The International Institute for Geo-Information Sciences (ITC) is a special faculty at the University of Twente. Students from all over the world come to Enschede to investigate how they can make their country of origin more sustainable. The Faculty building is a home address, a meeting place and a sustainable symbol for them. The building houses education rooms, laboratories, a large study centre, offices, a restaurant and four patio gardens. The faculty is situated in the existing building named Langezijds, a former laboratory of 220 meters long and 38 meters deep from 1972. The building is made up of a low concrete ground floor and a high steel first floor. The poetic beauty of the existing building is central to the design of both the architecture and the interior. The materials of the new elements are robust, the details refined. Only colours of material are used, no paint. When you enter the Faculty you see a large staircase in steel and concrete. Saddle leather cushions are there for comfort. New layouts have been made with blank steel inner walls and oak window frames. The distribution furniture in the restaurant, pantries, cupboard walls and other fixed furnishings are designed in wood and concrete with refined details in brass. The principle for the materialization can even be found in the loose furniture. The bases of the tables are not coated, the welding crawls remain in sight. You can see how everything is made, pure and honest.

Design team ITC: Civic Architects, VDNDP, Studio Groen+Schild, DS Landscape Architects, Arup, Valstar Simonis, Schreuders Bouwtechniek, Multical

Photography: Mike Bink and Stijn Bollaert

Projectteam Studio Groen+Schild:
Ellen Schild, Thijs Bongers, Rosanne Bommartini