Water Tower

On the outside nothing seems to have changed. The tower looks like when it was built in 1895. But if you enter the big round brick building you experience an enormous white sculpture; it stares at you inviting you into another world, that of meditation. In the design for the narrow monumental water tower, where the creation of m2 for the new functions and the internal introduction of a fire escape forms the assignment, the legibility and respect for the monumental spaces become the biggest challenge and it’s most formidable quality. The crucial starting-point has been the combination of all facilities with the closed staircase and the situation of this as a huge piece of furniture in the middle of the space as main structuring element. The staircase which forms a meditative labyrinth climbing upwards forms the expression of the new functions and creates a route which offers varied experiences and triggers different emotions. At the same time it brings you to the climax of the tower: the steel tank where a cafeteria is placed. The new introduced form contrasts strongly with the existing. The staircase directs by its tight geometry and the gleaming white finishing, the attention to the hardness of the brickwork. The most important ingredient for the experience of the space is the use of light. By “rings of light” between old and new walls; led spots in the floors which, like little stars, seem to bring you into another dimension or indirect lightening, each space gets another colour nuance and pronounced environment. Exciting in the stair case, intimate in the meditation rooms, serene in the water tank.

http://www.archdaily.com/238588/watertower-rocha-tombal-architects
http://www.architectenweb.nl/aweb/projects/project.asp?PID=9094
http://www.dearchitect.nl/projecten/2008/ARI+28/Delft+Rocha+Tombal+Meditatiecentrum/Delft+Rocha+Tombal+Meditatiecentrum.html

Program | Meditation centre with course-rooms, café and Water-shop
Client | Anne-Marie Vegh en Werner Bremer
Construction | Soeters bouwtechniek b.v., Papendrecht
Contractor | Zeelenberg’s Timmerwinkel b.v., Delft
Photography | Christian Richters
Architecture | Ana Rocha and Michel Tombal (Rocha Tombal architecten) with Paul Ketelaars and Volker Goldstein, Tjerk Boom,
Iwona Wozniakowska, Enrique Neira, Enrique Abad Monllor

PDF Watertoren Delf  | PDF Watertoren Delft ENGLISH

Press Water-Tower, Delft:

Architecture in The Netherlands
Yearbook 2008/2009
NAi Publishers

“De Watertoren, Delft“
Volkskrant,January 16th 2008

“Serene sfeer in stalen reservoir”, Kirsten Hannema
De Architect Interieur, May 2008

“Meditatiecentrum Delft, van nood tot deugd” by Pierijn van der Putt
Pi interieur, April May 2008

“De Watertoren, wervelkolom naar heldere ruimte”, Robert Muis
Mark, April May 2008

“Waterworld”, Arthur Worthmann
A10, March April 2008
“Meditation labyrinth”

Architectuur NL
Feb 2008, “Meditatiecentrum in een watertoren” , Anka van Voorthuijsen

Arq/a
“Reconversao de deposito de agua em Delft”, January 2009

Bouwen met staal
Dec 2007, “Herbestemming watertoren Delft, Voetreis in honderd stappen”, Henk Orsel

Mais arquitectura
March 2007, “Deposito de aqua”

C3 Publishing Co./Korea
July 2010, “Meditation Center in Water Tower”

Architectenweb Magazine AWM
Mei 2008, “Mediteren in een watertoren”

Bouwprojecten
Reed Business bv, 2008
“Restauratie-, amusement- en recreatiegebouwen,
Meditatiecentrum Watertoren”

UA_Shanghai
Nov 2008, “Meditation center in former Watertower”

De Architect Interieur LAI 2008
November 2008, “Metamorfose van een monument” by Pierijn van der Putt
Nominatie Juryrapport Lensvelt, de Architect interieurprijs 2008

Podium, feb 2008
“Watertoren Delft na 10 jaar weer open”