ATELIER KOLLER - Making it tidy, The Hague/NL

MAKING IT TIDY

The Statenkwartier is a living quarter slightly out of the city center, home of many expats due to its comfortable living qualities, its infrastructure and several museums located around extended parks and intensively planted canals.

The apartment on the first floor has a bow window on the street side which becomes a little balcony on the 3rd floor.

The first floor is characterized, like in many of the typical Dutch upper floor houses, by a long volume stretching from the street right through to the green courtyard with the private gardens. The second floor is used for sleeping and working rooms.

cut down to the essential © Luuk Smits

The new owners of the apartment wanted to replace the existing heating system with the radiators along the exterior walls by a floor heating system. Doing so a floor insulation between the wooden floor beams on the 1st floor was introduced to minimize the sound transmission towards the neighbor on the ground floor. At the same time all the existing floors were changed into new wooden floors in the living areas and in the corridors.

the dining area on the 1st floor © Luuk Smits

The kitchen, which was refurbished previously, was kept unchanged. The main changes were brought into all the sanitary rooms: the toilets on both floors were retiled and equipped with Japanese toilets. The former bathroom on the upper floor was divided into a shower with a washbasin on one side and a storage room on the other. One of the two small sleeping rooms on the backside of the house was transformed into a luxury, well-lit bathroom with a bathtub underneath the window, a shower and a washbasin. Changing the heating system was also the occasion to insulate the exterior walls in the rooms on the front and the backside of the house.

towards the living area on the 1st floor © Luuk Smits

To gain some extra space in the eating room and the master bedroom above, it was decided to demolish the old chimney, while the one in the living room and the guest room above was maintained.

Except for the 3m2 balcony in front of the kitchen on the backside of the house there was no outdoor space on the second floor. Not being able to make a new terrasse as an extension of the dining area, it was decided to replace the existing windows by a new window front with two, wide opening doors in the middle and a railing on the outside.

the main bathroom on the 2nd floor © Luuk Smits

In order to use the existing roof space of the flat roof and to profit from the view a roof terrasse was introduced. To support the new extra loads the wooden roof beams on the second floor were doubled with the ceilings in all rooms rebuilt. This was the occasion to rethink and redo the electricity system and the light systems in all the rooms on both floors.

the hallway on the 2nd floor © Luuk Smits

FICHE TECHNIQUE / PROJECT DATA

lieu / location: Statenkwartier, La Haye, Pays Bas / The Hague, The Netherlands
maître d'ouvrage / client: privé / privat
maître d'oeuvre / architecture: Atelier Koller, La Haye / Atelier Koller, The Hague

missions / design phases: Esquisse (ESQ) - Assistance aux opérations de réception (AOR) / Schematic Design (SD) - Construction Administration (CA)
entreprise général / general contractor: Marbuilt, Den Haag (www.marbuilt.com)