The former office building called the Groene Toren in the center of Eindhoven has been converted into appartments and a hotel. In addition to a new functional layout of the floor plans, the façades have been completely renovated.
Placed between the original concrete belts are floor-to-ceiling aluminum facades, which makes the building look more slender and open up to the city. Diederendirrix made the architectural design for the transformation.
Architect Paul Diederen: ''the Groene Toren looks more slender and opens up more to the city.''
Distribution of functions
The first to the seventh floor have been transformed into a four-star NH-hotel with 132 rooms. The hotel also has six conference rooms and a gym on the first floor.
The eighth to twelfth floors have been converted into 104 short-stay apartments. The thirteenth floor has 8 short-stay apartments, the other half of this layer has been converted into a restaurant that belongs to the NH hotel.
The restaurant is connected to the rooftop bar on the fourteenth floor via an open staircase and a new lift. The bar has a roof terrace on three sides with a panoramic view over the city. The residents of the apartments have a separate roof terrace. The existing restaurants on the ground floor have been renewed.
Maintaining concrete façade tires
The 50-meter high building is completely stripped, while retaining the concrete support structure and façade tires. Architect Paul Diederen has done a lot of effort to preserve those concrete façade tapes.
Nothing has changed in the new situation, the cold bridge has been solved by using an insulated floor strip that is covered with aluminum typesetting. "This strip can be read from inside as the aluminum plinth / strip for the frame.
Storey high folding windows
"All windows and the green façade panels inbetween have been removed. We have kept the tower's distinctive green appearance through the façades with floor-high bronze-colored aluminum façades from Reynaers Aluminium with green tinted glass ", explains Diederen.
In total, façade builder P. van Hoesel has installed no less than 5100 m² of aluminum frames and curtain walls. The new glass façade makes the building lighter and more accessible. "The frames span the entire floor height from concrete strip to concrete strip. The narrowing in the concrete belts at the location of the end façades is thus also reflected in the height of the frames. A nice piece of custom work.
The lofts and hotel rooms have folding doors and internal French balconies, so that residents and hotel guests can open a large part of the façade. French balconies with folding doors are also included in the fitness room and in the restaurant. The rooftop bar can open the façades almost entirely on three sides with multiple folding doors, so that the interior space is in open communication with the roof terrace. "On summer days, many open folding windows provide a dynamic façade," says Diederen.
The glazing of the tower is not uniform as a result of differentiation in noise load (traffic noise). In order to obtain exactly the same green appearance around the glass, the outer leaf of the double glass used is uniformly designed as 8 mm thick, colored green glass. The inner leaf is blank and varies in thickness according to the building-physical requirements that are set for this.
