Berenkuil, Eindhoven | 300 student housing units in five months

Prefabricate as much as possible and plan carefully

Eindhoven has been struggling with a huge housing shortage for years. This inhibits international students in particular from choosing to study in Eindhoven. With 300 temporary student houses near the Berenkuil, Eindhoven made a step in the right direction. Four housing complexes were constructed here within five months.

Max Smits, Jan Snel's project manager, does not seem very impressed when he tells that the order came in on June 24, 2019, and the first homes were delivered as early as October of the same year. Another two months later, all 300 homes were ready for rental. "That's where our strength lies," he says. Although for this fast pace, everything really had to go along with it....

Residents have private bathroom facilities.

Four residential blocks

The 300 turnkey homes were given an area of 6 x 3m and were divided into four residential blocks of four floors each. Each dwelling was given its own kitchen and plumbing. The client did not opt for an elevator; this keeps the homes affordable. However, communal facilities were provided, such as a laundry and meeting area, 16 parking spaces and a bicycle shed for about 400 bicycles.

A fast permit process

Given the short construction time, Jan Snel accelerated from the first moment. Even when it had to take risks to do so. "A permit process takes eight weeks on average," Smits says. "In most cases it is then extended by six weeks. But for the Bear Pit, everything was completed within a week and a half. That short period was filled with incredible consultations and countless phone calls, but it ran like clockwork." 

The homes are compact and complete.

Preparation and prefabrication

Because Jan Snel could not have imagined in advance that the permits would be in so soon, she went ahead and started work at her own risk. Smits: "We had already started the production of the units, including the prefabrication of the concrete piles, wooden walls and roofs. The steel structure was already engineered and preparations for the bathrooms and kitchen units were already underway. The units were intended to be prefabricated to the maximum extent, leaving only the installations to be connected on site. The painting of the walls and ceilings also remained to be done."

Nickel

To make it a whole, metal cladding was chosen for the ground-floor units and wooden cladding for the three floors above. "It was grueling," Smits confesses. "We worked six days a week with 12-hour workdays. At the high points, there were a hundred men on the construction site. It was up to us to let each crew know when they had to perform their tasks. The pace was also fast for our client. Normally during construction there is plenty of room to make or rescind decisions. That was virtually impossible now."

The homes at Berenkuil were built for a period of 15 years. After that, Woonbedrijf is looking for a new location for the units. Smits is satisfied with the result: "As a student, I would have loved to have lived here. The units are small, but complete. Eindhoven has taken a nice hit."