Project Name: Watchtower Einderheide

Location: Bergeijk, Netherlands

Design Team: NEXT Architects

Height: 26 meters

Completion: 2024

Photography: Karl Banski, Koen Mol

Feature:

Project - NEXT Architects has completed the 26-meter-tall Watchtower Einderheide in Bergeijk, designed to offer visitors a panoramic view of the Brabantse Kempen forest while serving as a habitat for local bat species. The lookout tower integrates both recreational and ecological functions in a modest yet iconic structure that enhances the identity of Einderheide.

The design features a spiral staircase leading to the viewing platform, where visitors can experience the forest from various heights. The structure, utilizing laminated larch and pine wood, includes multiple openings and notches at different levels, offering unique perspectives as visitors ascend. The tower's characteristic shape allows for unobstructed views through and above the forest canopy.

In addition to its role as a viewing platform, the tower is designed to support the bat population by providing diverse habitats. Niches and cavities are integrated throughout the wooden structure, offering spaces for roosting, mating, and nesting. These features, developed with ecological advice from Jeroen Mos, replicate natural conditions, blending seamlessly into the forest environment. The wood used in the design, particularly laminated larch and thermally preserved pine, contributes to this integration, providing both structural stability and natural rough surfaces for bats to grip. The tower's base is made of a concrete foundation, which serves as a winter roost for bats. This nature-inclusive design follows other ecological projects by Amsterdam-based practice, NEXT Architects, such as the Bat Bridge and the Hopovers at De Centrale As.

Commissioned by the Municipality of Bergeijk and supported by the Province of North Brabant and Boskalis, the project involved collaboration with WSP, Mos Ecological Advice and Research, and H+N+S landscape architects. The Watchtower Einderheide stands as a functional landmark within the forest's recreational network, balancing human interaction with wildlife conservation. The project was longlisted for the Nationale Houtbouwprijs 2024 and was a finalist for the Archello Awards 2024.

Design Team - NEXT Architects is an international architecture firm established in 1999, working on design and research projects in urban planning, architecture, interior design, and infrastructure. Based in Amsterdam, the firm opened a second office in Beijing, China, in 2004. The practice is led by Bart Reuser, Marijn Schenk, and Michel Schreinemachers, and has developed into a diverse design team.

Connection forms the central thesis of NEXT's approach—evident in their broadly oriented design practice and growing portfolio of noteworthy bridges—literal connections. By thinking on a broader level about the role of design within an environment, connection forms not only the common thread through their portfolio but also their working method. NEXT Architects collaborates in multidisciplinary teams to approach projects in innovative ways. With their curious character, desire to think outside the box, and broad knowledge base, they can bring together the right specialists and stakeholders to provide solutions.

The strength of the office lies in developing strong ideas that become part of the specific context of a project in a convincing way. From exploration to inspiration, and from ambition to concept, form, and materialization—it revolves around the social, technical, and landscape context that makes each project unique. The most beautiful aspect of architecture is making ideas tangible, visualizing, specifying, and detailing to ultimately know for certain what they will create. By making what they conceive together, they are literally building the future together.

Over the years, NEXT Architects' designs have gained international recognition, with their work widely published in professional publications and honored with numerous international design awards. Their design methodology combines rigorous architectural planning with keen insights into user experience, successfully achieving a balance between aesthetic quality and practical functionality.