THE TRIO AT DISTRICT E
26 Jul 2017
Powerhouse Company’s new mixed-use hub, District E, will feature a trio of skyscrapers, an urban plaza and several public greenspace facilities for the locals of Eindhoven in The Netherlands.
The team at Powerhouse Company have won a competition to create a new mixed-use hub in Eindhoven, Netherlands. For the competition, Powerhouse teamed up with landscape architects ZUS and developer Amvest to design a trio of skyscrapers forming the winning proposal for a new urban plaza, called “District E”. The 70,000-square-meter proposal will be located next to Eindhoven Station.
“The flexible construction and installation technology of District E anticipates the future growth of Eindhoven as a sustainable, innovative and economic hotspot. The seamless integration of architecture and landscape design guarantees a new public space filled with activity and a wide spectrum of green spaces” – Powerhouse Company.
Three tall towers collect in corresponding plinths, ranging from 76 to 158 metres in height. The towers will combine a residential program of approximately 450 homes, 20 percent of which will be social housing. A mixture of public amenities will be added, ranging from a hotel, shops and restaurants, a student study centre, and exhibition spaces. District E’s new “city plaza” aims to balance the 17th-century buildings from the old Eindhoven centre alongside the large-scale 20th-century projects near the railway.
Powerhouse described the use of the plinths as a tool for the skyscrapers to be set back, ensuring that “Eindhoven station, a national monument, is honoured by giving it space and relating to its scale.”
A diagonal axis within the new urban plaza is another key element to the design, as described by Powerhouse:
“An essential and defining gesture in the design is the diagonal axis that visually connects the station and the ‘Philipstoren’, a monument and symbol of Eindhoven’s industrial and technological heritage. This axis cuts through the ensemble and in-so-doing linking the station’s square, the new city plaza and the '18 September' square like a set of beads on a thread” - Powerhouse Company.
All images © Powerhouse Company