Maasberg Overloon

Client
Unit 6 of "JJI De Hunnerberg, De Maasberg" in Overloon is converted from an prison for adults into an autonomously functioning juvenile detention institution. The buildings for the living areas are renovated and two new living rooms are added. A new pavilion for education, visitors and offices is also part of the first phase of a master plan.

Concept
A new and more intensive interaction with the surrounding nature is aimed at for the youngsters. The open structure stimulates the daily shifts between living, learning and recreation. The resoluteness of the world which aims at the interior is partly removed, so that the youngsters can prepare themselves for their return in society.

The concept aims at an open, transparent building between the closed prison and the outside world. Visitors can throw a glance at the prison life and the youngsters can look at the outside world, the society in which they will return later on.


Space and material
For the flexibility at future changes in the program and treatment, the construction is situated in the side façades, the service pipes have been integrated centrally and the side façades are composed of elements which can be changed modularly.

By means of the light appearance and the placement of the steel frame on metal feet in the woodland soil, the volume seems to float in the wood. Because of the layered façade in steel, aluminium and Bankirai the building will be merged in the surrounding woodland scenery, showing different shades of grey.

The class-rooms on the first floor (for the youngsters) and the visiting rooms and offices (for visitors and staff) on the ground floor are functioning separately from each other by means of the two outside stairs in the head façades.

At the entrance to the visiting room there is a hall in which both functions are in contact with each other, dramatizing the moment of the meeting between the youngsters and the visitors. The severe measures and the rhythmic of the carefully detailed elements of the façade may lend a structure to the youngsters, which they need to proceed their way.

Photograph: Norbert van Onna