Police Station Boxtel

Completed in the late 1990s, this translucent police station is situated on the edge of Boxtel, near the Dutch-Belgian border in the south of the Netherlands. Aligned with the East-West axis of its site, the office is defined by its rectangular volumes of varied dimension, which stagger, so as to created the appearance of an undulating façade that's at once open yet cloistered. One of these rectangular volumes projects southward from the office–though it's not quite cantilevered–and beneath this volume is the main entry. All façades are composed of vertical strips of channel glass, which are set in minuscule aluminum frames at each level's floor lines. The choice for channel glass allows the office to not only appear as translucent, but for the corners of some of its volumes to be rendered nearly transparent, which allows for the introduction of further natural light to the interior, in tandem with the countless elongated rectangular windows. Due to its site, which is bordered by two roads and sits opposite single family detached residences, the office's scale is at once contextually appropriate yet distinct in that its numerous components shield its true scale. Analogous to block of ice, this porous police station is at once fortified and publicly accessible.

Location
Bosscheweg 60
5283 WB Boxtel
the Netherlands

Program
Office

Size
8.070 m²

Date of design
1994

Date of completion:
1997

Project team
Wiel Arets, Dorte Jensen, René Thijssen

Collaborators
Lars Dreessen, Rhea Harbers, Harold Hermans, Ralph van Mameren, Dominic Papa

Client
Politie Regio Brabant Noord

Consultants
Bouwbedrijf van der Pas Oss BV, TEMA BV