This residential complex sited at the edge of Arnhem town centre is intended to be the ideal place for baby boomers to spend their best years. The design is geared to meeting the conflicting desires of this target group. On the one hand, baby boomers feel the need to lead a quiet and passive life. Having worked hard all their lives, they are now looking forward to taking it easy. On the other hand, however, they want to be where the action is and make themselves useful to society. They can be fanatically individual but still be able to relax and enjoy the company of others like them. The social control this brings gives them a sense of security and protection.

Picking up on this wide range of wishes, I have designed a residential complex with a quiet side and a city side. The dwellings straddle the border between quiet and dynamic, and between individual and collective. The two sides have their own unmistakable identity and clear-cut boundaries to separate them. On the city side, the well-defined fabric of piers in the main structure is mainly set parallel to the facade. On the quiet side, these piers seek to effectively tie together the building and the park alongside it. Each dwelling consists of a clearly oriented tunnel structure divided by flexible partition walls. By varying these, the baby boomers can themselves regulate a degree of interaction with their surroundings. The quiet side is marked by the small scale of the development. Here all units are individual and are literally face to face with the park so that this impacts all the stronger when viewed from inside. On the city side, the complex comes across as a large, sleek urban building. The layering in the city resonates in the facade, whose window wall returns the favour by acting as a display case.

The close-knit complex consists of a core of facilities in an envelope of dwellings. All facilities not requiring daylight, such as the theatre and the cinema, are at the centre of the core. With the dwellings ranged round the facilities, there are numerous possibilities of exchange between programme components.

Central to the complex is the square, surrounded by the upward-twisting building. All facilities and dwellings can be reached on foot from the raked deck and the square without the need for a lift or stair. The public deck serves as a common meeting place for residents and those visiting the facilities. The powerful contrasts in the building are hugely stimulating. Here the baby boomers have all the freedom they need to stage-manage their own surroundings. This complex is the ideal place for them to live out their best years.

Place of education: AvB Arnhem | Specialization: architecture | Tutors: Marcel van der Lubbe, Wim Korvinus, Ralph Brodrück, Joost Hovenier