MVRDV unveils reflective bowl-shaped art depot for Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen

News: Dutch studio MVRDV has revealed its competition-winning design to create a bowl-shaped art depot for the Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen in Rotterdam with a mirrored exterior and a rooftop sculpture garden.

Boijmans Collection Building art depot by MVRDV

MVRDV‘s Boijmans Collection Building will provide Rotterdam’s most important art gallery with a six-storey storage facility to house over 125,000 paintings, sculptures and objects, most of which will be accessible to the public.

Boijmans Collection Building art depot by MVRDV

Proposed for the northern end of the OMA-designed Museumpark, the building will have a round shape that tapers outward towards the top to minimise its footprint on the park. Its entire exterior will be made from mirrored glass, allowing the building to reflect its surroundings.

Boijmans Collection Building art depot by MVRDV

A public pathway will zigzag up through all six storeys, leading up from a lobby and cafe on the ground floor towards exhibition galleries and a restaurant at the top. These spaces will open out to the rooftop sculpture garden featuring a Futuro, the futuristic house developed in the 1960s by Finnish architect Matti Suuronen.

Boijmans Collection Building art depot by MVRDV
Park sequence – click for larger image

The levels in between will offer a series of exhibition areas curated by the Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, as well as a look inside various depots and restoration workshops. Some artworks will be displayed within these spaces, and could be swapped with the use of mobile storage racks.

Boijmans Collection Building art depot by MVRDV
Exploded axonometric diagram – click for larger image

“A public art depot is a new phenomenon to the Netherlands; normally these depots are hidden in the periphery of cities,” said MVRDV co-founder Winy Maas.

“It is a bold initiative that will raise the attention of the international museum circles. It offers space to Museum Boijmans van Beuningen and will help it to strengthen its international profile.”

Boijmans Collection Building art depot by MVRDV
Public accessibility diagram – click for larger image

The building will also include offices, logistics rooms and quarantine areas, as well as private art collection rooms that can be rented through the museum. Completion is scheduled for 2017.

Here’s the full announcement from MVRDV:


MVRDV wins competition Collection Building
Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Rotterdam

Today the city of Rotterdam, Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen and MVRDV present the design for the new Collection Building. The building with a surface of 15,000m2 is an open art depot featuring exhibition halls, a sculpture roof garden and a restaurant. The public can see what’s going on behind the scenes in a museum and private art collectors will be able to store their own collection in ideal Museum conditions. The design – a reflective round volume – responds to its surroundings, Rotterdam’s Museumpark in which it will be completed in 2017. The allocated budget is 50 million Euro.

Boijmans Collection Building art depot by MVRDV
Sustainability diagram – click for larger image

Collection Building is an art depot open to the public. A public route zigzags through the building, from the lobby on the ground floor where a café can be found up to an exhibition space, sculpture garden and restaurant on the roof. On the way up the route passes along and through art depots and restoration workshops. In depots visible from the route, the exhibition can be changed on a daily basis by simply moving storage racks so each visit to the building can offer a unique experience. On three floors the route passes through exhibition spaces which will be programmed by Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen.

Boijmans Collection Building art depot by MVRDV
Volume concept – click for larger image

The building – which will store the precious art collection of Rotterdam – will also have spaces not accessible to the general public. For example logistics, quarantine and room for private art collections whose owners can visit their art and even enjoy it in private spaces comparable to the art-equivalent of a sky box. This is a new commercial service offered by the museum. Additionally depots and an office of philanthropic foundation De Verre Bergen will be located in the Collection Building.

The roof featuring a restaurant, sculpture garden and exhibition space offers wide views over Rotterdam and will be the new home for the Futuro, the ufo-shaped house of Finish architect Matti Suuronen.

Boijmans Collection Building art depot by MVRDV
Roof garden concept – click for larger image

The Collection Building will be realised on the northern edge of Rotterdams Museumpark, realised by OMA with Yves Brunier in 1994. In order to spare the park, the volume is designed as a compact round volume with a small footprint and will be clad with a reflective glass facade. This will make the building less visible and allow reflections, the public can see what is happening elsewhere in the park. Where needed the reflection will be lesser for transparency and to avoid unwanted light effects.

40% of the 15,000m2 will be visible or accessible to the public. The building will feature seven different climatic conditions facilitating ideal conditions for art storage, offices and the public. The ambition is to reach sustainability classification BREEAM Excellent.

Boijmans Collection Building art depot by MVRDV
Facade concept – click for larger image

In the autumn of 2013 five architecture teams presented their designs for the Collection Building in a competition won by MVRDV. The other contenders were Koen Van Velsen, Harry Gugger with Barcode Architects, Neutelings Riedijk and Mad with NIO. MVRDV was disqualified from the competition after an alleged breach of the regulations but was vindicated in a legal procedure and declared official winner. MVRDV won the competition together with Pieters Bouwtechniek, IGG Consultants and DGMR Consultants. Expected completion is envisioned for 2017.

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for Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen
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Green Orchard by Paul Archer Design

This house in western England by London studio Paul Archer Design features a mirrored facade that slides across to cover the windows (+ slideshow).

Green Orchard by Paul Archer Design
Photograph by Paul Archer

Surrounded by gardens, Green Orchard house is designed to camouflage with the landscape, so Paul Archer added huge panels of polished aluminium to the walls. “The outer reflective panels will pick up the colours of the landscape, the idea being to make the structure almost invisible,” he says.

Green Orchard by Paul Archer Design

The panels are well insulated and connected to a motorised system, so that the client – Paul Archer’s mother – can transform the building into a thermally sealed box with relative ease.

Green Orchard by Paul Archer Design
Photograph by Paul Archer

The house has two storeys, including one that is sunken into the inclining landscape. The living room, dining room and kitchen occupy an L-shaped space on the ground floor and lead out to terraces on both the south-west and north-east elevations, designed to catch the sun at different points of the day.

Green Orchard by Paul Archer Design

The master bedroom is also on this floor, while three extra sleeping rooms are located on the sunken lower level. Part of this floor emerges from the ground, allowing enough space for a few high-level windows.

Green Orchard by Paul Archer Design

A wood-burning stove is positioned at the centre of the plan and provides all of the house’s heating. A 93-metre well supplies fresh water, which can be heated via thermal solar panels on the roof.

Green Orchard by Paul Archer Design

“Whilst unashamedly contemporary in its design, Green Orchard is a sensitive response to its location, integrating appropriate materials and functional details to create an innovative and tangible solution to current environmental issues,” says Archer.

Green Orchard by Paul Archer Design

Several buildings with mirrored walls have cropped on Dezeen recently. Others include an Australian visitor centre for botanic gardens and a six-sided art museum in Ohio.

Green Orchard by Paul Archer Design

See more mirrored buildings »
See more houses in the UK »

Photograph is by Will Pryce, apart from where otherwise stated.

Here’s the full project statement from Paul Archer:


Green Orchard: A Zero Carbon House
Compton Greenfield, South Gloucestershire, UK

Green Orchard is a new 200 sq m carbon-neutral house designed by Paul Archer Design. Set within 2,675 sq m of landscaped gardens in the green belt of South Gloucestershire, the house benefits from spectacular views over the Severn Estuary.

Having earned a reputation for highly contemporary residential extensions and renovations predominantly in an urban setting, Green Orchard is the practice’s first new-build detached single-family dwelling commission. The project brief called for a Californian case study house with green credentials, which would permit seamless outdoor/indoor living whilst delivering a zero carbon agenda.

Green Orchard by Paul Archer Design
Ground floor plan – click for larger image and key

The house replaces a dilapidated single-storey dwelling with a contemporary low-rise four-bedroom home. Set within landscaped gardens without the constraints imposed upon typical urban projects, Green Orchard is designed in the round, with all four elevations taking advantage of views out and access to the garden. Maximising its rural setting, the house adopts the methodology of a passivhaus typology without the single orientation.

The main living spaces and master bedroom are located on the ground floor with direct access to the garden. An excavated sunken level creates a second floor for additional sleeping accommodation, ensuring a low-rise profile that embraces the natural topography of the site.

The house incorporates four bedrooms (two of which have en-suite facilities), a main bathroom, a workshop space, kitchen, dining and living area. All living spaces are open-plan with a wood burning stove at the heart of the plan and plant room located on the floor below, to give a greater sense of openness and maximise views and sunlight. Two external terraces connect to the garden and are orientated to catch the sun at different times of the day.

The outer skin of the building is made of bespoke hand-crafted full-height panels, which are electronically motorised to slide open fully. The panels are highly insulated and allow the occupants to control and vary the thermal performance of the house depending on the time of the day and year. The panels are constructed of locally sourced timber and clad with mirrored aluminium to reflect the landscape and camouflage the structure in its surroundings.

The house and landscape have been designed with specific intention to reduce the consumption and requirement for energy: a wood-burning Stuv stove is the only heat source; water is supplied by a 93 metre bore hole; thermal solar panels on the roof yield heating for 80% of the house’s water; and photovoltaics provide all electric use when taken over the yearly cycle. A green roof embeds the property into the landscape, filtering out pollutants from the surrounding air and acts as an effective active insulation. It keeps the building cool in summer and warm in winter, reducing the requirement for excessive energy production.

Green Orchard by Paul Archer Design
Lower level plan – click for larger image and key

Set in gardens cultivated by the client, Green Orchard is screened from its neighbouring properties and road frontage. A sunken driveway and raised garden reduces the visual impact of the house and planting provides a tranquil setting from which to enjoy the countryside views.

Green Orchard is the second house the practice has designed for the same client, practice director Paul Archer’s mother and her husband. The plan allows for easy navigation and access to all areas whilst generous room sizes and a flowing internal layout ensures that manoeuvrability is unhindered, an essential consideration when designing for a client in their later years.

An innovative house has been achieved on a modest budget by designing the entire house to accommodate modular off-the-shelf interior units. The client has taken a hands-on approach to deliver high quality finishes by contributing their own expertise, from the design and planting of the garden to the carpentry of the exterior sliding panels and manufacture of the interior glass balustrades.

Whilst unashamedly contemporary in its design, harnessing the latest in green technology, Green Orchard is a sensitive response to its location, integrating appropriate materials and functional details to create an innovative and tangible solution to current environmental issues, presenting a way forward in designing for a sustainable future.

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Paul Archer Design
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Dezeen archive: mirrored buildings

Dezeen archive: mirrored buildings

Dezeen archive: reflective architecture has cropped up a few times on Dezeen recently, so we’ve compiled all our stories about mirrored buildings. See all the stories here »

See all our archive stories »

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mirrored buildings
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