prijsvraag 2019 / Schunck Heerlen

With the Rooftop Project the city of Heerlen has the ambition of putting itself on an international map of interesting urban cities. Just like for instance Linz, Rotterdam and Amsterdam, Heerlen wants to organize festivals and activate the rooftops in the city centre.

Within the region Parkstad Limburg, Heerlen is both geographically and mentally the centre and capital. In this design proposal the seven interventions are designed as 7 graphical capitals: H - E - E - R - L - E - N

A rooftop project is always about perspective and different points of view. First: the view from street level to the roofs. Secondly: the view from the roofs down to the city. Nowadays everyone uses apps like Google Maps on their smartphone. So by magnifying the capitals Heerlen puts itself literally on the map of satellite images. By this approach a third perspective is added that can only by experienced from the sky. The interaction between these three perspectives leads to fascinating spacial experiences.

Every Capital, within the seven that spell HEERLEN, has a different use related to the wishes of the owners and the form and function of the building below. The proposal can be seen as reinterpretation of the Architectural Alphabet by Johan David Steingruber (1773) but then in an artistic way that fits Heerlen’s functionalist architecture.