Corona crisis underlines added value of campus

While the world reflects on what work and working environments will look like post-corona, Joost Ector van Ector Hoogstad Architecten outlines the master plan for the Hid campus. “During this corona crisis, nothing happens spontaneously anymore. You don’t just bump into each other at the coffee machine. Everything has been pre-agreed, all communications must be planned. A campus stimulates precisely this casual meeting, this informal exchange. That is the added value.”

It provides even more evidence of the campus’s right to exist, according to Ector: “Simply working more from home stands in the way of creativity. Where people come together, ideas are born. However, it is now becoming even clearer that you shouldn’t simply fill a campus with desks, but that you need to create other environments, in order to facilitate these encounters as much as possible.”

Ground level

The variety of users on the Hid site makes it extra challenging for Ector: “It’s just a bit more complicated than most other campuses. There are not just offices and labs, but also production facilities, warehouses and the like. There are routes for motorised traffic and pedestrians. We soon noticed that if you want to organise everything on one level, it becomes difficult to create the atmosphere you want on a campus: open, accessible, friendly. That is why we came up with a raised deck. So we use the ground level for the real facility infrastructure, and the level above that creating the connectivity between buildings, the shared facilities and the meeting places. In this way, these two worlds don’t get in each other’s way. However, they rightly remain visible to each other since they together form the typical character of this knowledge campus, where normal production activities also take place.”

Puzzle

Ector Hoogstad’s plans require a substantial construction and replacement operation. Various users must be housed elsewhere on the site during construction, so that special work (e.g. in laboratories, with special equipment) can be carried out under the right conditions. That makes the puzzle all the more interesting, says Ector: “The location of this area in Amsterdam and its relationship to other medical clusters is wonderful. But right now it remains a patchwork of buildings from different periods, with different purposes. Through smart new building, and replacing a number of existing buildings, you can make much more efficient use of the available space”

Masterplan

An important first step has been taken with the master plan. “This master plan places a dot on the horizon,” says Ector. However, it will probably take up to 1.5 years before implementation can start. “You have to see this master plan as a guideline for future development, because there are bound to be intermediate versions. We will begin by seeing whether the City of Amsterdam supports the plans and how the zoning plan should be adjusted. So the first earth will probably not be dug before 2022.”]

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