Linnaeusstraat police station

Two police stations, a parking garage, a personnel restaurant and a cell block have been contained in an austere brick casing which reflects the surrounding Berlage style scale.
The building functions enfold themselves around an apple green painted core with stairs, lifts and sanitary facilities. Due to a parking garage under the building being too expensive, it was included in the building volume, exactly between the local police station and the district office. The ramps wind their way halfway up the building, leaving the double height rooms free in which the personnel restaurant and public entrance are situated. Thanks to the lofty windows, the grooves in the finished concrete and the careful integration of cable ducts and window ledges, the inside of the facades has an allure which, together with the image radiated by the core, transcends the uncertainty of the flexible interior.
The brick building is adjacent to a railway viaduct and a busy access route to Amsterdam. The scale, the position and the facade finish are in between a building block and an object. Although the brick facade structure is very abstract, it is still very lively and expressive, thanks to the parking garage behind it, the corner windows and the varying design of the wooden frames. The extra panes flush with the facade, in the office facade openings, allow windows to be opened, despite the exterior noise. They also reduce the frequency with which the transparent varnished frames must be maintained. It is thanks to these differentiating additions and the omission of the frames on the street corner near the public entrance, that the brick casing reveals traces of the functions inside. And so it plays a double role, appearing to conceal the programmed sandwich but actually revealing a very physical projection of precisely that in the end; the facade is a filter but also a screen, composed of resources from the urban environment.
We were looking for a sober and functional building, in which we wanted to express the special character of the building by means of refinement in the details. With a view to the polluted soil and the costs involved in replacing it, we discussed the possible solutions for the required car park building at length with the client. We subsequently carried out extensive studies into the possibility of opening windows on the work floor, without being troubled by the levels of external noise. These principles were important factors in the design made.