Vakwerk Architects — Visualizing a contrarian skyscraper and its surroundings for the Railway Zone in Tilburg City Centre
Spoorzone
The Tilburg Spoorzone (Railway Zone) is a 75-hectare area in the middle of the city, next to the railway and the Central Station. Train maintenance was the core activity in the area from 1868 tot 2011.
The entire Spoorzone is being redeveloped and will become a hotbed of living, working and recreating. With the Spoorzone, the city center is making a leap over the railway. Or rather, underneath. The Willem2- and station passage literally connect the Spoorzone to the City Center and makes the City North and South of the railway one again. Tilburg’s DNA and its rich industrial history is clearly recognizable in the Spoorzone. Raw, but charismatic. Call it Contra.
Vakwerk Architects — Vision visualized
Tilburg landmark
The new landmark of the Spoorzone will be a 120m high residential tower. Vakwerk architects, along with three other agencies was asked to compete for this architectural challenge.
Vakwerk asked Rich Dust to visualize their vision on the tower and surrounding area. The result: a 5m long hand drawn masterplan. A convincing story, told by the main characters in the drawing: Vakwerk partners / architects Paul Ketelaars, Ellen van der Wal and Francesco Veenstra.
Vakwerk Architects — Contra methodology
Contrarian Skyscraper
A traditional skyscraper starts from bottom to top with the pedestal, base and crown. For the Tilburg Tower Vakwerk turned the design upside down. The center of gravity is at the top instead of the bottom, creating an iconic ‘T”. T stands for Tilburg. T stands for Tegendraads (Contra).
Vakwerk Architects — Pitch products
Greetings from Tilburg
The main drawing consists of many small drawings, including the Spoorzone history, future vision and design of the building / tower. We decided to isolate the drawings and turn them into a set of postcards. A little look into the future of the Spoorzone.
Write now, send later
Inspiring work environment
The work by Rich Dust was partly done at the Vakwerk architects headquarter in Delft. A very inspiring and welcoming work environment. Check it out yourself: at .vakwerkhuis.com
