| Porthos | |
|---|---|
Porthos in April 2006 | |
  Location within North Brabant | |
| General information | |
| Status | In use |
| Type | Apartments |
| Town or city | Eindhoven |
| Coordinates | 51°28′4″N5°28′29″E / 51.46778°N 5.47472°E |
| Construction started | Spring 2004 |
| Opened | 2006 |
| Cost | €24.5 million |
| Height | 101 m (331 ft) |
| Technical details | |
| Floor count | 32 |
| Design and construction | |
| Architecture firm | Engelman |
| Main contractor | Hurks |
Porthos is with its height of 101 metres (331 feet) the second tallest building in the Dutch city of Eindhoven. [1] The building is used as an apartment building and has a total of 108 units. [2] Porthos has 32 floors. [3]
The Netherlands is a country located mainly in Northwestern Europe. The European portion of the Netherlands consists of twelve separate provinces that border Germany to the east, Belgium to the south, and the North Sea to the northwest, with maritime borders in the North Sea with Belgium, Germany and the United Kingdom. Together with three island territories in the Caribbean Sea—Bonaire, Sint Eustatius and Saba— it forms a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands. The official language is Dutch, but a secondary official language in the province of Friesland is West Frisian.
Eindhoven is the fifth-largest city and a municipality of the Netherlands, located in the south of the country. It had a population of 229,126 in 2018, making it the largest city in the province of North Brabant, although 's-Hertogenbosch is its capital. Eindhoven was originally located at the confluence of the Dommel and Gender.
Porthos was built between the springs of 2004 and 2006. [1] [3] ING Real Estate Development was the developer of the apartment building. That company was given the task to renovate and expand a shopping center called Woensel. The municipality of Eindhoven asked ING to add residential use to the shopping center. The company added three residential buildings to Woensel, collectively called "De Drie Musketiers" (Dutch for The Three Musketeers ), of which Porthos is the tallest. [4] [5] Porthos was built on top of the shopping center. [4] Also an underground parking garage was built underneath the apartment building. [3] The firm Engelman designed Porthos with the help of the engineering firm Zonneveld. The costs of the construction amounted to €24.5 million. [1] [6]
The ING Group is a Dutch multinational banking and financial services corporation headquartered in Amsterdam. Its primary businesses are retail banking, direct banking, commercial banking, investment banking, asset management, and insurance services. ING is an abbreviation for Internationale Nederlanden Groep.
The Three Musketeers is a historical adventure novel written in 1844 by French author Alexandre Dumas.
Porthos consists of prefab concrete parts and because of that the building was topped out within one hundred days. When the prefab elements were placed on their locations, they already had been equipped with glass and pipes. The exterior of Porthos is made of ceramic bricks and aluminium. The chambranles consist of aluminium as well. [6] [7] A rooftop terrace, that is only accessible to the inhabitants of the penthouses, is situated on top of the apartment building. [8] All apartment units are owner-occupied and according to Gerard van de Ven, manager real estate at Hurks, seventeen units had been sold previous to the start of the construction. Almost all units had been sold by the time the building was finished, according to Van de Ven. [2]
Prefabrication is the practice of assembling components of a structure in a factory or other manufacturing site, and transporting complete assemblies or sub-assemblies to the construction site where the structure is to be located. The term is used to distinguish this process from the more conventional construction practice of transporting the basic materials to the construction site where all assembly is carried out.
A penthouse apartment or a penthouse is an apartment or unit on the highest floor of an apartment building, condominium, or hotel. Penthouses are typically differentiated from other apartments by luxury features. The term penthouse originally referred to, and sometimes still does refer to, a separate smaller "house" that was constructed on the roof of an apartment building.
On November 14, 2007, it was announced that Porthos won the 2007 Betonprijs in the category "execution". The judge said the construction of Porthos didn't cause much disturbance because of the short duration of the construction and because of the relatively small space the construction required. According to the judge, this was the result of the extensive prefabrication. [9] [10]
