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Police Station Boxtel, Dutch Building, Wiel Arets Design, Photos, Architect, Holland Architecture
Police Station Boxtel : Architectural Information + Images
Boxtel Building, The Netherlands - design by Wiel Arets Architects
Boxtel Police Station
Boxtel, the Netherlands
1994-97
Design: Wiel Arets Architects
Photographs : Jan Bitter

pictures : Jan Bitter
The Boxtel building was commissioned by the Dutch regional police force and its design responds to the aim of the police to redefine their relationship with the general public and also within the police force through a process of “openness”. This openness is sought at the institutional level, yet it is also to be represented in its new buildings. Such an objective requires architectural research into combining the needs of security with a design conveying this sense of permeability.
The Police Station is sculptured, enabling its users to traverse the building through a series of spatial thresholds creating a cinematic oscillation between the garden and the interior, between the served and serving spaces. Its form creates an ambiguity in scale, which fluctuates between the industrial scale of its materials and the domestic scale found in the surrounding housing. A raised block creates an entrance void below allowing a momentary glimpse from the road and passing cars.

pictures : Jan Bitter
The building is enclosed in a homogenous skin of standardized, narrow, industrial profiled panels of matt, translucent glass connected to the main structure by an aluminum frame. Where required, differentiation is handled in a more subtle manipulation of the elements, producing the seemingly severe appearance of a gleaming, icy, alien body. In addition, the restrictive sun transmission regulations were reconciled with the skin by interpreting them as a percentage of the complete facade. This gave a freedom to manipulate the facade into a seemingly random arrangement of opaque, translucent and transparent areas depending on the functional requirements and the reconciliation of the conflict between openness and security.
Police Station Boxtel images / information from Wiel Arets Architects
Wiel Arets - Dutch architecture studio
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Wiel Arets Buildings - Selection
Hotel Zenden, The Netherlands

photo : Joao Morgado
Hotel Zenden
Maastricht Academy of Art & Architecture, The Netherlands

picture from Wiel Arets Architects
Maastricht Academy of Art & Architecture
Dutch Buildings
Maastricht Architecture Studio:
Wiel Arets (Amsterdam + studios in Maastricht & Zurich)
Dutch Architects
Comments / photos for this Police Station Boxtel Architecture page welcome:
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Police Station Boxtel Building - page : adrian welch / isabelle lomholt
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