Kindercampus Zuidas to have rooftop garden with waterfalls

Above the still barren field of sand where the new Ravel residential district is to be developed, the new Kindercampus Zuidas has recently begun to appear. With a modest four floors, the building reached its highest point in February 2025. That is quite remarkable progress – the very first foundation piles for this primary school were driven into the ground less than a year ago. ‘The building is not permitted to be particularly tall and its construction is really quite challenging’, says foreman Gerald Prins from construction firm De Geus Bouw. ‘This is not so much because of the structure itself, but the details in the finishing.’

To demonstrate his point, Prins points at the two water-storing roofs (retention roofs) that will be right on top of the building. The roofs consist of crates connected together in a chain to collect rainwater and drain it away gradually. ‘The water collected will flow to the roof of the lower floor via two waterfalls on the façade’, he shows us as we are standing on top of the building. ‘On that lower floor, there’ll be a large rooftop garden through which the water will flow like a brook. It will then drain away into the school garden on the ground floor.’

We previously reported about this rooftop garden, which is also referred to as the green workshop (‘het groene atelier’). The garden is set to be the jewel in the crown for the new Kindercampus Zuidas building. It will be an educational roof terrace with a vegetable garden for teaching purposes. ‘Those waterfalls from the collected rainwater are quite extraordinary: you won’t see anything like them anywhere else’, says Prins. ‘But things like that also require creativity. You need to have pretty hard stone for the water to flow across, not too porous. At the same time, the water cannot be allowed to freeze when the temperature gets below zero – something that tends to happen with very hard stone. We’re currently considering granite.’

As we tour the building, the final touches are being put to the roof covering. It will soon be possible to start adding the water storage units and solar panels. But that is not all. Prins: ‘The building is more or less watertight. This week (March 2025), we’re starting on the finishing work. All of the pipes for the underfloor heating on the ground floor are in position and we’ll soon begin to pour the cement screed floors. But we also have to fit the interior walls and do the glazing.’ This month, work will also begin applying the sand-coloured brick façade.

Fitting glass here will also be quite challenging in some places, explains Prins. This becomes clear when we reach the top, extra high storey, which is designed for use as a gymnasium. ‘As you can see, the windows here will soon cover the whole storey, from floor to ceiling’, he says. ‘It’ll make the gymnasium particularly light and airy and accessible. Those windows are extremely large and, of course, very heavy: they’re made from special safety glass. In order to fit them, the scaffolding needs to be removed first, since they can’t be hoisted into position otherwise.’

You might imagine that building on such an expansive flat area would also have numerous (logistical) advantages, especially when you compare the site with other places in Zuidas. ‘Don’t be fooled’, says Prins. ‘Remember, we’re building right next to the existing Kindercampus building (the new school is just a few hundred metres to the west, Ed.). And, on the other side, work recently started on the construction of the Ravelly residential tower. Putting a large crane here is not easy to do. Just like elsewhere in Zuidas, it’s a question of careful manoeuvring and coming up with creative solutions.’