The Koelhuis (cooling house) opened its doors one last time on the former Campina site in Eindhoven. The monumental building will soon become a creative and technological breeding ground. During the Dutch Design Week, visitors will get a preview.
During the Dutch Design Week, all kinds of installations were installed in the building. They should make people think about the world we live in. “The large soap bubbles on the building symbolise the bubbles in real life”, Marjolein Vlaming, the designer of the large balls on the outside of the Koelhuis, says. “Those bubbles can burst”.
The special buildings in and on the building show the path the Koelhuis is taking as a creative place. The intention is that after the renovation, the industrial monument will have a function where technology and creativity come together. “There is no word for it in Dutch”, says manager Arnold van de Water, “but it will be a place for immersive experiences: a world where you enter with image and sound”.
The Koelhuis
The Koelhuis used to be part of the Campina factory, where hundreds of people worked. Tens of thousands of tons of ice creams were stored here and then sold from Groningen to Maastricht. “It used to be minus thirty degrees here, you were only allowed in here for thirty minutes. Cool to be here now”, a surprised visitor says.
Raw edges
After twenty years, the Koelhuis was decommissioned. Afterwards, squatters lived in it for a while and in 2017 it was on the list of buildings in Eindhoven that would be demolished. A stop has been put to that. “It is a very special building and really belongs to the rough edges of Eindhoven”, Van de Water says. Factorf is the company that is responsible for the renovation.
Source: Studio040
Translated by: Bob
