The Rozenprieel-project in Haarlem has a living facade! The unique, specially designed brick adds some extra green to the neighborhood and gives this project a social layer. Together with designer Chris Kabel we have devised a new facade that is brought to life by the residents.

The stone, from St Joris - Beesd, has a protruding part with a hole through where a steel wire is stretched. This helps climbing plants to grow upwards and to create a green facade. Residents can plant flowers here and thus make the neighborhood greener together. The green facade contributes to the quality of life in the area and refers to the historic estate Rozenprieel. Which was an inspiration for this project.

Our design is fitted into an existing building block from 1920 and houses twelve new homes. The houses have their own front door to the street, of which the four attic apartments also have their own entrance. Although we designed a new building, we see it as a repair of the city. The design does not imitate the old building, we carefully translated the historic characteristics into a contemporary design.

The continuous bands, the keystones and the roof molding form a dotted pattern in the facade together with the white stones. The dotted facade tells a story about the handicraft. Specially designed ceramics replaces the traditional woodwork. For the facades we chose a reddish brown wasserstrich stone, Mingo Falls van den Daas from Azewijn, Wienerberger. This stone fits well into the atmosphere of 19th century architecture, but is also contemporary. The perfect stone for a project that needs to be integrated into an existing environment!