Sustainable Renovation at Museum in Venlo, The Netherlands

Monumental Values

Museum van Bommel van Dam moved to the former post office at the Keulsepoort in the historic city of Venlo in The Netherlands. The national monument has been fully renovated, with BiermanHenket responsible for the design of the new modern art museum.

StoneCycling founders Tom van Soest and Ward Massa were both born and raised in the city of Venlo. They met the architect at WasteBuild in Amsterdam at the beginning of the design process. BiermanHenket showed great interest in our glazed brick slips made in partnership with Daria Biryukova of Studio Mixtura. We are proud to announce our collaboration on a part of the interior wall cladding for this project.

In this redevelopment, great value is attached to the preservation of the monumental features. All new systems and products used during the renovation are sustainable and circular.

Location: Venlo, The Netherlands
Client: Gemeente Venlo (Municipality of Venlo)
Design: BiermanHenket
Construction: Nico de Bont
Application: Furniture
More Info: Museum van Bommel van Dam

Impact

Waste upcycled with this project 546 kg

Local Waste Streams

BiermanHenket challenged StoneCycling to make a bespoke product for the historical building by upcycling local waste streams. The architect’s intention was not only to design a beautiful and functioning museum building but to let the new function of this building also be an impulse for the city.

Museum van Bommel van Dam was previously housed in a building designed by Jos van Hest in the Juliana Park of Venlo from 1971 to 2017. The “Keulse Poort” Main Post Office, waarnaar het museum nu is verhuisd, was built in 1938 according to a design by Chief Government Architect Hayo Hoekstra.

In the new plans, the traditionalist style of the building has been maintained. However, the facade at the terrace has been made more transparent. A new “periscope” on the roof offers a view of the city and the roof of the bulge on the side is now also accessible to the public.

After the renovation, Museum van Bommel van Dam has more than two thousand square metres of depot, studio, public and exhibition space at its disposal. A museum café and shop have been built on the ground floor. Here, StoneCycling’s sustainable materials are used as cladding for the bar and shop counter.

Venlo-based glass recycling company Scheuten delivered a local waste stream of recycled glass for use as glazing on top of the custom glazed bricks.

Waste-Based Glazing

Quarrying is a destructive industry to the environment. It has a direct impact on the landscape by leaving tons of waste material, which are not used. We aim to find aesthetic colourful applications for these types of waste streams, as well as by using waste from local ceramic manufacturers.

Glazed bricks have long been on our minds. We’re already fond of our Shine series, the Truffle and Wasabi. The special top layer that we developed from recycled materials is a real eye-catcher for the façade or interior wall cladding.

That’s why we decided to expand our Shine collection with a series of innovative and unique waste-based glazing. And since we believe in the strength of collaboration with industry specialists, we teamed up with Studio Mixtura, one of the most exciting new experts in this field.

During research and development, we worked with ABO Global and used metallurgical by-products that usually have very limited reuse. Within this project, Studio Mixtura provides the knowledge of an alchemist to further develop the extensive research for large-scale application of the glazes on our sustainable WasteBasedBricks® and WasteBasedSlips®.

Media Mentions

Museum van Bommel van Dam na bijna 5 jaar weer open [omroepvenlo.nl]
Definitief ontwerp museum Van Bommel van Dam enthousiast ontvangen [biermanhenket.nl]
Herbestemming Postkantoor Naar Museum Van Bommel Van Dam Veelbelovend Van Start [nicodebont.nl]
Museum van Bommel van Dam Venlo [biermanhenket.nl]
BiermanHenket presenteert plan Museum van Bommel van Dam [architectenweb.nl]
Plannen nieuw Museum van Bommel van Dam Venlo door BiermanHenket gepresenteerd [dearchitect.nl]
Presentatie definitief ontwerp nieuw Museum van Bommel van Dam [venloonline.nl]
Ontwerpvisie nieuw museum van Bommel van Dam gepresenteerd [venlo.nieuws.nl]
Schetsen voor nieuw museum gepresenteerd [omroepvenlo.nl]
Oud-suppoost ontwerpt nieuw Museum van Bommel van Dam [limburger.nl]

As a city government we are ambitious on sustainability and finding ways to reuse what is already there. When we were looking for some powerful local partners we were lucky to meet up with StoneCycling founders Tom and Ward, both born and raised in the city of Venlo. The materials, partners and products that we chose for the newly renovated museum in the heart of the city, have a high sustainable standard and a beautiful local presence.

Mark Huson, Projectmanager Municipality City of Venlo

As sustainability is in the core of our office, we intend to design with materials that come with its own natural colour without artificial applications. The absence of added colourings and paint brings us a very natural and unique material palette. We enjoyed co-creating with StoneCycling and developing a unique product with a low carbon footprint, based on regional collected waste.

Yvonne Segers-van Wilderen, BiermanHenket

The unique, natural and sustainable products of StoneCycling are not only aesthetically well suited to the van Bommel van Dam museum, but also to our aim to be a museum that makes a significant contribution to a healthy, social, clean and fair world. The combination of the architect’s design with the materials from StoneCycling makes for a real eye-catcher in the new museum!

Paulo Martina, Museum Director van Bommel van Dam

Products in this project

Custom Made WasteBazedGlazedBricks®

The special top layer that we developed from recycled materials (in collaboration with Studio Mixtura) is a real eye-catcher for the façade or interior wall cladding.

Find out more