Underground Parking Katwijk aan Zee

Underground Parking Katwijk aan Zee
The new underground parking garage in Katwijk aan Zee is the result of a multifaceted commission granted to Royal Haskoning DHV by the Municipality of Katwijk. Royal HaskoningDHV is responsible for the architectural design of the underground parking and translated this design into a Building Quality Plan. Based on this Building Quality Plan, Ballast Nedam, in cooperation with ZJA, engineered the integral design (architectural, functional, structural and installation) for the realization of the parking garage.
The Building Quality Plan includes detailed information, definitions, drawings and visualizations of the architectural design, the layout of the garage, the public entrances, the entrance‐ and exit ways for vehicles, the emergency exits, as well as the architectural design and guidelines of the signage (routing, orientation and identification).
The architectural design of the parking garage builds forth on the Design of Katwijk’s Public Space, developed by OKRA Landscape Architects, and respects and adheres to its conditions.
The parking garage is part of Kustwerk Katwijk, a project which seeks to protect the coastline of Katwijk aan Zee in the Netherlands. The design team of this coast protection project took an integrated and multi‐disciplinary approach to this project, taking into considerations the need for defensive coastal protection, functional parking requirements as well as the desire for a landscape design which is related to its coastal environment.

Location
The underground parking garage holds 663 parking spots, hidden inside sand dunes along the coastline of Katwijk aan Zee. The location of the parking garage, in between the newly built town’s dike and the boulevard of Katwijk, makes this project quite unique in the Netherlands.
To maintain and strengthen the relationship between the village and the beach and to improve the public space, the design team proposed to hide the parking garage inside the dunes. The long and small elongated shape of the parking garage (500 meter) needed great attention to its functionality. The design team respected the fact that users need to quickly orientate themselves when inside the garage, and quickly find their way out to either the town or the beach.

Naturally embedded in the landscape
The architectural design of the parking garage builds forth on the design of the public space, developed by OKRA landscape architects, and respects and adheres to its conditions. The result is that the underground parking is carefully embedded into its natural dune environment. These man‐ shaped dunes, which are shaped organically to create subtle entrances and exits, not only ensures that the character of the dunes stays intact, it also let natural daylight flow into the underground parking garage, benefitting the orientation within the long, elongated parking garage. The design also ensures that the colors and materials used, fuse seamlessly into the urban fabric of Katwijk aan Zee and its characteristic dune landscape. In the evening, the entrances and exits of the underground parking, light up with different colors to become beacons along the coast.
OKRA Landschapsarchitecten
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