Over the last 5 years and as part of an ongoing design project, S333 has been working closely with a school organisation, ROCvA, to research and design new types of multifunctional school buildings that are more integrated into their urban context.
The design for this new community college is based on S333’s previous design for ROCvA College Amsterdam-Noord (CAN) in 2002, but this time commissioned by a different consortium of clients to meet new market requirements. The site is the same as for ROCvA CAN - the centre of Amsterdam-Noord located beside the soon-to-be-completed North-South metro line station.
ROCvA’s educational vision asks for greater pedestrian movement in and out of the building and at greater frequency. The organization of core, collective functions is based on arranging external entrances onto the surrounding streets and internal entrances around a generous ‘urban passage’, animated by cafes, restaurants and media centre that steps up and opens out onto roof gardens, play areas and terraces.
The task of orchestrating movement through a series of dramatic external and internal spaces is a key goal in the functional layout of the building.
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Over the last 5 years and as part of an ongoing design project, S333 has been working closely with a school organisation, ROCvA, to research and design new types of multifunctional school buildings that are more integrated into their urban context.
The design for this new community college is based on S333’s previous design for ROCvA College Amsterdam-Noord (CAN) in 2002, but this time commissioned by a different consortium of clients to meet new market requirements. The site is the same as for ROCvA CAN - the centre of Amsterdam-Noord located beside the soon-to-be-completed North-South metro line station.
ROCvA’s educational vision asks for greater pedestrian movement in and out of the building and at greater frequency. The organization of core, collective functions is based on arranging external entrances onto the surrounding streets and internal entrances around a generous ‘urban passage’, animated by cafes, restaurants and media centre that steps up and opens out onto roof gardens, play areas and terraces.
The task of orchestrating movement through a series of dramatic external and internal spaces is a key goal in the functional layout of the building.
ROCvA stands for ‘Amsterdam Regional Community College’, which covers Amsterdam and the nearby towns of Amstelveen, Hoofddorp and Hilversum. It is one of the largest Community Colleges in Europe, offering vocational education and training for 35,000 students in about 60 locations. Its long-term strategy is to re-locate all its regional facilities into a series of large, multi-functional buildings that are fully integrated with their surroundings.
On five challenging locations in Amsterdam, ROCvA commissioned S333 by to carry out urban and architectural studies. In the search for sustainable solutions, the contexts of each location directed the choice of vocational education and the mix of uses to link with the surrounding neighbourhood on each site.
The result of this working methodology produced different organisations of school buildings that mixed school activities and community-based functions in different ways.
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