In the Noorderhaven development area, near the station and the centre of Zutphen, van Veen Architects has designed a design for a clustered housing form. The close-knit residential community, with 110 homes for the elderly, studios and facilities, is connected by a large courtyard designed by Loos van Vliet. A pavilion is situated in the centre of the collective green inner area, which will be used multifunctionally by the residential group, but which also defines the boundaries of the parking and rail zone.
The urban design, an ensemble of different building blocks, accommodates various forms of living, each with its own orientation. The (care) homes, in the corner building, are accessed by a central corridor and are situated on the Statenbolwerk as an extension of the bicycle tunnel. The corner, an accent in the neighbourhood near the main entrance, is marked by a cantilevered end wall with a projected poem on it. Space is included in the plinth for the supporting (care) facilities. The houses on the main view axis Noorderhavenstraat orientate the view mainly through a wide residential gallery to the green inner garden. The gallery houses at the Ettingerpark benefit from both green areas with an individual balcony.
The facades on the outside of the ensemble conform on the one hand to the brick materialization of the other developments in the Noorderhaven area, but on the other hand are distinguished by the use of earthy coloured concrete elements that are incorporated in the vertically articulated windows. For the materialization on the inside of the building blocks, a light wood fibre profiled sheeting, horizontally articulated, has been chosen, which seeks the natural connection to the green inner area and reinforces the horizontal lines of the galleries.
