New center building Ganvie Village is anything but standard

The new center building Ganvie Village at Beekse Bergen Lake Resort was recently inaugurated. A monster job for the builders involved, given the size, the unique architectural style and the short time frame of realization after the fire on June 16, 2021. The new center building is far from standard and this is reflected, among other things, in the details and complexity of the steel structure.   

A huge blaze completely destroyed the center building of Beekse Bergen Lake Resort last year. "The building was beyond saving," Maikel Claassens, General Manager of Beekse Bergen Lake Resort, remembers the fire like yesterday. Still, he quickly went about his business. "Almost immediately after the cleanup, the first sketches for a new center building were already emerging on the drawing board. As a result, we were operational with a new center building in the space of only eleven months (!). On April 22, just before the May vacation, the soft opening for guests took place. After several additional weeks of dotting the 'i's', the official opening was on June 2."

Village by the water

The architectural style for the center building was inspired by the Ewe culture, an African people group that lives by the water. "You can see this reflected in the materials, earthy tones and color schemes," Claassens says. "We find it very important that nature, the landscape and our buildings fit together perfectly. Ganvie literally means 'village by the water,' and that is exactly what the center building stands for with amenities like a restaurant and a swimming pool, located on our own Lake Victoria." 

The supermarket, on the other hand, is disconnected from the center building and is now located in a separate area, but can be accessed "dry" from the center building. Ganvie Village is also completely gasless, has solar collectors on the roof to heat the swimming water and features an electrolysis system that converts salts salts into natural chlorine.

Every detail is unique 

To realize the new center building as quickly as possible, Beekse Bergen called on many local entrepreneurs. For example, Reijrink Staalconstructie from Esbeek took care of the complete steel construction of both the center building and the adjacent supermarket. "It was a bit of trial and error in terms of planning, but for such a project with great social importance and involving many local entrepreneurs, we are happy to make time," says technical director Frank Reijrink. "We are familiar with Beekse Bergen and in the past we also had the opportunity to make the steel structure for the center building on the other side of the park. This project, however, was of a different order. Especially the combination of steel, concrete and wood as well as the tight planning made it quite complex. Every detail is unique in the center building with extremely complex junctions and many special tilt cams for the fire compartmentation. You usually only see the latter in much larger buildings."

Fasteners 

The total scope for Reijrink Staalconstructie was about 88 tons of steel. "In terms of tonnage, it's actually not that bad," Reijrink acknowledges. "However, except for the construction of the supermarket, it is all very laborious construction work that we had to deliver in small sections in phases each time. We spent over 700 hours in the welding shop. With fairly standard construction work, we can process as much as 3,000 tons of steel in that time frame, here we didn't get beyond 88 tons." Less complex, but certainly no less important, were the fasteners. "For the supply of bolts, nuts, threaded ends and hook anchors, we have for many years relied on Kyocera-Senco, which distinguishes itself with fast service and complete delivery. It is disastrous for us if we find out on construction that a delivery is not complete." Hendrie Mulleman of Kyocera-Senco knows this better than anyone else and says, "Complete delivery is our basic objective, we are keen on that. Thanks to our large stocks, we can deliver on that."

Assembled hook anchor sets

During the engineering and production process, Reijrink maintained close contact with Houthandel van Dal, supplier of the timber structure. "All the different building materials are actually connected to our steel structure and lean on complex steel nodes," says Reijrink. "The great thing was that Kyocera-Senco was also allowed to supply the fasteners to Van Dal." Mulleman adds: "Indeed, we gained a new customer from this project." In addition to delivering in exactly the right quantities, Kyocera-Senco is able to combine items into bags/boxes (kitting) and supplies fully assembled hook anchors sets or custom threaded ends if required. "Such time-consuming operations for our customers, we gladly take over. It is appreciated by our customers whom we completely relieve in the area of fasteners."

"Experiencing a fire is terrible, the previous center building of Beekse Bergen Lake Resort had just been renovated, but it did give us the opportunity to build a sustainable and future-proof building," Claassens summarizes. "The construction went extremely well, despite the enormous pressure on the schedule, and the end result is beautiful. Ganvie Village lives up to its name. A handsome achievement by all parties involved."