Rabobank Westelijke Mijnstreek Advice Centre - exterior

This bank with many self-employed individuals and entrepreneurs as its clients had a couple of requests to be fulfilled by the architects: the design had to be inspiring, natural, accessible, inviting and most important of all- it didn't have to look like a bank. Since many of the bank's clients are self-employed, the owners wanted to make it possible for them to make use of the facilities to do their jobs if they felt inclined to do so, which meant public co-working spaces had to be included in the project's program, becoming its most relevant feature.These working spaces are conceptually close to the way a public library operates, with a series of interconnected areas including individual work areas and group work areas and a public cafe for recreation purposes within work-hours. The project includes a series of floor-to-ceiling curtains which act as space separators in case one of the open areas needed to be turned into a more private one.