Swifts Plein 1944 project, December 2008 - ? (2013 probably)
During the elections for a European parliament of 2004 in Nijmegen, inhabitants of this city could also vote for a design for a new Plein 1944. This square
is located in the centre of the city. Due to the somewhat boring nature of the square, the Nijmegen city counsil decided to change it. Several architects
made designs. The one of architects Soeters en Van Eldonk won the referendum.
Very handy for me to know which architects would be working on details of this square. In December 2008 I emailed the architects to ask them to keep
Swifts in mind when working on the designs of the buildings surrounding the square. I received a response from the project manager just a couple of days
later, telling me he'd propose the idea to the designing team.
In Februari 2009 I emailed the project manager again to ask him if the idea had been proposed to the team of designers and, if so, what their
response was. I received an response email a couple of days later telling me the design team had been enthousiastic! The project manager asked me if I
could supply them with information about a nestbrick. Of course I could, so I returned his email that same day, providing him with information on several
nest bricks and the way they should be placed (entrance openings and orientation for example). The day after I also supplied him with an example technical
drawing of the placement of a nestbrick. After some questions about orientation I emailed him a couple of days later with a groundplan showing which
façades would be suitable.
In September 2009 I emailed the project manager again to ask him if was any news. And there was! 40 nest bricks had been included in the design!
In June 2010 I tried emailing the project manager again to let him know about the succes of the Hessenberg project, but my
email was returned as the email address was no longer in use... :/ I emailed the same message to the general Soeters en Van Eldonk
email address, asking the reader to forward the message to the new project manager. I received a phone call the next week and made an appointment to go to
the building location and look at some drawings.
In July 2010 I emailed Nijmegen's alderman/municipal councillor for Environment and 'Green', Jan van der Meer and told him about the 40 nest bricks
that will be included in the Plein 1944 project. I also told him I thought it'd be nice to have some kind of info-pannel on the square to notify people of
the efforts for Swifts in this project. He responded a couple of days later and said he thought it was a nice idea to have an info-pannel on the square. :)
On July 15th 2010 I had a meeting with my new contact near the construction site. We looked at several drawings, which proved to be a wise thing to do
as I had made a mistake with one of the façades! The nest bricks from that façade were moved to another though.
In September 2010 I received drawings of the final locations for the nest bricks. Looks good!
