Video: Material reuse key to updating university's iconic center of learning

LEIDEN, Netherlands — In the late 1970s, architect Joop van Stigt designed a building for the Faculty of Humanities of Leiden University. Cluster Zuid is a beautiful piece of structuralist architecture that is now being thoroughly renovated by De Zwarte Hond architecture.

The reuse of most of the original building and façade is a notable achievement. Concrete columns from the demolished central house were reused in the extension. Other materials were also given a new life. For example, the old Sequoia redwood ceiling panels were transformed into wall cladding in the atrium. These slats were carefully worked on, stripped of nails, and milled in collaboration with the social workshop BWRI. The specific pattern of the slats meant that everything could be prefabricated and installed, minimizing waste.

Read more; view slideshow.

Herta Mohr building Leiden University
Old Sequoia redwood ceiling panels were transformed into wall cladding in the atrium.


 

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Rich Christianson is the owner of Richson Media LLC, a Chicago-based communications firm focused on the industrial woodworking sector. Rich is the former long-time editorial director and associate publisher of Woodworking Network. During his nearly 35-year career, Rich has toured more than 250 woodworking operations throughout North America, Europe and Asia and has written extensively on woodworking technology, design and supply trends. He has also directed and promoted dozens of woodworking trade shows, conferences and seminars including the Cabinets & Closets Conference & Expo and the Woodworking Machinery & Supply Conference & Expo, Canada’s largest woodworking show.