Eight apartments inside a Zeeland barn, with under a month on site

In Brouwershaven, a harbour town in Zeeland, eight two-storey apartments are being built inside the silhouette of an existing barn. The load-bearing structure is fully prefabricated timber frame: production takes five to six weeks, assembly 2.5 to three, and the complete shell stands after less than a month of work on site.

The barn is a long, gabled volume, and the conversion keeps its roofline, gabled ends and dormers. Inside that outline, the building becomes eight two-storey apartments with a fully prefabricated timber-frame structure, its load-bearing panels manufactured off-site and delivered ready for assembly.

Every load-bearing element — wall, floor and roof — is engineered to fit the existing silhouette, and manufactured in the factory before it reaches Zeeland.

Production runs in parallel with the groundwork

For a building of this size, a traditional structural shell takes six to twelve months on site. Here, panel production takes five to six weeks and runs in parallel with the groundwork. Installation takes 2.5 to three weeks, and the complete timber shell stands after less than a month of work on site.

The factory weeks do not add to the site weeks. Production runs in parallel with the groundwork, and because the shell is built indoors, weather, labour availability and site logistics come off the critical path.

A fixed price per square metre, set before production

Every element is produced under controlled conditions using Dutch-developed technology and CE-certified materials from Steico, Rockwool and Gutex. Production is certified to ISO 9001, 14001 and 45001. The price per square metre is set before production begins, and the delivery date is written into the contract.

For the neighbours, the difference is the construction period: a few weeks of assembly instead of a year of active building site.

Uniqa's first apartment complex on a heritage footprint

Uniqa panels have gone into projects in Nijmegen, Zeewolde and Wijchen, and into Germany, Romania, Ukraine and Spain. Brouwershaven is the first full apartment complex Uniqa has built on a heritage footprint in the Netherlands. The structural model already shows the finished building: the walls, floors and roof of all eight units.