schiemann weyers
architects

Transformation Unilever Building Vlaardingen, NL
The former Unilever Research and Development complex in Vlaardingen is being transformed into a richly diverse quarter of housing, working, education and leisure. Within the urban masterplan ‘District U’, the city of Vlaardingen gets the chance to manifest itself at the riverside and to become a strategic place in between the city of Rotterdam and the coastline. While most of the Unilever area will be ‘cleaned up’, creating space for the new urban vision, the former laboratory building will remain as the flagship of the revitalisation process and serve as a landmark towards city and riverside.
The laboratory building is going to be transformed into a building with a hybrid programme, comprising a commercial plinth, offices, apartments of variable sizes (main volume), and specific roof apartments. The phenotype of the building with its dominant concrete balustrades will be carefully altered into a
more open and less defensive appearance, guaranteeing a maximum of living quality for the housing programme. Complementary, the former boiler house will become a prominent part of the plinth zone; a parking garage with a collective roof garden will replace the former bicycle shed; and the design will anticipate on a possible new programming of the former auditorium.

Photographs are showing the building shortly after it had been abandoned.
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