Transformation 'De drie Stoepen' Prinsegracht The Hague
Client: MS Vastgoed 
Location: Prinsegracht 69, 71 & 73 The Hague
Duration: 2019 – 2025
Programm: 4.700 m2 Housing, garden, parking
 

The building was constructed between 1726 and 1730 as three stately Louis XIV-style city palaces, later popularly known as "De drie Stoepen" (The Three Sidewalks). For over 150 years, the three houses functioned as a single building, serving as a museum, court, official residence, seat of the Permanent Court of Arbitration, theater, pop venue, and offices.

Internally, much had changed—especially in the buildings at Prinsengracht 69 and 71. A twentieth-century extension stood at the rear. The original garden had disappeared and was converted into a parking lot. Of the magnificent interior, only two rooms, one staircase, and the three fanlights remained. The three city palaces were cluttered with small rooms and corridors, and the spaces, up to five meters high, had been lowered with mezzanines and suspended ceilings. The rear was cluttered with various twentieth-century extensions.

The chosen approach was to "clean up" the structure of the three buildings and make it readable again, both inside and out. The three entrances have been restored to their former glory and now have access to the garden. The front facade was restored in such a way that the subtle differences between the three buildings were made visible again by restoring windows and ornamentation and introducing subtle color variations between them. Half of the parking lot at the rear was freed up for a communal garden. And the extension has been replaced by a smaller "garden house" that recalls the vanished coach houses and garden houses that visually terminated the deep gardens in the eighteenth century.

The transformation was preceded by a thorough analysis and the development of an action plan, which was carried out in close collaboration with an architectural historian and the Monuments and Heritage Agency of the municipality of The Hague. The facades and roofs are insulated on the inside, the windows are double-glazed, and all houses have their own heat pump. PV panels are located on the roof, invisible from the street. A gas connection was no longer necessary. A construction team, along with the contractor and consultants, achieved a high sustainability ambition, achieving an A+++ label for the homes.

The 58 small homes were integrated into the existing shell like a puzzle, using lightweight wood and metal stud walls. The uneven floors were leveled, and the beamed ceilings were repaired and left exposed. The apartments were built reversibly within the existing shell: perhaps the small homes will eventually be combined again, or the residential building will once again become offices. The facades and structure can withstand this; the building will last for centuries to come.

Soon, more than 100 first-time buyers and students will live here in a building built three hundred years ago for three families—affluent and employed, to be sure—but one might wonder if this is progress and whether it exceeds the carrying capacity of the historic buildings. Young people affected by the housing shortage, unable to find homes in major cities, will see this differently: this project is an important addition of much-needed first-time buyers and student housing in the center of The Hague.