Dutch firm KettingHuls has designed a restaurant pavilion in a park in Maastricht, The Netherlands, that allows trees to grow through its open structure. The studio has designed the Restobar Mama pavilion for the recently planned Vrijheidspark in the city’s Maastricht-East district. The park was laid out in the Koningsplein area as part of the two-kilometre Groene Loper greenbelt that runs over the new A2 motorway. Its landscaping features several oval green spaces, including one encircled by a low stone bench that marks the site of the pavilion.
The multi-sided pavilion consists of a round concrete terrace, a rectangular building volume, and a round, steel canopy. The carousel-like building is set in the middle of the oval with on one side a play area for children with hidden fountains and on the other the tables and chairs for the terrace.
The concrete benches in the brick façade are the starting point of a boot camp or running training. From circular apertures in the terrace, trees grow upwards past the steel beams of the canopy. Inside, the steel construction of the canopy continues as the construction of wooden, laminated beams with a concrete column in the middle of the building. The restaurant and kitchen form a T-shaped space with large glass façades.
The circular steel canopy and the trees can be decorated with lights, ornaments, and climbing plants. The round concrete terrace lies in a beige-coloured semi-paved area and forms the transition between the pavilion and the natural stone oval. The pavilion has solar panels over the entire roof, an EPC of 0, and is not connected to the gas mains. The outdoor unit of the heat pump is integrated with the building volume and located behind a wooden grille in the façade, along with most of the other required air inlets and outlets.
The brickwork façade is made with a leftover batch of terracotta module bricks from manufacturer Janinhoff. There were no fitting pieces or cornerstones available. Some of the blocks were therefore sawn, vertically or horizontally, to achieve the desired pattern, the dimensions of the façade and the position of the bench and window.
