Transitionary rhythms

In Kleiburg, the ground floor apartments have an opening also at this side of the building. So their entrances face directly to the street. For the upper floor apartments, there are in total 3 entrances, connected to bike parking spaces and storages. The 3 underpasses happen to be more visible at this side, since there is a direct street that connects to them horizontally. The path from the metro station in Kleiburg conveniently connects to this zone.

Parallel to the entrances for the apartments, there is the driveway with car parking spaces all around. At both extremes of the driveway, there are also two large parking lots. Since there are different possibilities for the residents to park their cars, the movement towards the building at this rhythm zone takes place from different angles. For this reason, one may not very often see people walking all the way from one end to the other. The layout of the zone interrupts the linear movement, guiding the people from and towards different entrances.

The plinth level of Kleiburg hosts different functions, such as a church and a brewery (Kleiklooster), a men’s hair salon and offices. Thanks to this, visitors from outside can be seen coming here. The cars that park close to the building during the day are mostly trucks for delivery or for maintenance.

In comparison to Kleiburg, the transitionary rhythm zone in Kikkenstein is quite exciting. The physical elements that immediately catch the eye here are the 3 main entrances to the apartment buildings. These are stairs and elevator units that lead to the first floor, where there are also the shared spaces of the building. At the plinth level of the building on the other hand, there are only doors for the storage spaces. Exceptionally to this, there is a Kinderopvang at the plinth. Although the building doesn’t have many active connections between the inside and the outside, the gallery on the first floor with shared spaces give a balance to this situation. During the day, many people pass by these galleries to go to one of the rooms. These are mostly elderly and the children.

Parallel to the pedestrian street that goes along the building, there is a driveway, similarly to Kleiburg. This street does not specifically lead to somewhere, it ends at the northern extreme of the building. For this reason, the movement on both the pedestrian and car streets are linear, starting from the southern end towards the northern end. This is also influenced by the location of the shopping area, which is at the southern side.

Although the driveway does not specifically lead to somewhere, it functions very well as a temporary parking place for cars. The parking spaces for this building are in 5-8 minutes walking distance so many people come closer here with their cars for bringing groceries or picking up their kids from the kindergarten.

Similar to Kleiburg, in the morning and in the evening there is a lot of traffic. In Kikkenstein though, there are more mothers with kids that walk towards work or school. In the early afternoon, there are men hanging around right under the galleries. In the afternoon, around 4pm, there are many people walking towards or coming back from the shopping street. While more towards the evening the car traffic gets more active; boys park their cars at the driveway and put on music.