la Serre Numérique

project team
Maarten Sanders, Sébastien Marty, Emile Revier, Walter Dresscher (DNADN), Anouk Dekker, Armand Paardekooper, Ernst Jan Schoute, Martin Vinkestijn & Peter Evers

photography
Thea van den Heuvel (DAPh)

completion
2015

education building for virtual reality

The Serre Numérique is designed for research and education in the field of design and application of “virtual reality”. It is also a centre for start-ups in this sector. As a generator of economic development, the project has a great strategic importance for the region.

The building houses the various study programmes and research facilities in a series of wings on either side of a communal zone. This is where encounters between students, lecturers and visitors are staged. By also opening up all communal facilities, including the two large halls with advanced technical equipment, for public use, the building also functions as a showcase for the industry. Exhibitions, presentations and conferences are held there.

binary gates

The spatial layout and the admission of daylight is provided in the building by a regular grid of patios and atria. The large openings in the facades and roof make this organization visible on the outside. These “gates” in the building ensure that the inner and outer worlds are at a suitable distance from each other, but that the environment is nevertheless present everywhere in the building. On all sides, the gates offer a series of framed views of the city, landscape and sky. With the constantly changing light, the changing seasons, the environment is experienced as a parade of living paintings.

The skin of the building consists of stainless steel panels, which hang around the building as a light-filtering curtain through a perforation. A composition of two types of elements forms a pattern that expresses the function of the building. In addition to the analogy with an electronic circuit, it is also a binary system that shows different drawings in alternating order.

sustainable legacy

The building is located in a new park, a site that was once used by the heavy industry that dominated the region for over a hundred years. As a generator of new economic development, the building is a symbol of a new era, in which sustainability plays a major role. A legacy of old industry helps with this; the building uses a geothermal source from a nearby former mine. This provides the building with energy-neutral cooling and heating. It is one of the many sustainable technical solutions that make the building a benchmark in the field of sustainable construction.