Roland van Bussel & Harold Hermans

At present, Parkstad is merely a common goal of the municipalities in the Dutch Eastern mining area that
have already grown together and now want to become one strong city. We went looking for the character of that new city, which we portrayed in the monograph “Parkstad; a city and its landscape”. Starting from that definition, each sub-project discusses one of the Parkstad qualities: one describes the relationship between a small-scale city and the landscape, the other deals with a new and stronger infrastructure.

“The Information House”

The Information House is one of the major, outstanding projects (Parkstad Stadium, Megaland) of a tangent to be newly developed in Parkstad Limburg. The Information House is a library in an age where books are being increasingly replaced by new media. The core (the search and surf machine) of the building consists of two spirals: an extrovert one (overlooking Parkstad) with books arranged according to the Siso-system, and an introvert one (directed towards the empty heart) containing all forms of digital media. Through the empty heart (starting page) one can cross at street level from one spiral into the other, whilst obtaining a survey of all topics.

“The Plot and its Story”

The tower project is situated on a plot which divides the city and the landscape. The existing landscape
and its context dominate the position and arrangement of the towers. By framing the view, intensifying the area, defining a target group (permanent and temporary occupants) and optimising its orientation to the sun, the urban plan and the towers (± 18 m in height) become individually fragmented and fixed on the plot.