This scheme adds a residential aspect to the work area round Kleinpolderplein, a major traffic hub in Rotterdam. Doing this can give rise to a new residential milieu with its own cachet and its own form of urbanity where stillness and activity alternate. One can work at home or live at the office; the basis has become broader for facilities primed to accept both living and working. It also solves a number of the problems afflicting many older working premises, such as a dreary monofunctionality, lack of flexibility and an unsafe situation.

How, then, are dwelling and working to coexist? The position of the residential component depends on having the right scale of access; the same holds for the work component. I have defined this access in such a way that it satisfies both dwelling and working, so that the two are in fact interchangeable. My design for the area proceeds from adding a second smaller access and restructuring the existing one.

Relating functions to scales of access gives those functions their place in the design. This means that all activities required locally can be concentrated at the place where all scales of access converge. The outcome is a building for work and habitation plus the necessary communal facilities. Refining the scale of access within the building makes the functions more specific, more private and smaller in scale. So, for example, dwelling unfurls from a hotel in the basement to a private house on the upper storeys, and work from lettable business premises on up to home businesses and small companies. Living above business accommodation is made attractive through this vertical refinement of the scale of access. It gives the dwelling component an individuality and extroversion. Here the residents rise above the bustle of the street, with a view of the city and a sense of its urbanity.

The live-work mix obtains at the level of the building, plot or neighbourhood, depending on the degree of impact of the businesses on site. This way, the scale of permissible hindrance by companies equals the scale of separation between living and working. In the case of a mix at plot level, an environment can ensue of small home businesses. In the case of a mix at neighbourhood level, the ensuing environment is enclosed, inward-looking and tranquil.

Place of education: TU Delft
Specialization: architecture
Tutors: Carel Weeber, Dirk Frieling & Martin Smit