The layout of the building stimulates living in a social community, but also allows for independent living. Careful attention to scale, detail and material has resulted in an elegant, modest building which contains a surprise inside!
Safe, stress reducing, and comfortable environment
The daylight ambition is essential to the over-all ambition to create a safe, stress reducing, and comfortable environment in which the clients are encouraged to participate in social life. Daylight exposure supports the regulation of the human biorhythm and helps to relate to time, weather and situations. Natural light in the building is therefore crucial for a client-group that is rather restricted or that doesn’t take much initiative to go out. In SH Volgerlanden the entrance hall, corridors and social rooms are generously provided with daylight. In the glass-covered atrium, the heart of the building, the daylight experience even resembles an outdoor situation. All corridors lead to this light and spacious heart of the building, thus ensuring proper orientation.
Individual living
All clients have their own apartment with living room + kitchenette, bedroom, bathroom and a private terrace or balcony. The apartments are spacious and have vertical floor-to-ceiling windows.
The sloped roofs of the apartments on the first floor contribute to a homely atmosphere. Horizontal overlights emphasize the height of the apartments.
The apartments are divided over the two levels of the building and have a large variation in orientation, meeting the specific needs of the clients.
Community
The facility does not appear as a ‘psychiatric institution’, but rather as a safe living environment that is spacious and light. Adjacent to the atrium are several collective facilities for meeting, dining and activities. There are laundry-rooms, a sport activity room, a ‘restaurant’ and four lounge rooms with direct access to the patios. A careful selection of materials has resulted in a specific theme and atmosphere for each lounge room, providing a variety of choice for the clients. This concept was inspired by Yulius’ care-vision.
Ecologic zone
The building connects to the ecological zone that runs through the residential district Volgerlanden. The design for the landscape with its selection of vegetation is a continuation of this ecozone. The use of modest and natural looking materials was also inspired by the site. Floor to ceiling windows divide the masonry facades in planes that correspond to the scale of the dwellings in the area, causing the building with its sloped sedum roof to naturally merge with its environment.
