructure; therefore the railroad is not denied by the city but it merges with the existing inner-city space and infrastructure. The building itself makes use of old buildings that have fallen into disuse. In the total line of the railway yard, the building is one of the five large-scale defined stone blocs with an enormous flexibility of function.

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