Hasta La Ideas

Competition: Dezeen has teamed up with MVRDV to give readers the chance to win a pink Twin House cushion from the studio’s Vertical Village furniture collection, which launched in Milan this week.

The Twin House cushion is one of 26 colourful foam “houses” that have just been put into production by Dutch architecture studio MVRDV and Belgian furniture label Sixinch.

The cushions were originally designed for the centrepiece of an exhibition in Hamburg about the studio’s Vertical Village research – which examined alternative solutions for apartment blocks in East Asia – but were used as seating by visitors and staff.

“The flexible, durable foam elements became an instant crowd pleaser,” said MVRDV in a statement.

MVRDV decided to develop a furniture collection from these foam elements and chose to make 26 objects in the shape of houses proposed for the Vertical Village.

“The objects are not furniture in the traditional sense, they are more experimental and appeal by being surprising: how does one use a soft house in a living room?” said MVRDV.

The Twin House cushion is shaped like a semi-detached house, with the space in-between the roofs becoming the seat or a cradle for a baby.

Other pieces in the collection include The Barn, The Factory, The Depot, The Cloud, The T and The Terrace House.

The cushions are made from foam rubber with a PU coating and come in a range of colours. The winner of this competition will receive a pink Twin House model, as pictured.

The Vertical Village furniture is currently on display as a sculpture at Interni‘s event Feeding Ideas for the City at Università degli Studi in Milan.

Due to shipping limitations, this competition is only open to readers in the EEC countries however the cushions are available to buy on the Vertical Village website.

Competition closes 7 May 2014. One winner will be selected at random and notified by email. The winner’s name will be published in a future edition of our Dezeen Mail newsletter and at the top of this page.

Here’s some information from MVRDV:

What started as a radical urban vision for the densification of the East Asian Metropolis has now turned into an iconic series of furniture, bringing vision and innovation to your home. The pieces are available in a wide variety of shapes and colours – allowing you to tailor your own personal Vertical Village. The product is flexible, waterproof, seamless, hygienic and comes in a range of striking and sophisticated colours. The objects are made of foam rubber with a PU coating, which is 100% recyclable and safe according to DIN EN71-3 standards for Children’s toys.

After the Vertical Village exhibition in Hamburg, a 4 metre tall installation made of 80 of these foam elements returned to the MVRDV offices, it was spontaneously used by the staff and visitors as furniture becoming part of office life. In daily changing settings it is used as seats, waiting lounge, playground, pedestal for models and even for the odd deadline powernap. And so a furniture collection was born as a by-product of urban research. The 26 objects are in the shape of houses proposed for the Vertical Village and one can sit, lounge, work and play. The coated foam is resilient and can withstand office life, family life and even outdoor use.

And why not put some unexpected architecture in an interior? A semi-detached house, a volume with a gap or a cloud shape? The objects are not furniture in the traditional sense, they are more experimental and appeal by being surprising: How does one use a soft house in a living room?

Under the title ‘The Vertical Village – Individual, Informal, Intense’ the research project explored the rapid urban transformation of East Asia, the qualities of urban villages, and the potential to develop much denser, vertical settlements as a radical alternative to the identical block-like architecture of standardised units and their consequences for city life. The research was exhibited in Taipei, Seoul, Sao Paulo and Hamburg, usually accompanied by a large sculpture of a possible Vertical Village. After metal and plastic shapes in Seoul and Taipei in Hamburg the foam was the best solution for the 4 meter tall sculpture, leading to this furniture application.

The furniture is available from April 7th online at www.vertical-village.com. The sculpture will be displayed at Interni’s Feeding New Ideas for the City, at Università degli Studi in Milan, in collaboration with Viabizzuno lighting.

The Vertical Village research has been made possible with the generous support of the City of Taipei, the JUT Foundation for Arts and Architecture Taipei and Delft University of Technology, The Why Factory. The objects are hand made by Sixinch in Belgium.

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by MVRDV to be won appeared first on Dezeen.

MVRDV a créé une maison à la fois, de vacances, de détente et enthousiasmante pour ses habitants avec une nouvelle façon de vivre à la campagne. La façade en métal de la grange reflète son environnement naturel et les changements de saisons. Cette création permet une totale connectivité avec la nature.

News: Dutch studio MVRDV has won a competition to design 95 homes in Emmen, Switzerland, with plans that give every residence an identifiable colour.

The Feldbreite housing competition called for a new housing block, but MVRDV instead proposed a series of houses and apartment buildings arranged around shared courtyards and individual gardens.

Apartment blocks will be positioned at the corners of the development, while townhouses will line the edges and smaller residences will be inserted into the middle. The architects hope this arrangement will foster a neighbourhood community.

The 95 homes will be made up of 16 different unit types, ranging from 30 to 130 square metres in area, and forming a mixture between one and four storeys.

Different pastel colours will help residents to identify their own homes, based on the traditional paintwork found in historic Swiss town centres.

MVRDV worked with landscape architects Fontana to design the exterior spaces. Fruit trees will be dotted across the gardens, while dividing walls will include demountable tables and benches, as well as folding panels that can be used for table tennis.

Underground parking will be slotted beneath the buildings and construction is set to commence in 2015.

MVRDV, led by architects Winy Maas, Jacob van Rijs and Nathalie de Vries, recently completed a glazed shop and office complex disguised as an old farmhouse and a renovation in Gangnam, South Korea. See more architecture by MVRDV »

The architects have also teamed up with Dezeen to give away a copy of their new book, entitled MVRDV Buildings. Find out how to enter »

Here’s some information from MVRDV:

MVRDV win Competition in Emmen, Switzerland with Urban Hybrid

The city of Emmen has announced that investment corporation Senn BPM AG together with MVRDV are the winners of the Feldbreite competition for a housing block with 95 homes of 16 different types. The urban hybrid development combines characteristics of city dwelling – central location, privacy, underground parking – with the characteristics of suburban life: gardens, multilevel living and a neighbourhood community. Construction is envisioned to start in 2015.

Instead of the housing block asked for by the brief, MVRDV created a mixed urban block with small apartment buildings at the corners, townhouses along the streets and garden and patio houses inside the block. The 16 different housing types, which vary in size from 30 to 130 m2 and from one to four floors, will naturally attract a mixed group of inhabitants, an important factor in creating a vivid urban environment. The project consists of 9000 m2 of housing, 2034 m2 services and 2925 m2 underground parking.

Each house or apartment will have its own facade colour, emphasising its individual ownership. A pastel range of colour was chosen based on the specific colours traditionally found in historic Swiss town centres in the Lucerne area, such as Beromünster.

An important aspect of the project is the high quality of construction in combination with relatively low prices. Clients will be able to buy a more or less finished house – comparable to the basic model of a new car – with options leading up to almost full fit and finish possible. Home owners with little money can therefore delay investment, or do the work themselves, and still live in a high quality, new build home.

The exterior of the block is a varied urban street front whilst the interior offers the quality of a green and intimate village. The interior of the block is divided into both private and public spaces, with dividing walls used to hang tables or benches and parts of the walls which can be rotated and used for table tennis. A cohesive landscaping plan foresees a wide variety of fruit trees in the courtyard, in both the private and public areas. The garden and patio houses in the centre of the courtyard have their own entrance doors at the outer perimeter of the block. The roofs will be used for additional outdoor space.

MVRDV won the developer’s competition together with development corporation Senn BPM AG, Fontana Landscape architects and Wüest & Partner real estate consulting.

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housing competition appeared first on Dezeen.

Dutch firm MVRDV has won a design competition for a new business district in Shanghai, which is already under construction near the city’s Hongqiao Airport.

MVRDV‘s masterplan covers a 4.5 hectare site at the intersection of Shenhai Express Way and Shenbin Road. Straddling two sides of the junction, the new Central Business District will comprise a large southern plot and a smaller northern plot, which together will accommodate ten office towers and an underground shopping centre designed by architecture firm Aedas.

Sunken plazas are proposed for both sites, creating pedestrian zones that are sheltered from the busy roads. Wide stairs will be added to create informal seating areas, plus the larger of the two plazas will be surrounded by the windows of the new shopping centre.

Entrances to the shopping centre will also be added at ground level in the form of two giant glass cubes.

Nine of the office buildings will be located on the southern plot. Each will be between five and nine storeys in height and will feature rounded edges to create streamlined shapes.

The tenth office block is planned for the northern plot and is conceived as a cluster of four connected towers that the architects describe as “flower shaped”. A series of cultural facilities will be housed in the lowest floors of this building.

MVRDV will use indigenous plants to give every building a green roof, while the flower building will feature a rooftop jogging track.

The Central Business District is set to complete in 2015.

Other recent masterplans by MVRDV include a square-shaped peninsula in the Dutch city of Almere and a district beside a motorway in the French town of Villeneuve d’Ascq. See more architecture by MVRDV.

Here are more details from the architects:

MVRDV start construction of business district at Shanghai Hongqiao Airport after winning competition

Sincere Property, MVRDV and Aedas have started construction on a Central Business District at Shanghai’s mostly domestic airport Hongqiao. The 4.5ha site is located near Hongqiao Airport train station at the corner of Shenhai Express Way and Shenbin Road. The plan comprises ten office towers, an underground shopping centre, cultural program, parking and a sunken plaza which will bring a more intimate form of urban life into an area currently dominated by large boulevards and urban expressways. The project’s completion is planned for 2015.

Just weeks after winning the competition, construction has already started on this urban masterplan for an office and retail centre near the fourth busiest airport in mainland China. The 4.5ha site is divided into a small northern plot of 8,409 m2 and a larger southern plot. The team won the competition with highly energy-efficient architecture combined with an intimate urban plan which allows for pedestrian-friendly spaces.

The 110,000m2 offices are divided into ten towers in total: nine office towers on the southern plot ranging from five to nine floors, facilitating rental to different sized companies. The towers are flexibly designed to contain one or more companies. On the northern plot, the tops of four towers will merge into one building, forming a flower shaped landmark of four floors, cantilevered high above the ground.

The 47,000m2 retail space will be located partly on the ground floor and partly along a sunken plaza sheltered from vehicle traffic. Two glass cubes mark the entrances to the shopping centre and are part of the neighbourhood’s pedestrian route, which meanders through the site. The shopping centre is designed by Aedas. On both plots a spacious sunken plaza features wide stairs that can be used as seating, allowing cultural events to be hosted on the site.

Facade area has been minimized by introducing round cornered towers which, together with the continuous 50,5% transparency stone façade, leads to an efficient energy consumption. The façade presents a subtle shifted grid with a delicate bamboo forest reference. The self shading shape of the flower building has lead to a façade with smaller openings on the upper floors for efficient energy consumption. Hidden hatches next to the windows allow for natural ventilation.

The ground floor of the flower building is reserved for 1.790 m2 of cultural program. A 55.000m2 parking garage is located underneath the shopping centre.

The Hongqiao CBD will reach three stars, the highest ranking of the Chinese ‘Green Building Label’. Sustainable building features that will be used include high performance insulation, optimised building forms, shaded spaces, natural ventilation, rainwater collection, permeable road surfaces, links to public transport and a reduction in the urban heat island effect. Nine office towers will feature green roofs growing local plant species and the flower building will offer a sky garden with a continuous jogging path.

MVRDV was selected from a competition with 3 competitors to design the business park. The shopping centre is designed by Aedas. Completion is planned for 2015.

In 2003 MVRDV realised the successful Unterföhring. Park Village office campus near Munich in which urban intimacy was introduced into a large, business park environment.

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Hongqiao Airport by MVRDV with Aedas appeared first on Dezeen.

Dutch office MVRDV and French architects de Alzua+ have won a competition to re-masterplan the French town of Villeneuve d’Ascq and are proposing a building that cantilevers over a motorway.

As the first phase in a wider redevelopment programme, the mixed-use complex is intended to signify the presence of the town to passing drivers. At present a number of oversized shopping malls are the only thing visible from the motorway, so the architects wanted to create a visual reference for the town centre.

Buildings are to be arranged around a series of grassy courtyards and will contain shops, offices and a new hotel. Surface parking areas that currently occupy the site will be relocated underground, freeing up space for pedestrian pathways.

MVRDV and de Alzua+ are progressing the plans alongside development corporation ADIM Nord. Construction is scheduled to begin in 2015.

MVRDV has completed a number of projects in recent months, including a shop and office complex disguised as an old farmhouse and a public library inside a glass pyramid. See more architecture by MVRDV.

Here’s a project description from MVRDV:

MVRDV win Competition with ‘The Beam’, Marking the Urban Renewal of Villeneuve d’Ascq, France

Development corporation ADIM Nord with MVRDV and de Alzua+ have been announced the winners of an urban renewal competition in the French town of Villeneuve d’Ascq, beating four other entries. The masterplan for a crucial site in the town centre adjacent to an inner city motorway, is the starting point of a wider regeneration of the area’s public space. An iconic building, The Beam, will hover over the motorway signalling urban renewal and acting as visual reference point for the town’s centre. A hotel, offices and retail space, totalling 15.000 m2, will be built on the site of a former petrol station, with construction expected to start in 2015.

Villeneuve d’Ascq is a new town located near Lille in the very north of France. The Beam will be icon of a larger urban generation effort in the town centre which is currently characterised by parking lots, large volumes and undefined green spaces. On an urban level the masterplan aims at a more sustainable form of development by densifying the town centre and adding identity and diversity to the site. The creation of pedestrian zones, and the demarcation and connection of the existing green spaces together also form part of the plan.

The parking spaces on the main square will be relocated into a 274 space underground car park on the new site. The adjacent buildings, which face away from the site will be extended to form urban blocks; each with a green patio at its centre. At the corner of the inner city motorway and the service road leading towards the main square of Villeneuve d’Ascq, The Beam will create an address for the town centre on the motorway.

The site, one of the few places visible from this sunken dual-carriageway, allows the town centre to be visible to drivers passing by. The project is currently under development and will contain offices, a hotel and some retail space with a total area of around 15,000 m2, and the underground car park offering 274 parking spaces. The team ADIM with MVRDV and co-architect Jérôme de Alzua beat four competitors in a competition organised by Commune de Villeneuve d’Ascq.

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and de Alzua+ appeared first on Dezeen.