Max Venderbosch

Architecture and Public Building

The Escalating City: The vertical campus

The Escalating City is a public high-rise project located next to The Hague Central Station. Due to the lack of buildable space, a different suitable location had to be found. The potential of an infrastructural node near the station was interesting to me. Dut to the neglected state, it does not seem to be an ideal place to erect a building, but it is full of opportunities to connect the new public building to the flows of the city and allow optimal access. The building rests on four super columns (or cores), supporting the whole structure. This structural strategy opens up a variety of possibilities. Firstly, it creates the possibility for the tunnel, roads, tram tracks, cycling paths and bus lanes to flow underneath the building. Secondly, the absence of a central core provides lots of freedom on the floorplans and makes it possible for the diagonal lift tubes to go through.

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