Location                          Rotterdam
Programme                   Transformation, Housing
Status                               Completed
Type                                   Academic Research
Year                                    2024
Client                                Private
Collaboration               Margaux Lomax, Jakub Nowak
Photography                Rubén Dario Kleimeer

Transformation of Nicolaasschool

The proposal for re-using the Nicolasschool building was guided by the principle of affordance. We approached the conditions of the existing structure as an opportunity to challenge and rethink prevailing disciplinary conventions in housing development.

Our design introduced 12 atypical housing units built above gymnastics classes on the ground floor, which would be transformed into a large public interior. The proposal was driven by affordance, the material culture of the site, and its climate conditions.

To question conventional notions of thermal comfort, which typically result in highly energy-consuming living spaces that sustain a constant temperature across rooms with different functions, we divided the units according to their programmatic functions and technical parameters. Instead of insulating the entire brick wall perimeter, we adopted a “box-in-a-box” system for bathrooms and bedrooms, allowing temperatures to vary between rooms. This strategy opened up possibilities for reconfiguring living spaces according to shifting needs and seasonal changes.

By engaging directly with the existing structure, we established a visual hierarchy and a set of rules to guide the design process. For example, we exposed the diamond-saw cut of the brick when raising window sills, and laid porotherm dividing walls in a brick bond pattern to highlight their non-load-bearing function. To extend this hierarchy of materials and interventions, all project drawings were produced by hand in colored pencils, using consistent color-coding to clearly differentiate and articulate the interventions. Our aim was to amplify the inherent qualities of the existing building while maintaining clarity in the intervention.