Police Station Boxtel, Dutch Building, Wiel Arets Design, Photos, Architect, Holland Architecture

Police Station Boxtel

Boxtel Building, The Netherlands – design by Wiel Arets Architects (WAA)

11 May 2010

Boxtel Police Station

Location: Boxtel, the Netherlands
Dates built: 1994-97
Design: Wiel Arets Architects

Photographs : Jan Bitter

Police Station Boxtel Police Station Boxtel Police Station Boxtel
pictures : Jan Bitter

The Boxtel building was commissioned by the Dutch regional police force and its design responds to the aim of the police to redefine their relationship with the general public and also within the police force through a process of “openness”. This openness is sought at the institutional level, yet it is also to be represented in its new buildings. Such an objective requires architectural research into combining the needs of security with a design conveying this sense of permeability.

The Police Station is sculptured, enabling its users to traverse the building through a series of spatial thresholds creating a cinematic oscillation between the garden and the interior, between the served and serving spaces. Its form creates an ambiguity in scale, which fluctuates between the industrial scale of its materials and the domestic scale found in the surrounding housing. A raised block creates an entrance void below allowing a momentary glimpse from the road and passing cars.

Police Station Boxtel Police Station Boxtel
pictures : Jan Bitter

The building is enclosed in a homogenous skin of standardized, narrow, industrial profiled panels of matt, translucent glass connected to the main structure by an aluminum frame. Where required, differentiation is handled in a more subtle manipulation of the elements, producing the seemingly severe appearance of a gleaming, icy, alien body.

In addition, the restrictive sun transmission regulations were reconciled with the skin by interpreting them as a percentage of the complete facade. This gave a freedom to manipulate the facade into a seemingly random arrangement of opaque, translucent and transparent areas depending on the functional requirements and the reconciliation of the conflict between openness and security.

Police Station Boxtel images / information from Wiel Arets Architects

Wiel Arets – Dutch architecture studio

Location: Boxtel, Netherlands, northern Europe

Architecture in The Netherlands

Contemporary Dutch Architecture

Netherlands Architecture Designs – chronological list

Dutch Architecture News

Amsterdam Architecture Walking Tours by e-architect

Dutch Architect – design firm listings

Wiel Arets Buildings – Selection

Van der Valk Hotel, Amsterdam
Design: Wiel Arets Architects (WAA)
Van Der Valk Hotel - Dutch Architecture News
image from architecture studio
Van der Valk Hotel Building

Hotel Zenden, The Netherlands
Hotel Zenden Maastricht

Maastricht Academy of Art & Architecture, The Netherlands
Maastricht Academy of Art & Architecture

Dutch Buildings

Maastricht Architecture Studio:
Wiel Arets (Amsterdam + studios in Maastricht & Zurich)

Dutch Architect

Comments / photos for this Police Station Boxtel Architecture page welcome

Netherlands