Compact living behind a green glaze |

When converting an office that was more than thirty years old into comfortable studios, many functions were combined into one compact residential unit. A bright green-grey façade gives the building a strong character of its own.
This remarkable building from the early 1980s has been converted into small but high-quality flats. The Jan van Foreest apartment building is located on the Jaarbeurs side of the station.
Developer MidNed recognised the potential of the building to convert it into 218 flats along a central corridor. The building was designed by StrandNL Architecture and Interiors and the project was carried out construction company Van Grunsven.
Instead of a standard cladding of stucco or ordinary facing bricks, glazed brick slips in various shades of green-grey were applied as cladding according to the architects’ design. This design emphasises the unique character of the building. The glazed ceramics create a reflection that highlights the curves of the building. The architects looked for the right gloss level and different colours for the tile strips, which were made especially for this project.
The glazed clinker brick slips were installed in precise masonry claddings that follow the round shapes of the existing building: a standing cladding on the parapets and a lying one between the window bands.
On the ground floor, the old façade behind the round columns was demolished, replaced and replaced by a new façade with signal black glazed ceramics outside the columns.