Tokyo firm Schemata Architects has created an expandable changing room inside furniture made from shipping crates in this Paris boutique (+ slideshow).
Large wooden packing crates have been customised into display units for clothes and accessories. One of the crates has been made into a fitting room for the store and features a zip-up cocoon of sponge material on the front to provide additional room.
Shelves, clothing racks and hanging rails are made of wood and the tops of display tables are made of sponge.
“Unlike conventional hard display tables, these softer display tables give a soft and soothing touch, instead of pressing pain in the stomach when a customer leans on them to take a close look at clothes,” Watanabe told Dezeen.
The World Basics pop-up shop will be open until 21 September 2013.
This former butchers shop in Barcelona has been converted into a shoe shop furnished with wooden pallets, ropes and tyres (+ slideshow).
Spanish firm Dom Arquitectura and Rwanda-based Asa Studio renovated the narrow interior by stripping away the tiles that used to line the walls then painting over the rough plastered surface and blobs of leftover adhesive with a grey glaze.
Display units made of pallets slung from the ceiling on ropes are used to showcase the Ethiopian brand’s range of shoes.
Tyres are hung from the ceiling by thick lengths of rope as decoration, while the ceiling is strung with extra lengths of rope and spotlights.
Metal work benches stretch down one side of the store with space to hold shoe boxes underneath, steel plates protrude from gaps in the pallets on the wall to form individual platforms for the shoes and a folded steel plate stretches in front of the window to display footwear to passersby.
“We had a very small place and a very limited budget,” the studio said. “We decided to use natural materials and neutral colours to highlight the product. The colourful shoes should be the element that attracts and stands out to the street walker and the future client.”
SoleRebels is an Ethiopian brand of shoes from Africa. They surprise us with recycled materials, colourful shoes and originality. Its purpose was implant the brand in Barcelona for the first time.
Located in Gracia, we had a very small place and a very limited budget. The place was an old butcher with white and bright tiled walls.
The coating did not fit with the brand and with the image that we wanted for the store. So we took out the tiles, but decided to leave the plaster gobs that held them, and paint in that textured walls with a stone grey with a grey glaze, so we keep alive part of the place history.
Store display design
Ahead the walls, as a new layer, we proposed a number of recycled items, such as pallets, ropes and wheels that fit with the brand image and the idea that we wanted to convey. With minimal resources we bet for a sustainable and original design.
Interior renovation and plans
We decided to use natural materials and neutral colours to highlight the product. The colourful shoes should be the element that attract and stand out the street walker and future client. One iron piece in “U” form wrap the space and allows us to exhibit the most outstanding shoes. One store side is lined with pallets, which helps to increase exposure while gives warmth to the space.
Some ropes tied to the pallets go up by the ceiling to come down to the other store side, where they also hold several wheels, reused to promote featured shoes. Everything is held between both sides and generates a sustainable tension.
Recycle step by step project: Dom Arquitectura + Asa Studio Surface: 26 metres squared
Architecture firm dRMM has combined fifteen staircases to create an Escher-style installation outside Tate Modern, ahead of the London Design Festival beginning tomorrow (+ slideshow).
“Stairs are always the most interesting things about architecture, they’re places where people meet,” dRMM co-founder Alex de Rijke told Dezeen at this morning’s opening presentation.
The interlocking wooden staircases are configured to create a maze of walkways and a viewpoints towards the city’s skyline across the Thames.
“It’s up to you what you want to look at, it gets you up high so you can see out over the river to St Paul’s,” de Rijke told us.
Visitors can climb up, down, over and under the structure, with some stairs leading from one to another and others to dead ends.
Steps and balustrades are made from cross-laminated timber panels of tulipwood taken from offcuts usually used for skirting boards.
The vertical panels used to form hand rails overlap to look like treads turned on their side, adding to the optical illusion.
“St Paul’s was an interesting site but it was very constricted, the project was difficult to realise there whereas this space is much more open,” de Rijke. “This seemed like the best possible place to put it.”
Canadian lighting brand Bocci has installed a giant chandelier of colourful glass spheres in the main hall of the V&A museum for the London Design Festival, which kicks off on Saturday (+ slideshow).
“To finally build a piece in a very tall space, and at the V&A no less, really excites us,” said Arbel. “We’ve envisioned the most ambitious iteration of our 28 to date.”
The chandelier descends 30 metres from the ceiling of the first floor gallery and through a hole in the floor to emerge into the museum’s main atrium.
Glass lights are scattered down the column of copper wires that falls straight at the top of the piece, then splays outward haphazardly in the foyer.
A surreal light installation by Bocci created as part of the London Design Festival exhibits at the Victoria & Albert Museum.
During this year’s London Design Festival eleventh edition, the Canadian design brand Bocci will present a lighting installation at the festival’s hub venue, the Victoria & Albert Museum.
Entitled 28.280 and designed by Omer Arbel, the installation is a massive vertically punctuated light installation located at the main atrium of the Victoria and Albert Museum in London. The installation, featuring Bocci’s celebrated 28, will descend through the large existing void cutting through the entire length of the V&A building, with an astonishing height of more than 30 meters. The intent of the installation is twofold; On the one hand, it is a pure celebration of the monumental open height of the building, which uses light to crystallise a powerful phenomenological experience for the viewer. On the other hand, it is the most ambitious exploration to date of a novel glass blowing technique.
28 is an exploration of a fabrication process – part of Arbel’s and Bocci’s quest for specificity. Instead of designing form itself, here the intent was to design a system that haphazardly yields form, almost as a byproduct. 28 pendants result from a complex glass blowing technique whereby air pressure is introduced into and then removed from a glass matrix which is intermittently heated and then rapidly cooled. The result is a distorted spherical shape with a composed collection of inner shapes, one of which is made of opaque milk glass and houses a light source.
280 of these discreet 28 units will be hung within a 30 metre vertical drop, suspended by a novel, perhaps awkward and heavy copper suspension system, that promises to have as much presence or more than the glass it supports. The installation continues Omer’s personal research into the process of making, and documents Arbel’s remarkable journey as an articulator of form.
“We have always dreamed of mounting a light installation in a very very tall space… In the world of ideas, a tall space is the most appropriate environment for our pieces (abstractly speaking, I could say the ONLY environment for our pieces). Hence, to have the opportunity to finally build a piece in a very tall space, and at the V&A no less, really excites us on both a personal and professional level. We’ve envisioned the most ambitious iteration of our 28 to date.” – Omer Arbel
Copper-clad panels behind the glazed facade of this gymnasium by French firm LAN Architecture produce tinted reflections of the surrounding buildings (+ slideshow).
Paris studio LAN Architecture was also responsible for redeveloping the surrounding historic central square of Chelles, France, where the introduction of the L-shaped gymnasium alters the route between a park and the existing buildings.
“The orthogonal footprint of the building is parallel to the facades of the high school and the town hall,” the architects point out. “In this way, it helps to redefine and enhance urban spaces as well as to connect the park to the church through a journey.”
Full-height glass panels covering the gymnasium’s facade create refracted reflections that reduce the visual impact of the monolithic form and help to integrate it into its milieu.
Avoiding any typical sporting references on the building’s exterior, the architects instead created “a fragmenting urban kaleidoscope, diffracting and reflecting the image of the surrounding buildings in order to respond with a new, more sensitive vision.”
Behind the glass, timber panels clad externally in copper add depth and warmth to the reflections, while helping to dampen echoes inside the sports hall.
The panels also act as sunscreens, allowing daylight to filter through the staccato gaps along their top edges. When the sports hall is illuminated at night, light emanates from this upper section.
The smaller end of the L-shaped building houses offices, logistics, service spaces and smaller activity rooms with views into the main hall.
The design of the gymnasium and the square of central Chelles was an opportunity to use an architectural project to address urban issues that have been left aside in past developments.
The plot is indeed in a central position between the Park of Remembrance Emile Fouchard, the town hall, the Weczerka high school and the centre for contemporary art “les églises”: a highly heterogeneous environment where all the symbols and powers of the city (the church, State, culture, education and sports) are concentrated.
All these components, in this case, seem more juxtaposed than actually ordered, despite the delicate intervention by Marc Barani and Martin Szekely transforming the two churches into a center of contemporary art.
The aim of this project is to replay this rescheduling, elevating it into the category of an agora. The space, therefore, was in need of a strategic, volumetric insertion and an idea, contributing to the completion of the history and a new perception of the whole.
Urban role of the new building
Based on this observation, we considered the project as an operation of urban reassembly in which the gym and esplanade play the role of articulation. We relied on a detailed analysis of the operation, sequences and the scales of the various components.
The orthogonal footprint of the building is parallel to the facades of the high school and the town hall. In this way, it helps to redefine and enhance urban spaces as well as to connect the park to the church through a journey. These public spaces, the piazza and the new pedestrian street, are drawn in a conventional manner: regular, surrounded and defined by buildings. An urban object, a “catalyst” of views.
Once the volumes were constructed, the challenge of the architectural project has resided in the renewal of the traditional vocabulary of the gym: very often, we deal with an opaque box, blind and deaf to the context in which it occurs.
Here, we had to escape from the imagery related to sports facilities to implement an object which “lets us see” a fragmenting urban kaleidoscope, diffracting and reflecting the image of the surrounding buildings in order to respond with a new, more sensitive vision.
To this end, the facade is composed of two layers, the first (the glass) reflecting and letting in light, and the second (the copper), coloring and magnifying the reflection, providing protection from glass impacts.
While the simple shape and the orthogonal location of the building allows to order spaces, the facades create an ambiguity emptying the building of its materiality, making it disappear. The whole gives an impression of lightness and magic. At night, the game is reversed.
The gym, with its style and footprint, aims to be the symbol of a new vision of the city.
Once the urban strategy and the treatment of the facades were defined, the simplicity of the volumes allowed to turn the spatial organization of the gym into an efficient and functional area.
The technical system used for the envelope is simple: a steel structure, the bottom of the glass facades made of a concrete wall insulated by an indoor copper cladding. This double skin provides an ideal sound insulation. The copper, plated on timber, absorbs noise and reduces resonance in high volume areas such as multisport halls. The realization of this project is also a good example of an eco-construction. A project based on the logic of eco-construction
Ranked at the Very High Energy Performance (THPE) level, the building ensures a high level of comfort thanks to the inertia of its insulated concrete walls that contribute to cooling in summer and limited heat loss in winter. It is reinforced by the presence of night ventilation in the spaces. The system used consists of a power plant processing dual-flow air recovering energy from exhaust air. Each façade is equipped with a glazing area of 2.28 m2, STADIP 44.2 “securit” type, on the external side and tempered glass (8 mm), with a 14mm argon heat-resistant blade.
Heating The site is directly connected to the city’s geothermal heat network. A heating programmer prior to space occupancy is also implemented. The heat distribution ensures the needs of hot water and heating the gym, an extension, changing rooms and circulation spaces.
Electricity
Thirty-two photovoltaic modules with an output of 7360 Watts, or 6600 VA for resale to EDF, have been installed.
Water management Outside, the rainwater recovery system works together with the green roof. It supplies the gymnasium’s sanitary areas and the surrounding greenery.
The building receives natural light through large windows on the curtain wall and roof. It is emphasized by the external presence of a LED light recessed floor. The access points are marked by candelabra. Presence detectors are being used in all interiors, except for the great hall, optimizing power management based on attendance.
Programme: Gymnasium and redesign of the Town Hall square Client: City of Chelles Location: Place de l’Hôtel de Ville, Chelles (77) Budget: Gymnasium: € 4,34 M. excl. VAT, Esplanade € 967,000 excl. VAT. Project area: Gymnasium 2 322 m², Esplanade 2,857 m² Completion: Gymnasium: January 2012 Esplanade: October 2012 Team: LAN Architecture (lead architect), BETEM (TCE), Isabelle Hurpy (HEQ)
Tomato vines suspended over conference tables and broccoli fields in the reception are part of working life at this Japan office by Kono Designs (+ slideshow).
New York firm Kono Designs created the urban farm in 2010, in a nine-storey office building in Tokyo to allow employees to grow and harvest their own food at work. Dezeen spoke with company principal Yoshimi Kono this week to hear more about the project.
“Workers in nearby buildings can be seen pointing out and talking about new flowers and plants and even the seasons – all in the middle of a busy intersection in Tokyo’s metropolitan area,” Kono told Dezeen. “The change in the way local people think and what they talk about was always one of the long-term goals of the project.”
The creation of the new headquarters for Japanese recruitment firm Pasona consisted of refurbishing a 50 year old building to include office areas, an auditorium, cafeterias, a rooftop garden and urban farming facilities. Inside the 19,974 square metre office building there are 3995 square metres dedicated to green space that house over 200 species of plants, fruits, vegetables and rice.
Kono told Dezeen that all of the food is harvested, prepared and served on-site in the cafeterias – making Pasona’s Urban Farm the largest farm-to-table office scheme in Japan.
Pasona employees are encourage to maintain and harvest the crops and are supported by a team of agricultural specialists.
“My client has a larger vision to help create new farmers in urban areas of Japan and a renewed interest in that lifestyle,” Kono told Dezeen.
“One way to encourage this is to not just tell urban communities about farms and plants, but to actively engage with them through both a visual intervention in their busy lifestyle and educational programs focusing on farming methods and practices that are common in Japan,” he added.
The building has a double-skin green facade where flowers and orange trees are planted on small balconies. From the outside, the office block appears to be draped in green foliage.
“The design focus was not on the imposed standards of green, where energy offsets and strict efficiency rates rule,” said Kono. “But rather on an idea of a green building that can change the way people think about their daily lives and even their own personal career choice and life path.”
Inside the offices, tomato vines are suspended above conference tables, lemon and passion fruit trees are used as partitions for meeting spaces, salad leaves are grown inside seminar rooms and bean sprouts are grown under benches.
Plants hang in bags surrounding meeting desks and there are vines growing within vertical cages and wooden plant boxes around the building.
Ducts, pipes and vertical shafts were rerouted to the perimeter of the building to allow for maximum height ceilings and a climate control system is used to monitor humidity, temperature and air flow in the building to ensure it is safe for the employees and suitable for the farm.
“It is important not to just think about how we can use our natural resources better from a distance, but to actively engage with nature and create new groups of people who have a deep interest and respect for the world they live in,” said Kono.
“It is important to note that this is not a passive building with plants on the walls, this is an actively growing building, with plantings used for educational workshops where Pasona employees and outside community members can come in and learn farming practices.”
Yoshimi Kono studied architecture in Tokyo and was a chief designer with Shigeru Uchida at Studio 80 in Tokyo and later became partner at Vignelli Associates in New York. He founded Kono Designs in 2000.
Located in down-town Tokyo, Pasona HQ is a nine story high, 215,000 square foot corporate office building for a Japanese recruitment company, Pasona Group. Instead of building a new structure from ground up, an existing 50 years old building was renovated, keeping its building envelope and superstructure.
The project consists of a double-skin green facade, offices, an auditorium, cafeterias, a rooftop garden and most notably, urban farming facilities integrated within the building. The green space totals over 43,000 square feet with 200 species including fruits, vegetables and rice that are harvested, prepared and served at the cafeterias within the building. It is the largest and most direct farm-to-table of its kind ever realised inside an office building in Japan.
The double-skin green facade features seasonal flowers and orange trees planted within the 3′ deep balconies. Partially relying on natural exterior climate, these plants create a living green wall and a dynamic identity to the public. This was a significant loss to the net rentable area for a commercial office. However, Pasona believed in the benefits of urban farm and green space to engage the public and to provide better workspace for their employees.
The balconies also help shade and insulate the interiors while providing fresh air with operable windows, a practical feature not only rare for a mid rise commercial building but also helps reduce heating and cooling loads of the building during moderate climate. The entire facade is then wrapped with deep grid of fins, creating further depth, volume and orders to the organic green wall.
Within the interior, the deep beams and large columns of the existing structure are arranged in a tight interval causing low interior ceiling of 7′-6″. With building services passing below, some area was even lower at 6′-8″. Instead, all ducts, pipes and their vertical shafts were re-routed to the perimeter, allowing maximum height with exposed ceilings between the beams.
Lightings are then installed, hidden on the bottom vertical edge of the beams, turning the spaces between the beams into a large light cove without further lowering the ceiling. This lighting method, used throughout the workspace from second floor to 9th floor, achieved 30% less energy than the conventional ceiling mounted method.
Besides creating a better work environment, Pasona also understands that in Japan opportunities for job placement into farming are very limited because of the steady decline of farming within the country. Instead, Pasona focuses on educating and cultivating next generation of farmers by offering public seminars, lectures and internship programs.
The programs empower students with case studies, management skills and financial advices to promote both traditional and urban farming as lucrative professions and business opportunities. This was one of the main reason for Pasona to create urban farm within their headquarters in downtown Tokyo, aiming to reverse the declining trend in the number of farmers and to ensure sustainable future food production.
Currently, Japan produces less than one-third of their grain locally and imports over 50 million tons of food annually, which on average is transported over 9,000 miles, the highest in the world. As the crops harvested in Pasona HQ are served within the building cafeterias, it highlights ‘zero food mileage’ concept of a more sustainable food distribution system that reduces energy and transportation cost.
Japan’s reliance on imported food is due to its limited arable land. Merely 12% of its land is suitable for cultivation. Farmland in Pasona HQ is highly efficient urban arable land, stacked as a vertical farm with modern farming technology to maximise crop yields.
Despite the increased energy required in the upkeep of the plants, the project believes in the long term benefits and sustainability in recruiting new urban farmers to practice alternative food distribution and production by creating more urban farmland and reducing food mileage in Japan.
Using both hydroponic and soil based farming, in Pasona HQ, crops and office workers share a common space. For example, tomato vines are suspended above conference tables, lemon and passion fruit trees are used as partitions for meeting spaces, salad leaves are grown inside seminar rooms and bean sprouts are grown under benches.
The main lobby also features a rice paddy and a broccoli field. These crops are equipped with metal halide, HEFL, fluorescent and LED lamps and an automatic irrigation system. An intelligent climate control system monitors humidity, temperature and breeze to balance human comfort during office hours and optimise crop growth during after hours. This maximises crop yield and annual harvests.
Besides future sustainability of farmers, Pasona HQ’s urban farm is beyond visual and aesthetic improvement. It exposes city workers to growing crops and interaction with farmland on a daily basis and provides improvement in mental health, productivity and relaxation in the workplace. Studies show that most people in urbanised societies spend over 80% of their time indoors. Plants are also known to improve the air quality we breathe by carbon sequestration and removing volatile organic compound. A sampling on the air at Pasona HQ have shown reduction of carbon dioxide where plants are abundant. Such improvement on the air quality can increase productivity at work by 12%, improves common symptoms of discomfort and ailments at work by 23%, reduce absenteeism and staff turnover cost.
Typical office floor – click for larger image
Employees of Pasona HQ are asked to participate in the maintenance and harvesting of crops with the help of agricultural specialists. Such activity encourages social interaction among employees leading to better teamwork on the job. It also provides them with a sense of responsibility and accomplishment in growing and maintaining the crops that are ultimately prepared and served to their fellow co-workers at the building’s cafeterias.
Section showing facade and balconies
Pasona Urban Farm is a unique workplace environment that promotes higher work efficiency, social interaction, future sustainability and engages the wider community of Tokyo by showcasing the benefits and technology of urban agriculture.
Lisbon studio Aires Mateus used only reclaimed timber to construct this pair of waterfront cabins in Grândola, Portugal (+ slideshow).
Named Cabanas no Rio, which translates as cabins on the river, the two rustic structures offer a rural retreat for a pair of inhabitants.
One hut contains a living area, with a simple counter that can be used for preparing food, while the other accommodates a bedroom with a small toilet and sheltered outdoor shower.
Architects Aires Mateus used recycled wooden panels to build the walls, floors, roof and fittings of the two structures, leaving the material exposed both inside and out.
The edge of the roof sits flush with the walls, plus the wood is expected to change colour as it exposed to the weather.
“The wharf is medieval and assembled with wood,” said the architects, explaining their material choice. “Its identity is kept long beyond the material’s resistance, an identity that allows [it] to change, to replace, keeping all the values.”
With a combined area of just 26 square metres, the cabins were both built off-site and transported to the site on the back of a lorry.
Each was then hoisted into place, framing a small wooden deck that leads out onto a jetty.
The wharf is medieval and assembled with wood. Its identity is kept long beyond the material’s resistance. An identity that allows to change, to replace, keeping all the values.
The project develops two spaces: one to unwind with the support of a kitchen integrated in the same material of the walls; other as a sleeping area with a small bathroom and a shower. The construction is entirely finished in reused wood, subjected to the weather that will keep on changing it. The forms, highly archetypal, are designed by the incorporation of the functions in these minute areas, and by the varied inclination of the ceilings that tension the spaces according to their function.
Name of the project: Cabanas no Rio Location: Comporta, Grândola, Portugal Construction Surface: 26m²
Authors: Manuel e Francisco Aires Mateus Coordination: Maria Rebelo Pinto Collaborators: Luz Jiménez, David Carceller Client: João Rodrigues
Architecture and interior design studio Project Orange have renovated and extended a home in central London to provide more practical spaces for a family that hosts a monthly dining club (+ slideshow).
East London-based practice Project Orange moved the principle kitchen to the first floor so it is next to the dining room where the family entertain their guests.
The new dining room features tables that can be arranged to accommodate different numbers of guests and built-in shelves at one end continue above the door on the perpendicular wall.
Utilitarian, off-the-shelf products are used to furnish the kitchen, resulting in a practical space that is customised to the needs and tastes of the homeowners.
The architects also designed an infill extension at the rear of the property that houses a smaller kitchen with a large skylight.
Floorboards removed when new underfloor heating was laid have been reused on the walls and work surfaces in the downstairs kitchen.
Partitions were introduced on the ground floor to create a small office and a snug, while the basement has been repurposed as living quarters for the family’s son and bedrooms, a master bathroom and another study are located on the second floor.
The client for Eaton Terrace runs a monthly dining club from their home in central London, and our brief was therefore not only to design a small extension providing more living space for the family, but to also reconfigure the existing house to better accommodate guests.
The key move was to shift the kitchen to the first floor alongside the dining room and reintroduce partitions at ground floor level to create an office and snug.
To the rear of the house we designed an infill extension with a huge rooflight to form a new day room. Bedrooms, the master bathroom and a second study are found on the second floor, with the basement re-designated as the son’s quarters.
An original extension off the main stair contains a guest WC and second bathroom at half landings.
Both the kitchen and built-in furnishings have been carefully designed using standard products but with detail nuances introduced to help provide a bespoke and more quirky aesthetic.
A new underfloor heating installation requires the removal of the existing floorboards, which in turn are inventively re-used in the ground floor kitchen and a bespoke door lining to the dining room.
Norwegian design firm Hunting & Narud is exhibiting a range of large pivoting copper mirrors with stone bases in London during the London Design Festival, which starts on Saturday (+ slideshow).
The Copper Mirrors Series by London based design duo Amy Hunting and Oscar Narud of Hunting & Narud consists of a range of polished circular copper discs that are attached to mild steel frames.
The pivoting mirrors can be spun 180 degrees and each mirror has a large grey stone positioned at the base.
Hunting and Narud have said that the mirrors were “inspired by the visual language and movement of the different elements of the solar system.”
The mirrors were originally conceived for Fashion Scandinavia at Somerset House earlier this year, during London Fashion Week 2013. They are on display at Gallery Libby Sellers in London until 5 October 2013 and feature as a pre-cursor to London Design Festival 2013, which is open from 14 to 22 September.
German studio J. Mayer H. Architects has completed a building housing a law court, university library, auditoriums and offices in the Belgian city of Hasselt (+ slideshow).
The court of justice building is divided into three separate units containing the courtrooms, student library and the office tower, which also houses a restaurant with panoramic views across the city.
The form of the tower and the pattern of perforated panels on the facade reference the hazelnut trees found in the City of Hasselt’s coat of arms.
Photograph is by Philippe Van Gelooven
Steel cladding on the exterior evokes the area’s industrial heritage and the influence of art nouveau on this part of Belgium.
The tree motif continues inside the building, with a veined pattern covering a wall behind the main reception desk.
Photography is by Bieke Claessens, except where stated otherwise.
Here’s some more information from the architects:
New Court of Justice, Hasselt, Belgium
September 13th, 2013 marks the opening of “Court of Justice” in Hasselt, designed by the architects team of J. MAYER H. Architects, a2o-architecten and Lensºass architecten. After finishing the exterior skin already in 2011, the interior was completed in spring of 2013.
The new court of justice is an open, transparent building with direct public access, combining the Court of Justice with a university library and auditoriums for the faculty of law.
In keeping with the building’s logistical requirements and safety provisions, the structure is divided into three separate units: courtrooms, the library for students and an office tower with a 64-meters-high panorama restaurant on top from which offers a panoramic view of the city of Hasselt and its surroundings.
Based on a master plan by West 8, the former railway station site has been restructured with a park, public buildings, offices and hotels, as well as urban residential blocks.
Photograph is by Philippe Van Gelooven
The team of J. MAYER H. Architects, Lens °Ass and a20-architecten have realized one of the two high-rise buildings, “the new court of justice”, a structure that stands as a contemporary urban landmark of the new district.
Photograph courtesy of Lens°ass architects
References in the design process point to both the image of the “tree”, the hazelnut trees in the City of Hasselt’s coat of arms, and steel structures in the once industrial and Art Nouveau-influenced area.
Photograph courtesy of Lens°ass architects
Client: n.v. SOHA (Stedelijke ontwikkelingsmaatschappij Hasselt) – Autonoom Gemeentebedrijf Hasselt + Euro Immo Star) Architects: J. MAYER H. Architects, a2o-architecten, Lensºass architecten Construction Company: T.H.V. Hasaletum nv (Democo nv – Cordeel nv – Interbuild nv) Tenant: Regie der Gebouwen User: Federale Overheidsdienst Justitie Square Footage: 20.763 m² above-ground spaces (Offices, Meeting-Rooms, Library, Reception, Cafeteria, Court rooms) 4.694 m² Underground spaces (Archive), 3.384 m² Underground spaces Parking Lot
Photograph courtesy of Lens°ass architects
Construction Time: October 2008 – September 2013 Address: Parklaan, 3500 Hasselt, Belgium Project-manager: Eurostation NV
This is site is run by Sascha Endlicher, M.A., during ungodly late night hours. Wanna know more about him? Connect via Social Media by jumping to about.me/sascha.endlicher.
