SAWA in Rotterdam winner of ARC20 Innovation Award

SAWA in Rotterdam by Mei architects and planners is the winner of the ARC20 Innovatie Award. This was announced by the jury chaired by Marc Koehler .

ARC20 Innovation Award
With the ARC20 Innovation Award, the publishers want to stimulate promising ideas, products and processes that are innovative and feasible within the current task of building and architecture.

The prize aims to strengthen support for innovation. The aim is to stimulate experimentation and innovation in architecture and construction. Criteria for the ARC20 Innovation Award are creativity, functionality and future-proofing.

The 2 other nominees for this prize were Boomschaamte MBO College Zuidoost in Amsterdam by Marjan van Herpen Architect and The Growing Pavilion by Company New Heroes.

SAWA
SAWA is a 50 meter high wooden residential building with approximately 100 homes, 50 of which are mid-rental apartments.

What is special about SAWA is that the building is constructed as much as possible in CLT (cross laminated timber), whereby the different layers of wood are glued crosswise. CLT is very stable and can absorb large forces.

A building is being designed in collaboration with urban ecologists, where greenery is integrated into balconies, terraces and decks, thereby increasing the biodiversity of the district.

The starting point for the project is to make a complete wooden main supporting structure. This is designed with wooden columns, wooden floor beams and wooden floors. This creates a high degree of flexibility and free layout. The stability core is designed in concrete to make it slimmer and to prevent vibration nuisance from wind.

Pieters Bouwtechniek is the structural engineer for this beautiful project.