'Together apart': synergy and individuality at OSC Stadionpark Rotterdam

When you make the first plan in a large area development, you set the tone, knows Gert Jan Samsom, architect-partner at BDG Architects. With their design for OSC Stadionpark in Rotterdam, the architects managed to create a connection between two secondary schools with multifunctional sports facilities and the neighborhood that will soon arise around the project.

For the integral design of Education and Sports Cluster (OSC) Stadionpark, BDG Architects joined forces with partners Pieters Bouwtechniek, engineering firm Deerns and landscape design firm RROG. There was also close contact with the municipality of Rotterdam. "With this plan we have to anticipate an area that has yet to emerge. That was a fun challenge," Samsom believes. "For the municipality, too, that was sometimes searching. It was an intensive process to design everything in such a way that future developments also have room for their own input."

From training complex to multipurpose district

Contractor Wijnen Bouw is now working on OSC Stadionpark, which will be in the middle of a new, park-like and car-free neighborhood. The sports fields of Feyenoord's former Varkenoord training complex will soon be home to the new educational and sports facility along with over 850 homes and various neighborhood amenities.    

Separate together

For the project, BDG won a design competition. With the winning design, the designers managed to bring the three different users together well while providing them with their own space. "You are dealing with two schools, each with their own culture and different types of students. This building looks for good education together in one location on the one hand, but also two separate worlds." 'Separate together,' BDG calls it. "And that is reflected in the design of the plan. We used the height differences in the grounds and continued them in the landscape and square areas. With green edges you create clear but naturally defined plazas." Across the plan runs a public route, from south to north. "That is open to people from the neighborhood during the day. So they walk past the education. That way we can also showcase the talents of the students."

Underground sports hall

The biggest challenge with this project? A sports hall that is partly underground. "We do more educational projects, but the special thing here is the complex stacking of a number of functions. It is exceptional that the education building was made on top of a sports hall. This arose from the difference in height on the site and the tight plot. Because a sports building needs less daylight than an educational program, we slid the hall into the ground level to bridge the difference in height."

There are also advantages to being the first in an area development, Samsom points out. "Because we think it is important that the athletes in the sunken sports hall also benefit from natural light and contact with the outside, we have made a kind of 'rules of the game' towards the development that will come after us. In this way, the street that will come later can be perfectly matched to the current design. So it also offers precisely opportunities to add quality."  

Stacking in construction

Structurally, the school on top of a sports hall was a very challenging solution. "For that, we ended up with a special construction of floor-to-ceiling trusses over two floors. The trusses that will carry the building lie like a bridge construction over the sports hall. You have to span about 30 meters there, because you don't want columns in a sports hall. And that bridge structure, that's where the education building has to go back in."

Integral plan for finest result

"We're working in an integrated design team for this project, with a landscape architect and structural engineer, and that interacts nicely. You will soon have a stacked landscape that goes all the way from ground level to roof. This is going to be a fantastic educational environment."