Hasta La Ideas

Dutch firm Wiel Arets Architects has completed an academic campus in Rotterdam‘s Hoogvliet district comprising six concrete and glass buildings with subtle surface patterns designed to resemble ivy (+ slideshow).

Wiel Arets Architects used fritted glass and textured concrete to suggest traces of climbing plants on the pared-down walls and windows of Campus Hoogvliet – a school and college campus providing housing and teaching for students between the ages of 12 and 27 years.

All six buildings sit over the asphalt ground surface that defines the limits of the campus. These include a sports centre, an arts school, a safety training academy, a secondary school, a business academy and a housing block for up to 100 residents.

A glass fence surrounds every building and is fritted with the abstracted ivy pattern to maintain privacy for students. The same motif also embellishes the ground floor windows of each building.

A scaled-up version of the pattern reoccurs within each of the buildings, where exposed concrete walls are broken up by stripy concrete reliefs.

Each building can be identified by a different colour, which can be spotted on the glass balustrades that run alongside each staircase, but they are otherwise all identical in materials and finishes.

“Unity defines the campus and its clustered buildings, which are therefore experienced as continuous architecture,” said the architects.

The largest of the buildings is the sports centre that contains a 300-seat multi-purpose hall. The ground floor of this structure is raised up by a storey to make room for car parking, while an outdoor basketball court is located on the roof.

Custom-designed seating is dotted around the site, including white terrazzo benches and circular planters containing Japanese maple trees. There’s also a running track, bicycle storage areas and a campus-wide lighting system that illuminates outdoor areas after dark.

Photography is by Jan Bitter.

Here’s a project description from Wiel Arets Architects:

WAA complete construction on Campus Hoogvliet in Rotterdam

Campus Hoogvliet is a cluster of six buildings that together compose one academic and socially focused campus, located just outside of Rotterdam. These six new buildings – a sports centre, an art studio, a safety academy, 100 residential units within one building, and two schools – have been plugged into a programmed tarmac that communicates the campus’ boundary, and includes custom-designed seating, a running track, and other place-making denotations.

The campus’ immediate surroundings are characterised by mid-twentieth century housing developments – which were prolifically constructed during its booming period of post-WWII growth – and the campus aims to rectify the social and cultural deterioration that coupled the demolition of this once historic village.

A glass ‘fence’ – equal in height to each ground floor facade – surrounds every building. Every fence is fritted with an abstracted, pixilated image of ivy, so as to create an exterior terrace that is both private and transparent. The ground floors of each building are fritted with the same pattern, and all exterior glass was made with a kiss print, which introduces texture to each facade.

A white ring surrounds every building and denotes the transition from public tarmac to private terrace, each programmed with bike parking and play areas. All six buildings share a similar procession of entry: spaces compress in volume when transitioning from the campus’ tarmac toward the glass-fenced terraces; decompress when entering each building’s ground floor communal spaces; and compress again when traversing circulation paths toward upper levels.

The sports centre’s tribune seats 300 and overlooks its multi-purpose and double height activity space, which functions as an exercise area for students and is also available for local events and sports teams. This sports centre – the largest of the campus’ six buildings – has been raised one level in order to accommodate a 80 space parking garage on its ground floor; this introduces a ‘zero-zero’ level to the campus, which compounds the notion of ‘interiority’. Additional parking for 200 aligns with and compliments the campus’s boundary, so as to not disturb its highly trafficked pedestrian areas. An outdoor basketball court occupies the roof of the sports centre’s ground floor; it is perpendicular to a monumental staircase that allows for views over the sprawling campus below.

Load-bearing facades with open corners – combined with concrete cores for stability, and non-polished concrete floor slabs under tension – structure each building. Cores are notable for their concrete relief, derived from an enlarged pattern of the fritted ivy, adjacent to which are each building’s shifting sets of staircases. Balustrades are finished with coloured glass, and each building has a unique colour, to impart a visual identity within each.

Custom-designed white terrazzo seating dots the campus’ programmed tarmac, and Japanese Maples set in custom-designed black terrazzo planters dot each fenced terrace. The entirety of the programmed tarmac, and every terrace, are illuminated at night to ensure the surrounding community’s cohesiveness. Unity defines the campus and its clustered buildings, which are therefore experienced as continuous architecture.

Location: Lengweg, 3192 BM Rotterdam, The Netherlands
Typology: Educational, Housing, Retail, School, Sport
Size: 41.100 m2
Date of design: 2007-2009
Date of completion: 2014

Project team: Wiel Arets, Bettina Kraus, Joris van den Hoogen, Jos Beekhuijzen, Mai Henriksen
Collaborators: Jochem Homminga, Joost Korver, Marie Morin, Julius Klatte, Olivier Brinckman, Sjoerd Wilbers, Raymond van Sabben, Benine Dekker, Maron Vondeling, Anne-Marie Diderich
Client: Woonbron
Consultants: ABT BV, Wetering Raadgevende Ingenieurs BV

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in Rotterdam’s Hoogvliet district appeared first on Dezeen.

A collection of vintage Aston Martins can be glimpsed through the fritted glass facade of this house in Maastricht, the Netherlands, by Dutch studio Wiel Arets Architects.

Named V House, the three-storey residence is sandwiched between two historic buildings in a part of the city where new structures have to match the scale of their surroundings.

Wiel Arets Architects designed the building with an asymmetric glass facade so that the edge of the roof slopes between the eaves of its neighbours, creating an angular plane facing up towards the sky.

The glazed wall is fritted at the base to maintain some privacy for residents, while thin curtains hang behind.

In contrast, the rear facade is made up concrete frames infilled with windows. A large void opens the ground floor up to the elements, creating a space for storing around seven or eight vintage cars.

“Due to the house’s very narrow site, the intention was to increase the amount of natural daylight that enters it, at both its front and rear,” project architect Alex Kunnen told Dezeen.

“Without the void that has been cut into the maximum volume in the rear, the house would have been far too dark. And so the fully glazed front facade and the back void work in tandem,” added the architect.

Two separate staircases lead up from the parking level to the first floor above. The first is a “fast” stair that ascends to every floor, while the second is a “slow” route that climbs gently towards a living room at the back of the house.

“It was always the intention to have two paths of circulation,” said Kunnen, “foremost for safety reasons due to the house’s large size, but also because the multiple paths of circulation create various cinematographic scenes throughout the house while they are being experienced.”

A fully glazed living room is contained within a suspended structure, hanging from a pair of I-beams that span the site at the rear. A combined kitchen and dining room sit just beyond and features a 3.5-metre cantilevered dining table.

The bedroom occupies the second floor, alongside an office that can be transformed into a guest suite by folding a bed down from the wall.

Glass doors open out to one roof terrace at the rear, plus a staircase leads up to a second terrace at the very top of the building.

Storage is built into the walls to minimise clutter, and heating and cooling systems are built into the floors.

Residents use iPhones to remotely open and close the house’s entrances, so there are no handles or keyholes anywhere around the exterior.

Photography is by Jan Bitter, apart from where otherwise stated.

Here’s a project description from Wiel Arets Architects:

V House

V House was constructed for a couple that collects vintage cars, and is stitched within the medieval tapestry of historic Maastricht. The city dictates all new structures remain within the envelope of pre-existing buildings, and so a cut was created in the house’s front façade to generate a triangulated surface, which leads from one neighbour’s sloped roof to the opposite neighbour’s vertical bearing wall.

As the house’s site is long and narrow, voids were cut into the maximum permitted volume to ensure that natural light spills throughout the interior. The ground floor is both open to the exterior elements and sunken to the rear of the site, which makes possible the maximum two-story height allowance. A covered portion of this exterior space serves as an outdoor parking garage for the owners’ collection of Aston Martins.

As the house finds refuge between two historical buildings, it is a burst of modernity within this currently gentrifying neighborhood of Maastricht. The house is enormous, totaling 530 m2, and is entered through two oversized sliding glass doors that perforate its front façade. These doors serve as the house’s main entry and open to either their left or right for entry by foot, and both simultaneously retract to allow the entry of automobiles.

Due to safety and privacy concerns, these glass entry doors have no handles or keyholes and are instead are remotely opened from any iPhone, from anywhere in the world. For further privacy the house’s front façade was fritted with a gradient pattern of dots, which disperse in placement as the house rises towards the sky and focus at a distance to compose an image of curtains fluttering in the wind. Actual curtains align the interior of the front façade to afford additional privacy.

Circulation throughout the house occurs via two paths. A ‘slow’ stair leads from the ground floor to the expansive living room, which is connected to the partially raised kitchen and dining areas by a small ramp. A ‘fast’ stairwell traverses the entire height of the house and, together with the platform elevator, allows for direct vertical shortcuts to all levels of living.

Thus this house, with its multiple circulation interventions, such as its living room ramp and ‘fast’ and ‘slow’ paths, is organised not around the traditional notion of stacked floors and is instead organised around its circulatory section. At the apex of this ‘fast’ route is the entrance to an expansive roof terrace that’s also the most public space of the house, as it offers panoramic views over the spired roofline of Maastricht.

The living room has been suspended from two I-beams that span two masonry bearing walls that surround the rear of the site. Steel tension rods measuring 5×10 cm extend from these I-beams into the almost fully glazed façade of the living room, which allows its volume to float above the Aston Martins below. For privacy reasons, this glazing was treated with a highly reflective coating that casts a hue of chartreuse or amber depending on the season and angle of the sun. Only when inhabiting the master bedroom is this hanging of the living room apparent, as the I-beams are visible from the master bedroom, which opens onto the living room’s roof, which functions as a private terrace for the owners.

Heating and cooling is provided via a concrete core activation system concealed within the floors and ceilings of the house, while all storage is built into the circulatory areas in order to divide spaces and define rooms. These custom designed storage units also outfit the office space, where they conceal a bed that can be lowered to accommodate temporary visitors, such as the owners’ now grown children. All storage areas recede in prominence due to their fluid integration, which allows the house’s interior to remain flexible and open for ephemeral definition.

The one-piece custom designed kitchen was constructed in stainless steel, and the dining table, which is connected to it, cantilevers 3.5 m toward the front façade. The custom furnishings and storage spaces, together with the in-situ concrete and multiple roof terraces, make the V’ house an expression of free space in a regulated heritage context.

Program: Housing
Size: 530 m2
Date of design: 2006-2010
Date of completion: 2013
Project team: Wiel Arets, Alex Kunnen, Joris Lens, Breg Horemans, Felix Thies, Daniel Meier
Collaborators: Francois Steul
Client: Private
Consultants: Palte BV, Wetering Raadgevende Ingenieurs BV, Permasteelisa BV

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for a vintage car collector appeared first on Dezeen.

Dezeen Wire: Dutch architect Wiel Arets has been appointed as dean of the College of Architecture at the Illinois Institute of Technology.

Arets will join IIT in the autumn, taking over the role from Donna Roberston who resigned earlier this year.

See projects by Wiel Arets Architects on Dezeen »

Photography is by Ineke Oostveen.

See the full press release below:

Wiel Arets Named Dean of IIT College of Architecture

Illinois Institute of Technology Provost Alan Cramb announced today the appointment of Wiel Arets as the new dean of the IIT College of Architecture. Born in the Netherlands, Arets, an internationally acclaimed architect, educator, industrial designer, theorist, and urbanist, is known for his academic progressive research and hybrid design solutions. He is currently the professor of building planning and design at the Berlin University of the Arts. His architecture and design practice, Wiel Arets Architects, has multiple studios throughout Europe and its work has been nominated for the European Union’s celebrated ‘Mies van der Rohe Award’ on numerous occasions.

Arets, who was dean of the Berlage Institute in Rotterdam from 1995-2002, will join IIT this fall and will lead an academic program originally shaped by the vision and work of Ludwig Mies van der Rohe. Considered by many to be one of the founders of modern architecture and design, Mies chaired the IIT architecture program from 1938-1958 and designed the IIT Main Campus, home to many of his iconic structures including S. R. Crown Hall.

Arets currently has projects under construction throughout Europe and Japan, including the Allianz Headquarters in Zürich, Switzerland, Amsterdam Centraal Station’s IJhal, the Schwäbischer Verlag in Ravensburg, Germany and the A’ House in Tokyo. His many distinguished projects include the library on the Uithof campus of Utrecht University, the Academy of Art & Architecture in Maastricht, the Euroborg Stadium in Groningen, and the Hedge House in Wijlre, the Netherlands.

“The College of Architecture at Illinois Institute of Technology has a global reputation and attracted outstanding candidates for dean from leading programs worldwide. It is indicative of the position of the IIT College of Architecture that we have found such an accomplished architect to lead the school in a new direction,” said Cramb.

Arets has been a guest professor at many of the world’s preeminent architectural universities, including the AA London, Columbia University and Cooper Union—and served on the Advisory Council of Princeton University from 2003-2012. He graduated from the Technical University of Eindhoven in 1983, where he obtained his Master of Science in Architecture.

The IIT College of Architecture offers a five-year Bachelor of Architecture program, four master’s programs and the Doctor of Philosophy in Architecture. Accredited by the National Architectural Accrediting Board (NAAB), the college attracts students from around the world.

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of IIT College of Architecture appeared first on Dezeen.

Competition: we’ve teamed up with Wiel Arets Architects to give away five copies of their new book STILLS: A Timeline of Ideas,  Articles and Interviews 1982-2010.

Published to coincide with an exhibition of the same name at Schunck Museum in Heerlen, the Netherlands last year, the book highlights Wiel Aret’s theories and architecture from the past 25 years.

It also includes many of the Dutch architect’s theoretical texts in English for the first time.

To enter this competition email your name, age, gender, occupation, and delivery address and telephone number to competitions@dezeen.com with “STILLS” in the subject line. We won’t pass your information on to anyone else; we just want to know a little about our readers.

Read our privacy policy here.

Competition closes 24 May 2011. Five winners will be selected at random and notified by email. Winners’ names will be published in a future edition of our Dezeenmail newsletter and at the bottom of this page. Dezeen competitions are international and entries are accepted from readers in any country.

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Here are some more details from the architects:

Wiel Arets Architects: Publish ‘STILLS: A Timeline of Ideas, Articles & Interviews 1982-2010′

Published in December 2010, in connection with the firm’s latest exhibition entitled STILLS, the accompanying exhibition book – STILLS: A Timeline of Ideas, Articles & Interviews 1982-2010 – is an 632 page in-depth look at the words behind the work of Wiel Arets Architects. The book is a winner of the ‘2010 Best Dutch Book Design Award’ for the category of ‘Special Interest’.

Wiel Arets, first as a professor at the AA London, Columbia University New York, the Cooper Union New York, Washington University St. Louis, as former Dean of the Berlage Institute Rotterdam and as a professor at the Universität der Künste Berlin, believes that research and education are an intrinsic part of being an architect. It means thinking and making while instilling a nonlinearity in the creation process.

Within the book texts as well as images of selected built projects – photographed by Jan Bitter – weave through a span of 28 years, providing an overview of realised buildings in their everyday context. The development of Arets’ ideas are shown in their multitude of thought and action through a collection of articles, interviews and the most important theoretical texts by Wiel Arets – including many that were previously unpublished or only available in Dutch. Throughout the book Wiel Arets enters into a dialogue with others, while his work is simultaneously critically assessed and analysed.

Some of architecture’s most influential voices can be found inside, including: Stan Allen, Ben van Berkel & Caroline Bos, Kristin Feireiss, Kenneth Frampton, Jacques Herzog, Hans Ibelings, Toyo Ito, Rem Koolhaas, Arthur Kroker, Bart Lootsma, Greg Lynn, Robert McCarter, Dominique Perrault, Hani Rashid, Kazuyo Sejima, Roemer van Toorn, Anthony Vidler and Alejandro Zaera-Polo.

Buy this book and others at the Dezeenbooks store
(in association with amazon.co.uk)