year | 2016
place | Curaçao
category | leisure
CRS
Curaçao Rooi Santu Resort Development, Curaçao
Compactness versus dispersion, a development centered around the principle: nature oriented living, via sustained development of locally respected environments.
The Curaçao Rooi Santu Resort is a development for 65 dwellings with common facilities.
The project site of Rooi Santu consists out of several hills that fan out in a sinewave pattern, like fingers attached to a giant hand clutching the landscape. By drawing perpendicular “lines” to this sinewave pattern we create a array of private subspaces in between where the green foliage can seep into the urban fabric. Effectively resulting in keeping the urban fabric soft and open, and guarantee the privacy for the new dwellings.
On one end the dwellings open up to an amazing panoramic view with layered terraces and on the other end the porches look out upon a green inner courtyard containing the public space. The porch acts as a secondary mass, an intermediate space to shield but also open up the living spaces to the community. This courtyard combines several common functions with a well-defined green space, creating a safe pedestrian environment shaded by trees. This generates a feeling of social safety and encourages the inhabitants to take part in a local community life.
The strategy pose a solution to a layered transition between private and common space but it also allows for better climatological living conditions. The strong east wind can freely pass through this open funnel-like shape and is guided towards each unit individually. The same applies to the occasional rainwater coming down the hill.
A mixture of unit typologies were sensitively designed for each hillside to respond to the local climatic conditions, to limit direct southern sunlight while at the same time allowing the passing wind to flow through and cool the north facing living spaces.
All the building blocks consist out of 2 units stacked on top of each other, generating a smaller footprint, with the sublevel units or studios running down the hill. Each with the most climatologically suitable typology for its specific orientation and location in the masterplan.
By following this concept two distinct neighborhoods arose. Area A on the north hill and B on the south hill. These different sites are separated by a green buffer and includes a running track. The common facilities are located at the end of the funnel and run down the hill in terraces which contain a swimming pool and a BBQ area. Here at the lowest point rainwater is collected in cistern under the terraces.
The challenge in this particular project is the combination of several parameters that occasionally contradict each other. The design brings the climatological and social parameters into the best possible harmony while still maintaining a strong architectural language that is open, light and flexible and has the possibility to promote local social life to thrive on its own pace.
This development is centered around a simple principle: nature oriented living, via sustained development of locally respected environments.
Design - Realization: 2016 -
Address: Rooi Santu, Caracasbaaiweg, Curaçao
Client: MIC. Marcellis Infra Consult NV
Project Team:: Jo Janssen, Prof. Ir Wim van den Bergh, Arabella El Ginawy, Alexander Brepoels
Collaboration: Paul Spiertz, MIC. Marcellis Infra Consult NV
Compactness versus dispersion, a development centered around the principle: nature oriented living, via sustained development of locally respected environments.
The Curaçao Rooi Santu Resort is a development for 65 dwellings with common facilities.
The project site of Rooi Santu consists out of several hills that fan out in a sinewave pattern, like fingers attached to a giant hand clutching the landscape. By drawing perpendicular “lines” to this sinewave pattern we create a array of private subspaces in between where the green foliage can seep into the urban fabric. Effectively resulting in keeping the urban fabric soft and open, and guarantee the privacy for the new dwellings.
On one end the dwellings open up to an amazing panoramic view with layered terraces and on the other end the porches look out upon a green inner courtyard containing the public space. The porch acts as a secondary mass, an intermediate space to shield but also open up the living spaces to the community. This courtyard combines several common functions with a well-defined green space, creating a safe pedestrian environment shaded by trees. This generates a feeling of social safety and encourages the inhabitants to take part in a local community life.
The strategy pose a solution to a layered transition between private and common space but it also allows for better climatological living conditions. The strong east wind can freely pass through this open funnel-like shape and is guided towards each unit individually. The same applies to the occasional rainwater coming down the hill.
A mixture of unit typologies were sensitively designed for each hillside to respond to the local climatic conditions, to limit direct southern sunlight while at the same time allowing the passing wind to flow through and cool the north facing living spaces.
All the building blocks consist out of 2 units stacked on top of each other, generating a smaller footprint, with the sublevel units or studios running down the hill. Each with the most climatologically suitable typology for its specific orientation and location in the masterplan.
By following this concept two distinct neighborhoods arose. Area A on the north hill and B on the south hill. These different sites are separated by a green buffer and includes a running track. The common facilities are located at the end of the funnel and run down the hill in terraces which contain a swimming pool and a BBQ area. Here at the lowest point rainwater is collected in cistern under the terraces.
The challenge in this particular project is the combination of several parameters that occasionally contradict each other. The design brings the climatological and social parameters into the best possible harmony while still maintaining a strong architectural language that is open, light and flexible and has the possibility to promote local social life to thrive on its own pace.
This development is centered around a simple principle: nature oriented living, via sustained development of locally respected environments.
Design - Realization: 2016 -
Address: Rooi Santu, Caracasbaaiweg, Curaçao
Client: MIC. Marcellis Infra Consult NV
Project Team:: Jo Janssen, Prof. Ir Wim van den Bergh, Arabella El Ginawy, Alexander Brepoels
Collaboration: Paul Spiertz, MIC. Marcellis Infra Consult NV
