Apartment Complex, Handel

This residential complex is situated on a former industrial site in the middle of the village of Handel in North Brabant, Netherlands. The 12 rental apartments are built in two layers over a parking garage. Resolving the parking under the building gave us the opportunity to arrange the surrounding terrain as a communal garden.

The spacious 2 and 3 room apartments all have a living room with a south-facing balcony. The staggering of the partly indoor balconies provides a pleasant undulation to the facade. On account of the municipal restrictions regarding height, a curved roof was chosen. To match the village architecture, a coarse red brick has been used with dark, inset joints. The roof is made of metal and is enclosed by spacious gutters.

The building is centrally heated with a heat pump. The closed system uses a heat roof of 100 m2 and seven sources located at a depth of 100 meters. Geothermal energy provides heat, cooling and hot water in the homes. The heat exchanger in the roof keeps the system in balance. All houses have their own distribution unit with meters. Rainwater is purified and collected by means of a sedimentation facility in the garden. Together with the naturally ventilated parking basement, these are aspects that make the building particularly sustainable.

This project was developed, designed and executed by MATH architects BV in one hand.

Client: J.A.J. Hermkens

Design: 2002 - 2006

Construction: 2007 - 2008

Contractor: various subcontractors