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17 September 2019

Words: Kirsten Hannema

It has in the Netherlands, where Winy Maas, De Toeverlaat and other Dutcharchite!s are repairing widespread damage in Groningen. It’s meant rethinkinghow buildings are commissioned and learning earthquake-proof design

For half a century the province of Groningen in the north-east of theNetherlands was seen as the gold coast. After the Dutch Petroleum Society,Nederlandse Aardolie Maatschappij (NAM), discovered a huge gas bubble on theterritory in 1948, hundreds of billions euros worth of gas was extracted there.

But at the beginning of the 1990s the earthquakes started, caused by prolapses inthe ground as a result of the gas extraction. Relatively small at first, they causedcracks in walls and roads, and then their frequency and gravity increased. To

Buildings being propped up are a familiar sight in the region because of gas drilling. Credit: Kees vander Veen

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date, more than 1,100 earthquakes have been reported, the largest on 16 August2012 at the village of Huizinge, 18km north east from Groningen. It reached 3.6on the Richter scale and caused 80,000 notifications of damage. And yetextraction continues.

Gradually Groningen and the surrounding area has become a disaster zone,where farmhouses are propped up with temporary wall bracing and inhabitantscan’t sleep for fear of new tremors. For decades, local resistance to the gasextraction wasn’t taken seriously by politicians 235km away in The Hague. Butwhen another heavy quake of 3.4 on the Richter scale hit the village of Zeerijp inJanuary 2018, something had to be done.

After months of haggling between the parties, the economic affairs minister EricWiebes announced a new damage protocol that would force a breakthrough inthe endless legal procedures being launched in the battle against earthquakedamage. One promise was that the gas extraction from the area would be slowedfrom 20 to 12 billion cubic metres a year, and an end date when the drilling willfinish has been set to 2030.

With this, at last, the earthquake-proof reconstruction of buildings and villageshas been able to start. Multiple measures are afoot and architects from all overthe Netherlands are being recruited to the cause. To help the inhabitants andclients in Groningen, the royal institute of Dutch architects, BrancheverenigingNederlandse Architectenbureaus (BNA), has set up an online ‘Whitebook’ of 50example projects in the earthquake area that are high quality and sustainable,and a pool of architects for residents and organisations in search of professionalhelp

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The village of Overschild asked architect Winy Maas from MVRDV to come upwith a vision for the restoration of the village, designed in consultation with itsinhabitants. Together with the Groningen based urban designer Enno Zuidema(now head of MVRDV’s urban design department) and the local designerscollective De Toeverlaat (‘The reliance’), this vision has been elaborated. And thecity of Groningen itself hopes to set a new earthquake-proof building standardwhen its new culture centre, the Groninger Forum, opens its doors this winter.

These are pioneer projects and a positive leap forward for the region’sinhabitants whose lives have been on hold. They create work for architects, but

Map showing the impact of earthquakes in terms of peak ground acceleration in the Groningen region.Credit: KNMI/vector-i architects

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are, essentially, about finding emergency and long-term man-made solutions toa man-made problem. At a time when people in the UK fear that the newgovernment under Boris Johnson will row back on regulations that bringimmediate halt to shale gas extraction if tremors of 0.5 on the Richter scale arerecorded, they are issues Britain may also need to face. Here too shale gas isbeing extracted, causing minor earthquakes; there are protests by localresidents, calls for new legislation and falling property prices – all while thelatest research suggests that the whole strongly contested exercise may onlydeliver a fraction of the gas promised by fracking firms and governmentministers. A 2.9 magnitude quake was recorded near Cuadrilla’s site nearBlackpool in August. So, if the worst happens, what can be learnt fromGroningen?

First, get the government in charge. In Groningen, thousands of people withdamaged houses initially had to negotiate with the petroleum company NAMabout whether or not it was earthquake-related and the amount ofcompensation. This caused a conflict of interests, a lot of irritation and delays. InJune minister Wiebes decided to hand over these tasks to the NationalCoordinator Groningen (NCG), which consists of 10 local municipalities, theprovince of Groningen and the Dutch government. The NCG now decideswhich houses need reinforcement and coordinates the rebuilding process as partof village and city renewal plans. Minister for internal affairs Kajsa Ollongren isresponsible for the execution, while Wiebes is responsible for safety in the area.The government will pay for the costs. In order to process the 19,000 requestsfor compensation more quickly, Wiebes has offered a fixed amount of €5,000 toanyone still waiting. This amounts to the average payout per damage report. Todate 6,152 damage reports have been sustained, equalling around €32.8 million.

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For some architects working in the region, the earthquakes have created theopportunity to review the area’s built environment as a whole, touching everyaspect from demographics to the thermal performance of buildings or removalof asbestos.

Rob Hendriks, co-founder of local design collective De Toeverlaat, thinks themost important thing right now is to acknowledge that the mega-project is ‘morethan a technical task’. ‘The spatial consequences of making structuresearthquake proof are immense, at the level of buildings as well as the urbanscale,’ he says. ‘There lies the opportunity for designers, just because they arecapable to connect different aspects.’ Together with his colleague EnnoZuidema, who moved from Rotterdam to Groningen to start an officespecialising in ‘shrinkage’ and ageing, they want to link solutions for quake-related issues to other themes that play a major role in this area to improvequality of life.

An unsalvageable farmhouse in the Groningen region being demolished because of safety concerns.Credit: Kees van der Veen

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At Overschild, Zuidema was a moderator of two evenings where residents couldexpress their worries about compensation, mortgages and where they could orcould not rebuild. He helped them to set up a Whitebook Overschild, noting thatresidents want to be involved, but don’t feel equipped to execute plans. His workthere has been about creating a vision for the village which bundles togethertheir wishes and ideas and supervising individual building plans.

Through the joint organisation of NCG, De Toeverlaat helped individuals withquestions about exchange houses, sustainability and construction systems.Hendriks says: ‘In this way they can make an informed choice of reinforcement,renovation or rebuilding, either with a contractor or the help of an architect. Atthe same time, we want to forge new collectives. The NAM treats every house asan individual case, which puts social networks under pressure. This is why weproposed to work on collective interests, like working with the same contractor,or living together during the construction.’ From the first 18 houses – one of thefour streets in this so-called cross village – 12 inhabitants have chosen DeToeverlaat as their architect. For the renovation of the next 90 houses, themunicipality organised a tender, won by De Toeverlaat.

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Meanwhile, at the village of Krewerd, 15km north-east of Overschild, arebuilding ‘experiment’ has been set up by the architect Fons Verheijen. He isknown for designing the Naturalis museum in Leiden, which was renovatedrecently and found itself at the centre of a legal case. Verheijen claimed therenovation was an infringement of his creation and eventually settled for €1.5million. With this money he started a foundation for ‘urgent’ architecturematters. One of the beneficiaries for the fund has become the Groningenearthquake area.

Verheijen wants to empower residents by providing everyone with theassistance of an architect, and wants to encourage experimentation too. ‘Mypoint,’ he explains, ‘is that you should start on a small scale, where you canquickly realise plans to get an idea of what works.’ This is how he came to

Construction of the new Forum cultural building was halted midway through to make the structureearthquake-proof. Credit: Design NL Architects

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Krewerd, a village of 85 people. As in Overschild he involved the villagers tocreate a village vision, which serves as a framework for people to rebuild theirhouses with help of an architect.

However, the earthquakes haven’t only raised issues about how to reconstructdamaged villages, but also how new structures are built and to what standards.The municipality of Groningen, for example, now realises that new buildingsneed to be earthquake proof. At an individual level, the city decided to set anexample with the Groninger Forum, a cultural megabuilding that will completein November. Construction of it started in 2008, but after the severe quake in2012 construction was halted in order to adapt the plan.

Knowledge of earthquake-proof techniques is limited in the Netherlands.‘Luckily our construction advisor ABT has a sister company in New Zealand,’explains project architect Pieter Bannenberg from NL Architects. ‘Thereearthquakes are a fact of life and they could get advice. People should be able toleave the building, which has a theatre hall for 500, safely, but there may bedamage.’

The previous design was far from ideal. ‘Usually, you either work with a treeconstruction in steel, which moves along, or a concrete “bunker” which can takeany blow. Our design comprises two concrete cores from which loads of steel hasbeen hung.’ With the help of advanced computer programs ABT manages tocalculate where extra steel should be added. ‘In the end you hardly see theadaptations.’

Over recent years several pilot projects for earthquake proof building have alsobeen realised, including a conservatoire in Groningen designed by BDGarchitecten, which is a ‘seismic’ construction with floors and bearing walls thatcan move along each other during quakes. The concert halls and practice roomshave been built as insulated boxes. NCG has also set up a programme for therenovation and reconstruction of 102 schools, using the opportunity toincorporate educational renewal and create zero emission (all electric) buildings.The first earthquake proof schools were opened in 2018 in Bedum andMiddelstum; the whole project should be completed by 2021.

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The flooding disaster that hit the Netherlands in 1953 resulted in the famousDelta Works, which boosted numerous initiatives to rebuild the country’sinfrastructure to ensure people would be safe. Do the Groningen earthquakesprovide a similar opportunity?

‘I once made the mistake during an information evening with villagers ofspeaking about how they would build the “house of their dreams”,’ saysHendriks. ‘People got pissed [off] and walked out of the door. But they will get anearthquake-proof and building compliant decree, sustainable and hopefullytypical Groningen house. No one is happy about it, but by now they feel we haveto drag the best out of this.’

Kirsten Hannema is a freelance architecture critic, writing for, among others,the Dutch newspaper De Volkskrant. She is also editor in chief of theYearbook Architecture in the Netherlands

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Case study: This Side Up, Meerstad, the Netherlands, designed by vector-iarchitects

This Side Up is a 180m house for a clinical pathologist and broadcast videoeditor/teacher in the new district of Meerstad, 7km from the centre ofGroningen. The clients approached architect vector-i in 2016. North-east of thecity, the location is within the earthquake zone on hazard line 0.17 peak groundacceleration (PGA). PGAs are the amplitude of the largest acceleration recordedduring an earthquake. Hazard lines determine the standards designers mustadopt, as well as the funds available from NAM towards the additional costs ofbuilding because of the earthquake threat.

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This Side Up is mainly constructed from timber to allow for movement in thestructure. Credit: Harry Cock

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The refund was calculated as a percentage of the clients’ total budget, resultingin a design based on the two. Traditionally housebuilding in the region was doneby piling with masonry on top, but during an earthquake this can cause floors toslide away from walls. Regulations now require movement and flexibility to bedesigned into the structure.

For This Side Up, timber was the most logical material. But vector-i also had toadhere to Meerstad’s design guide, which predates the earthquakes and is basedon a culture of brick. Consequently, the house keeps brick to a minimum ‘solidbase’ and maximises wood, creating a ‘flexible top’.

To prioritise movement, vector-i also minimised traditional piling in favour ofconnecting in different ways – for example, using metal anchor plates at almostevery joint between foundation and floors/walls/roofs, resulting in alightweight, light-footed structure.

There were many complications however. As part of new standards, distancesbetween the nails/screws used for timber frame had to be calculated and proved.Engineers differed on the thickness of the timber board required, so the architecthad to amend the technical drawings from 11mm to 18mm. Consultants wouldnottake responsibility for simple adjustments, causing further delays.

And as more research takes place in the region and more earthquakes happen,the PGAs change and the standards with them, making construction particularlycomplex and necessitating extra design flexibility.

Ben van der Meer, director, vector-i architects, and Isabelle Priest

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