The Spatial Mediator
A Hybrid Public Building for the Mediation of Conflicting Flows at Ter Apel
J.B. van Dongen (TU Delft - Architecture and the Built Environment)
S.M. Witteman – Mentor (TU Delft - Architecture and the Built Environment)
S. Corbo – Mentor (TU Delft - Architecture and the Built Environment)
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Abstract
Contemporary public buildings are increasingly required to mediate between competing spatial demands rather than to serve a single fixed programme. Ter Apel, a small Dutch village that functions simultaneously as the national asylum-registration hub and as a Cittaslow heritage-tourism destination, presents this challenge at exceptional intensity: permanent residents, transient asylum seekers, and prospective slow tourists generate triadic spatial friction at a documented scale. This graduation project, The Spatial Mediator, proposes a hybrid public building at the future Nedersaksenlijn station node that mediates these conflicting flows. The design is grounded in primary, data-driven research: a participatory workshop conducted with twenty-four asylum-centre residents across five language groups, supported by a purpose-built digital tool that allows the resulting programme-preference data to be filtered and compared by country of origin. The building applies Habraken's Open Building support-infill principle through a permanent steel cruciform structural grid serviced by an overhead crane, within which infill modules are reconfigured across a five-phase transformation spanning 2027 to 2075. A parametric roof of pyramidal photovoltaic modules drives the building toward a carbon-negative hundred-year lifecycle. The project demonstrates a transferable methodology for designing adaptable civic buildings in high-friction spatial contexts.