A Community for All in the Heart of Oss

Linck is built on the conviction that a neighbourhood works when it is genuinely shared. An ensemble of four buildings frame a continuous public landscape. At the fourth floor they are connected by bridges that link communal rooftop terraces, a shared kitchen, and an urban greenhouse. More than half of the 198 homes are social housing, anchoring demographic diversity at the centre of Oss. The site, formerly a surface car park, becomes the missing piece between the city centre and the Raadhuiskwartier cultural district. The construction is scheduled to complete in 2028, delivering a neighbourhood that weaves affordability, community, nature, and public life into one cohesive vision.

Project Highlights

Bridges connect buildings and people

The design creates conditions for encounter at every scale, from the shared landscape at ground level to the bridges connecting the four buildings at the fourth floor.

At ground level, the public landscape forms the social heart of the block. It includes a children's playground and a seating area under a pergola. Ground-floor shops, cafés, and co-working spaces activate both the public pavement and the landscape interior.

At the fourth floor, bridges link all four buildings, giving every resident access to shared amenities across the whole block: a communal kitchen, a game room, fitness decks, rooftop terraces, and an urban greenhouse supporting urban farming and social gathering.

Two-sided design: urban outside and garden inside ​

Along Raadhuislaan, Linck completes the urban block with two street-edge buildings. Their light brick façades reference the existing buildings alongside. Loggias reinforce the streetscape character, and a 48-metre tower gives Linck a clear presence in the city, responding to Oss's ambition to densify its centre. Active ground-floor programmes host shops, cafés, and co-working spaces across 950 m².

Step inside, and the city dissolves into garden. The two courtyard buildings are a different proposition: informal volumes at a human scale, set back and terraced, with bamboo cladding, climbing plants on their façades, and balconies facing the shared landscape. The contrast is deliberate, an urban outside and a garden inside, reading as distinct spatial experiences within a single neighbourhood.

A diverse housing mix for a growing city

Linck addresses Oss's housing shortage with 198 homes across four buildings: 108 social housing units, 52 mid-range rentals, 28 owner-occupied apartments, and 10 friends-units. The income mix ensures long-term demographic diversity. The friends-units concept offers a shared-tenancy model. Residents have their own private bedrooms and bathrooms whilst sharing common spaces. This approach simultaneously addresses three pressing urban challenges, housing affordability, space constraints and social isolation. ​

Designing for a low-carbon future ​

Linck achieves an MPG score of 0.57, well below the Dutch legal maximum of 0.8, and an embodied carbon footprint of 341 kg CO₂-eq/m² GFA, below the Dutch Paris Proof threshold for residential construction. That these figures are reached in a predominantly social housing programme is what makes them significant.

The upper floors of the two lower blocks are built with cross-laminated timber (CLT), which stores carbon. Their height and structural weight were optimised to allow light foundations, reducing excavation and embodied carbon at the base. The tower uses timber for its pavilion extensions; sand-lime stone replaces conventional concrete where possible. Biobased insulation runs throughout, and bamboo cladding completes the landscape-facing façades and top-up volumes.

Ground-source heat pumps provide year-round heating and cooling, photovoltaic panels generate renewable electricity across all rooftops, and thermal storage buffers demand across the day. An adjustable shading system, optimised window placement, and light-coloured façades on sun-exposed elevations reduce summer cooling loads and support passive solar gain in winter.

Climate-adaptive and nature-inclusive landscape

The landscape design transforms the courtyard into a shared green interior, with multiple access points connecting to the theatre district and the surrounding streets. Indigenous planting, façade climbers, and integrated nesting provisions strengthen urban biodiversity. Green roofs reduce heat stress and create habitats for local flora and fauna. Water becomes visible architecture: rainwater captured across roofs and terraces channels into wadis threaded through the courtyard, managing stormwater on site and making climate adaptation visible as spatial quality rather than hidden infrastructure.

The car-free interior prioritises pedestrian movement and cycling. Shaded routes thread through the development, connecting to surrounding streets and the nearby railway station. Parking is deliberately limited to 34 EV-ready underground spaces, with additional shared parking in a nearby mobility hub. Bicycle storage is accessible and prominent at every entrance.

Beyond the block, KCAP designed the full public route from the city centre to the theatre district, commissioned by the Municipality of Oss. The redesign returns a through-traffic road to pedestrians and cyclists, knitting Linck into the wider fabric of the city.

Project Renders

Project Drawings

Project Details

Location: Raadhuislaan-Noord, Oss, The Netherlands

Client: AM and BrabantWonen

Landscape Architecture Client: Municipality of Oss

KCAP: Urban design, architecture & landscape architecture

Collaborators:

- Structural Engineer: Goudstikker de Vries

- MEP: Huisman & van Muijen

- Fire Safety/Energy and Climate: LBP Sight

- Cost Calculation: VGG

- Contractor: Berghege ​

Total Area: 22,565 m² (above ground), 1,425 m² underground parking

Landscape Area: 1,75 ha

Programme: 198 residential units (108 social housing, 52 mid-range rental, 10 friends-units, 28 owner-occupied apartments), 950 m² commercial space, 2 collective spaces (95 m²), 34 underground parking spaces (all EV-ready), green courtyard and public spaces

Construction: March 2026 – 2028 (projected completion)

Image Credits: Renders by VIVID-VISION

About KCAP

KCAP is a leading international design practice specializing in architecture, urbanism, and landscape architecture. Founded in 1989 by Kees Christiaanse, the firm is today led by seven partners: Xavier Blaringhem, Jeroen Dirckx, Ruurd Gietema, Anouk Kuitenbrouwer, Irma van Oort, Ute Schneider, and Edward Schuurmans. From its offices in Rotterdam, Zurich, and Paris, KCAP's team of over 100 international professionals works on a diverse portfolio of projects across Europe and Asia, shaping sustainable, human-centered environments at every scale.

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