The former Brewinc College is the oldest post-war monument of Doetinchem. A combination of intensive adaptive reuse, demolition and new construction transformed this location into a vibrant place for culture and urban living. The cultural cluster part of the plan is oriented to the center of town and the river Oude Ijssel. The reuse of the former practice rooms and the development of ‘shed houses’ is organized around an urban courtyard. Each shed will become a new house or working unit. The future users can create their own living-working environment within the ‘casco’ of the existing shedbuilding. The houses/working units are ‘folded’ around a garage at ground level, so as to preserve the informal working-living atmosphere around the central courtyard. Future buyers were presented with a series of prototypes for the interior of their shed unit.
Transformation of the Brewinc College
Informatie
Information
Status: Urban plan and quality guidelines delivered in 2013
Team: Johan De Wachter, Jens Pötzsch, Marieke van Hensbergen
Collaboration: Andries Geerse, Vitruvius Consultancy
Client: Doetinchem Municipality
Location: Doetinchem, NL
Brewinc
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Johan De Wachter
Johan de Wachter is an architect and founding partner at Woonwerk Architecten. He came to Rotterdam after his studies at the Catholic University of Louvain (KUL) and worked from 2000 to 2004 at the Office for Metropolitan Architecture (OMA/Rem Koolhaas) on various urban planning and architecture projects and competitions. In 2003 he founded Fün Design Consultancy and was a partner until 2005. In 2005 he founded Johan De Wachter Architecten and in 2011 he started 2DVW Architecten in Antwerp together with Rik De Vooght. In 2023, the agencies are given a new name. With the establishment of Woonwerk Architecten, the collaboration is given further shape. With Woonwerk, Johan works on projects at home and abroad.
Johan regularly teaches and has been, among others, a guest lecturer at Delft University of Technology, the Academy of Architecture in Rotterdam and the Fontys University of Applied Sciences in Tilburg. He was appointed associate professor of urban design at Kaunas University of Technology in 2015. Here he leads the design studios with a specific focus on the integral transformation of former soviet residential areas (microrayons). Johan De Wachter was selected in 2014 for the “Europe 40 Under 40 Award”. This award recognized Johan as one of the 40 leading young design talents from Europe.
In addition to his work as an architect and teacher, Johan regularly sits on various committees and juries in the Netherlands and abroad. He is currently a member of the spatial quality committee in Breda (NL) and of the environmental committee in Tilburg (NL).
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