Glaslaboratorium: once again a gem of Strijp-T in Eindhoven is being polished

The building where Philips began experimenting with all kinds of glass for special products after the war is now a mess. Various offices, warehouses and meeting rooms have been built inside. The asbestos has already been removed, and soon the old partitions and all the furniture will be taken out, so you can look right through it again. Then the three large halls, ten and seventeen meters high, will once again come fully into their own. ,,Then you see the enormous potential of this property", said Boudie Hoogedeure of owner/developer GEVA BV.

Depending on the wishes of the tenant(s), this space, in total good for 5,000 to 7,000 square meters, will then be reconfigured. Possibly with intermediate floors and box-in-box office and meeting rooms and, if desired, also cleanrooms. ,,That will be custom work", says Hoogedeure. One idea, for example, is to create a kind of meeting room in the highest part of TY, entirely in glass. But only if the new tenant also wants that.

Initially GEVA BV had already found a company, but it had to pull out again because of the coronavirus crisis. The new 'resident(s)' must fit with Strijp-T's 'make, create, innovate' motto. High-tech manufacturing industry with production is the most obvious, according to Hoogedeure. Even after the coronavirus crisis, he says, the need for workspace remains large. Although it will change. ,,You as a company still want to create an attractive, inspiring workplace. Where employees, if they come to work, can physically meet each other."

The halls were so high in order to vent the heat from the glass furnaces that stood here. What is special about the Glass Laboratory are the enormous window sections that are now partly whitewashed; they will have to be well insulated. And to keep the summer sun out, sunshades are being installed, because otherwise work cannot be done in TY, says Hoogedeure.

Strangely, the three large halls are on the first floor, above a high space on the ground floor. Between the two lower and the higher hall there is an intermediate section that is being converted into a corridor. Here will be the elevator, a striking spiral staircase and shared facilities for the tenants. It is possible that the old pipes for chemical substances that run through the building will be preserved as interior pieces that recall the history of the property.

At the end of the smaller halls an information center about building TY will soon be housed on a mezzanine, to a design by Marieke van Laanen of B-Happy, who is also based at Strijp-R. GEVA BV wants to receive and inform guests here in the 'experience room', among other things with virtual reality goggles. There is also a passage to the roof. A roof terrace will be built there, just like at TQ. "That is enormously popular; people like to look out over Strijp-T and -S. Maybe we'll hold a roof-terrace festival sometime with music everywhere," says Hoogedeure.

The entire Strijp-T business park - 25 hectares between Zwaanstraat and Achtseweg-Zuid - is owned by the real estate company from Best. Earlier the TR power station and the gigantic TQ building were already converted into collective buildings for high-tech companies. "Polishing the pearls of T," Hoogedeure calls it. "With respect for the past but with the comfort and the sustainability level of new construction." In the former pump building TAQ Settels Savenije established itself, with new construction next to it. TAB is a collective building and recently building TZ was renovated (the colorful parapets under the windows have been removed) and largely rented out.

Furthermore, a number of companies such as Dutch Aero of KWME, Draka and the Industrieveiling are still located in existing buildings. After redevelopment of TY, GEVA BV is investigating possibilities to add new buildings on the site. A new zoning plan for this will be adopted soon. The final discussions with the municipality of Eindhoven about this are currently underway.

On the website about building TY, among other things, a virtual tour of the plans can be seen.