The Red Apple
The Red Apple is a residential complex with shops, cafés and restaurants and business space that towers skyward at the head of Rotterdam’s Wijnhaven Island (‘Wine Harbour’ Island). The Wijnhaven Island forms a link between Rotterdam city centre and the River Maas. It is being redeveloped using a dynamic transformation model, which provides development guidelines that ensure a balance between new and existing construction as well as the preservation of fine views and sufficient incidence of daylight throughout the area. The Red Apple is a highly varied architectural mass that integrates some existing structures. With a great diversity of apartments in intimate urban surroundings, it satisfies the demands of modern lifestyles.
The Wijnhaven Island occupies a strategic spot between Rotterdam’s city centre and the River Maas. By allowing free-market forces free reign, this area should be transformed swiftly, resulting into a dynamic city quarter that is primarily residential. In the current situation, the look of this area is dominated by standard office buildings from the 1950s. By applying the dynamic transformation model, the redevelopment of Wijnhaven Island substantially increases the area’s capacity and improves the residential and environmental quality. At the same time, important qualities in the existing situation are preserved.
The Red Apple stands in a visually prominent position: at the tip of the Wijnhaven Island, with water on three sides and views across the River Maas and the Oude Haven (‘Old Harbour’). The existing block structure is retained to a height of 21 metres and integrates a number of the old office buildings into the new structures, in line with the stipulations of the dynamic transformation model. The southwest corner of the site is occupied by a slender tower that reaches a height of 125 metres and is clad in red aluminium plating. The ground-floor entrance is a spacious glazed lobby with lifts. On the floors above there are live/work loft spaces, while above the 21-metre level there are apartments of various sizes and four penthouses. Since all the apartments are diagonally oriented, the views are optimal.
The converging lines of Wijnhaven Island meet at The Red Apple, outlining a five-sided volume, part of which extends beyond the substructure as a cantilever. In this section of the development, apartments of various size are situated around an atrium, which is also the point of orientation for circulation routes. Thanks to large apertures in the facade, this atrium offers a stunning vista across the city. The apartments in this volume are also designed on the diagonal, so they all enjoy extraordinary views. This volume is also clad in coloured aluminium panels, but because of its large expanses of fenestration it has a distinctly transparent character.
The Red Apple is a collaboration between KCAP and interior designer Jan des Bouvrie. The building and its environs were designed for the modern urbanite who has a flexible lifestyle that closely interweaves living, working and relaxing. It therefore offers a wide selection of live/work lofts and apartments in a diversity of types and dimensions. The surroundings exude an intimate urban character thanks to the shops, cafés and restaurants that are set behind street-level facades of wood and glass. There are wooden jetties and terraces ranged along the pedestrianized streets, and two new footbridges improve access to the area. A new arcade traverses The Red Apple complex, substantially expanding the area of public space.
