Open Building Experience 5.: “The Pelgromhof”, Zevenaar, The Netherlands, 2001

This project is located in the town center of Zevenaar (32000). It incorporates 169 support-infill apartments for elderly, a parking garage for 86 cars and a nucleus of 46 nursing rooms, designed for assisted and intramural care giving, a restaurant, a kitchen, a chapel, a theater, a shop and a library.

The Pelgromhof has been developed in the rental sector by the local housing association ‘Baston Wonen’, previously ASWZ, and the care foundation ‘Pelgrom’, today ‘Pleyade’. It was selected as ’National Model of Sustainable and Energy-efficient Construction’, nominated for the ‘Dutch Building Award’, became finalist of the ‘World Habitat Awards 2004’, and received the ‘Experimental Status’ of the Dutch government.

As a follow up  to our earlier support-infill experiences in Papendrecht, Utrecht, Rotterdam and Enschede, this project focuses in particular on:

  • Open building in organic architecture, a freedom of form.
  • Sustainable construction: Natural paints, pressed lime-sand walls, heat-pomp boilers, advanced floor heating and new digital energy and information management.
  • Life-time guaranteed housing, accessibility for senior citizens, adaptability in the future and tailored care.
  • Dwellings of many different forms to be filled in, in dialogue with the users.
  • Adaptable floor-heating and zones of drains in screed floor.
  • A safe, tranquil, yet vital green environment for elderly in the town center. A site featuring abundant plantings in ponds, beds and on external walls and roofs in addition to air purification, flowing water and a diversity of flora and fauna.