Romulus and Remus: Energy-neutral apartments for social renting

This is a Zero-Meter project, unique for a six-story building. A review with director Ron Brons about the challenges and, above all, the "good feeling. "We worked on the project with a large group of our own employees, housing corporation Portaal and architect OpZoom and really got it done together."  

"Housing corporation Portaal cast the new building in a UAV-gc contract," Brons begins. "That means that as a contractor we are also responsible for the design and feasibility. The requirements and elaboration were mainly functionally described, and it was up to us to give this an appropriate interpretation. Not only in terms of design, but also in terms of layout of the apartments in the plan, creating space for the necessary solar panels, et cetera. Quite a puzzle, also in terms of planning, since it involved two buildings on separate plots of land with existing buildings and roads in between."

Space for solar panels

All apartments in Remus and Romulus are so-called Zero-Meter homes. "This is unique for a six-story building," Brons knows. "The complex is heated with sustainable city heat from an Eneco biothermal plant. To create enough space for the 1,100 solar panels, we chose to bring the storerooms outside the complex. So there are solar panels both on the roofs of both apartment complexes and on the roofs of all the "sheds. As a result, each apartment has an average of 9 solar panels available. There are 70 apartments in the western building and 60 apartments in the eastern building. They are two- and three-bedroom apartments of 48 and 70 square meters, respectively. The sustainable and affordable rental apartments are intended for social rent. The names of both apartment buildings - Remus and Romulus - were conceived later and the result of a competition by Portaal in the area."

Building together

Both buildings can be identified by an almost identical (facade) finish. "The facade of Romulus has Rockpanel cladding on the street side and brickwork on the rear facade," Brons explains. "At Remus, we reversed that, since the 'front door' here is at the rear." Originally, the plan was to build both buildings simultaneously, but due to environmental and permitting issues, construction on Remus started with a 3-month delay. "The site had to be cleared of cables and pipes first. However, that worked out well in the completion phase. Initially, it was quite challenging to carry out the finishing work simultaneously, given the multitude of apartments. Due to the delay in the preliminary phase, the completion - delivering the wallpaper ready to use - now ran smoothly into each other. In terms of planning, it was also possible to use a large group of our own personnel. Good for the company feeling. After all, you make it together."

Romulus was delivered in June 2020 and Remus in October of this year. Despite the energy-efficient nature and high level of finishing, Veluwezoom Verkerk, in collaboration with Portaal and architect OpZoom, managed to complete the project within the specified requirements and budget.

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