Playful facades possible through prefabricated production

A completely new neighborhood is rising on the former KPN site on the Fockema Andreaelaan in Utrecht-East. In total, 'De Kwekerij' will house about 840 homes for students and starters. The 244 rental homes for starters in Phase II (spread over six buildings) are fitted with prefabricated facade panels, a co-production of aluminum specialist Aldowa and Machiels Building Solutions.

The residential towers Tilia, Betula, Catalpa, Nyssa, Robinia and Castanea (tree species) stand out for their colorful aluminum facades. Like the facade elements, the windows run across the buildings at various angles. The different heights of the towers and the angular location of the apartments maximize sunlight on campus, as well as a playful look. "The facade colors are based on the seasonal flowers of the tree species planted around the buildings, creating a beautiful interplay of greenery and buildings," said architect Arons and Gelauff. By using prefabricated facade elements during construction, the residential towers were built scaffold-free with a short lead time.

Challenging logistics

The facades of the buildings were realized in a very short time. The aluminum facade panels were mounted on the HSB elements in the HSB factory. "Challenge in the production of the aluminum panels was the special perforation in combination with the different colors and great delivery speed," says project manager Martien Trouborst of Aldowa. "We were involved in this project at an early stage, which made it possible to engineer out the design and manufacturability in a timely manner. In that respect, it is a typical Aldowa work: many deviating facade elements, perforated aluminum with protruding 'flaps' representing tree leaves and small tolerances in terms of connections and seams. The result is six colorful buildings."

Varied coloring

The buildings are fairly similar, however, each building has its own color scheme. "That includes, for example, 18 colors of yellow in the facades, delivered just-in-time. Also, the fastening screws had to be coated in different colors. That obviously put logistical pressure on production at our facility, subsequent coating and prefabricated production. Our plant has been running at full capacity this spring." The extensive project was mainly prefabricated without its own assembly; Aldowa only assembled the sheeting for the canopies in the building plinths itself. Assembly was completed over the summer. "A challenging project, realized in good cooperation with architect, MBS and main contractor Dura Vermeer," Trouborst concludes.