Huis 't Velde

Story-based adaptive reuse of an estate

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Abstract

After a large reorganisation within the police organisation, due to the formation of the Dutch National Police, the demand for real estate for the police is greatly reduced. Additionally, the requirements for the buildings are also changing. Therefore, in the upcoming years, about 700.000 square meters of police real estate will lose its function. During this graduation process, the possibilities for adaptive reuse for one of these police buildings, Huis ‘t Velde in Warnsveld, have been researched.

In order to work with Huis ‘t Velde, it was necessary to have a look at another group of buildings as well, besides the police buildings, namely country houses. A lot of country houses have lost their function as a private home during the course of the 20th century, among others because of the rising costs of maintenance of these relatively large buildings, and the surrounding estates. This makes the research and design for the adaptive reuse of Huis ‘t Velde even more relevant, since the findings might also be helpful for other country houses.
Most of the country houses have shown a strong development over time. They have different time layers, and each time layer has it’s own story. But nowadays most users aren’t aware of this. This led to the following research and design question: How can the architect integrate the stories behind the layers of time in Huis ‘t Velde in the adaptive redesign process in order to make these stories experienceable for future users?

In the research, 3 cases studies were researched, among others via a analysis matrix. From this, 3 main strategy’s of dealing with these time layers in the adaptive redesign process were found. But, an additional conclusion was that these 3 strategies were never used on their own, but in combination.

Therefore, in the design, different combinations were tested until a fitting combination was found for Huis ‘t Velde. An addition has been designed to the building as a new time layer. In the existing building parts, the most important, characteristic time layers were either conserved or reconstructed.