DUET
The Vertical Village
Our design for Duet, Nijmegen’s tallest residential tower, is an optical illusion. Seemingly two slender structures, it enhances rather than dominates the city skyline. Inside, we stack a wide range of homes to form a socially inclusive vertical community, while freeing up space for a beautiful green park that creates room for nature and human encounters.
Our design breaks up the volume into two distinctive and layered elements – an elegant duet of forms.’
Green Genesis
Green Genesis
We work together with de Architekten Cie. to create ground-level spaces with the addition of social and ecological value: a new city square and a large green park. We do this by concentrating Duet’s built area in a 120-meter-high tower. The park, designed by LOLA Landscape Architects, reinforces the green corridor that runs from the central station and along the Nijmegen’s waterfront. We use wood as much as technically possible in the construction, both for its circular qualities and the friendly, open atmosphere it creates. The other predominant material in the tower is brick: a congenial and traditional material, with strong local connections.
Natural Connection
The square inside the plinth attracts the liveliness of the outside square with all its social functions. It’s a place to meet.’
From parking to park
From parking to park
We give Duet’s ground floor an open, extrovert nature. The inner square in the plinth brings the dynamic of a city square inside and makes for a lively entrance area. With an urban living room, a café, atelier space and other functions, it’s where residents meet. Flowing into a leafy public square and the multi-level landscape outside, Duet joins up with the green corridor and the wider city scape in a continuous flow of spaces. A key element is our cunning transformation of the huge parking garage required by the brief from a potential eyesore to an asset, by using it to add an expansive rooftop park that further weaves Duet into its green surroundings. The garage wall below becomes a ‘new city wall’ with a permeable mix of greenery and social functions. Ramps run up to the rooftop park, making it accessible for locals from various points in the neighborhood.
By its green corridor, a new ground level square, and the public park atop the parking garage, Duet benefits from natural and social systems.’
