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CONSTRUCTIONS AND MATERIALS
Looking closer at Het Baken discloses that the diamond-shaped building has actually got very sharp edges. In fact not only the corners are precise and sharp, but the roof is made the same way, which actually makes it a kind of a fifth façade or elevation instead of a traditional roof. Het Baken is a building without a conventional roof; actually the façade covers the entire sculptural building ‘body’.
The material chosen for this purpose was stone slates; a high-quality, waterproof and long-lasting ecological material. These stone slates emphasise and complement the look of the rock-hard diamond-shape even stronger. On top of the ‘roof’, elevators and some roof terraces are placed. As a contrast to the complexity of the shape, and for clear economical reasons, just one type of window has been used in the building on every elevation, again demanding high-quality and waterproof characteristics.
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VELUX windows have been chosen because of their waterproof qualities and high demands on every elevation of the building, despite the architect’s original idea of windows protruding from the elevator towers. The windows and the balconies create an abstract pattern on the facades, which could be compared with a Swiss cheese if it hadn’t been for the black colour. On the ground floor on the south-west side, the building has been designed entirely in glass.
INTERIOR
Inside, the building with its eight levels
creates a very special and quite unique room flow and division. The balconies have been made as precise cut-out ‘caves’ in the smooth façade-surface, which lets daylight play and forms the inner shape of the ‘rock/mountain’.
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