Two projects in one

City Hall and City Office Heerlen

Corona seems far behind us, but recently it caused immense problems within the construction industry. Remote meetings, building materials that could not be delivered and then there was the Suez Canal blockade. Homij had to deal with it all during the construction of the E and W installations for the City Office and Town Hall in Heerlen. And yet they managed to make it a successful project, with a brilliant end result.

The renovated Council House in Heerlen originally dates from 1942 and was designed by architect Frits Peutz. It stands next to the new City Office, designed by Mecanoo architects. They are two separate buildings that nevertheless form a unit, flanked by a green public space. It is one project that consisted of two phases: first, the old City Office was demolished and the new one was delivered in December 2021. Then the City Hall was renovated, which was delivered just before the construction period.

City Office

The City Office is an understated building with a façade of whitewashed brick and window frames, which complements the adjacent City Hall very well. On the first floor, the two buildings are connected by a central entrance. On the inside, the new City Office has a void that runs from the first floor to the fifth floor. For climate control, this presented a challenge, says Frank Vossen, project manager for E- and W- installations at Homij. "The heat from the first floor must not shoot up to the fifth floor. To prevent this, we applied floor heating with low temperatures and a proper air balance on each level with its own supply and return."

The void also presented a fire engineering challenge, as sprinklers had to be installed everywhere. A 130 m3 water basin was created in the existing basement of the City Office for this purpose. "The basement basin is the only part of the building that remained," Vossen says. "In addition to the sprinkler basin, the technical rooms are located there."

City Hall

After the City Office was completed, it was the Council House's turn. It still contained many monumental parts, such as details in floors and ceilings. The monumental character had to be preserved, yet the installation had to be brought completely up to date. Heat and cold are supplied here by Mijnwater, a supplier of sustainable energy with the former mine galleries as source and buffer. Heat pumps are used to bring the temperature to the right level. Vossen: "The use of low temperatures means that you have to insulate the building much better. Then we looked room by room how we could best realize the heating: with underfloor heating, wall heating or convectors. In each room we used a different method. Where a monumental floor was present, for example, we sought the solution in the ceilings."

Unfortunately, not all of the existing ceilings could remain in view. After all, air ducts and cable ducts had to be concealed. Where new installations had to be mounted, a new ceiling was made. However, the old ceiling was retained for possible future renovations. Vossen: "The municipality did not want to compromise on comfort, so this was necessary for the ventilation and other installations. Sometimes there is a tension between architecture and technology."

Intensive consultation structure

The municipality of Heerlen chose the UAV-GC contract form for this project. This means that the project team, consisting of Mecanoo, Jongen, ABT and Homij, translated the demand specification into a concrete design themselves. This collaboration went smoothly, says Vossen: "Mecanoo is a world-renowned architect who details everything 'down to the last screw' and sets high standards. Because we were in a team together, we were able to coordinate everything. On all points we came out fine. It was an intensive consultation structure. Because it was corona time, 80% of the consultations went digital and we ran into delays due to material shortages. That created challenges, but we hear from building employees that they are very satisfied. Everything is working completely as it should."