Matchbox, a timber mixed-use building that stores more carbon than it emitted during construction, has opened at the entrance to Eindhoven’s former Philips manufacturing precinct. That is according to KAAN Architecten founding partner Vincent Panhuysen, who described the studio’s first timber project as “radical in its simplicity, refined in its detailing, and generous towards the city.”
Built around a prefabricated concrete stability core, the building rose at close to one storey a week on a frame of azobé columns, beams and cross-laminated timber floors. The project takes its name from the 22-centimetre façade grid set like rows of matches, a detail recorded by architecture title MetaLocus.
Set around a communal courtyard, 36 social rental apartments occupy the upper levels above an active plinth given over to retail, workspaces and a ground-floor café. The Trudo housing association holds the first two floors, while a rooftop garden over the plinth provides residents with a sheltered communal space.
The completion comes as European developers turn to engineered timber to cut the carbon embodied in concrete and steel, and KAAN Architecten has designed Matchbox as a CO₂-neutral building. The studio said the project meets a Dutch environmental-performance score below 0.5 and a disassembly rate above 25 per cent, describing it as “a crucial step towards sustainable building.”
Beside the 70-metre Trudo Tower, Stefano Boeri’s planted vertical-forest block, Matchbox holds to a sober, rational palette drawn from the early-modernist factories around it. Azobé forms the load-bearing frame and bamboo the infill panels, both left to weather to a silver-grey.
Delivery brought together client Trudo with engineers ABT, construction adviser Adviesbureau Lüning, main contractor Stam + De Koning Bouw and timber specialist Derix. KAAN Architecten said the building provides 36 social rental homes across roughly 4,700 square metres at the entrance to Strijp-S.
