Kruitfabriek - Field
While the façades are left to the wild, the roof is cultivated: together with Volle Grond, the Kruitfabriek gains a rooftop farm where residents and neighbours grow food side by side. Wild below, productive above, the building shows two sides of a living ecosystem working together.
The masterplan for the former gunpowder factory starts from a simple gesture: opening up the building. The central courtyard, once a closed and guarded heart, is now cut open towards the street. What used to be an enclosed industrial yard becomes a public boulevard that slices through the building, drawing the neighborhood inside and turning the site from a barrier into a shortcut, a meeting place and a new piece of city. The landscape design treats this passage as the backbone of the project, with paving, planting and lighting that guide visitors naturally from the street to the heart of the complex.
Along this inner street, the ground floor comes alive. Terraces spill out from workspaces, cafés and shared facilities, blurring the line between public space and private enterprise. Freelancers working at outdoor tables, neighbors stopping for a coffee and residents heading home all share the same lively environment. On the upper levels, a network of footbridges and outdoor walkways opens up the dwellings, so that front doors look out over the boulevard below. Access becomes a social experience rather than a purely technical one, and the courtyard is felt and seen from every level.
The atmosphere is defined by the honest presence of the old factory. Its structure of concrete and brick is exposed and carefully restored, keeping the traces of its industrial past visible. Against this robust backdrop, nature is invited to take back the building. Trees are planted in the inner street, providing shade, scale and seasonal change, while climbing plants gradually cover the façades and soften the hard surfaces. The contrast between rough masonry and growing greenery gives the project its distinctive character and lets the site evolve over time.
On the roof, the landscape continues in the form of urban agriculture, developed in collaboration with the organization Volle Grond. Vegetables are grown in raised beds, and chickens are kept alongside them, creating a small productive farm above the city. Part of the harvest supplies the restaurants on the ground floor, shortening the distance from field to plate to a few floors. The remainder is for the residents, each of whom can rent a small garden plot of their own. In this way the roof becomes a shared landscape that connects food, community and place, and gives the former gunpowder factory a new, regenerative purpose.