Hasta La Ideas

Dutch studio MVRDV has given the new Oslo headquarters for Norwegian bank DNB a pixellated appearance by building a stack of brick and glass cubes.

The irregular arrangement of the six-metre wide cubes creates recessed openings across the facade, which MVRDV has used to add sheltered terraces to each floor and a new route from the waterfront towards the nearby railway station.

“We started with a massive slab and by removing pixels one by one we were able to create an arcade, terraces, a public passage, etcetera,” project architect Jeroen Zuidgeest told Dezeen. “By carving out volumes, we made sure every floor has access to interior and exterior terraces.”

The DNB Bank Headquarters is located within the waterfront development of Bjørvika Barcode that MVRDV masterplanned in collaboration with Norwegian architects a-lab and Dark. Each studio has designed one building for the bank and MVRDV’s is the first to complete.

At 17 storeys high, the building provides over 2000 flexible work spaces for employees and each floor accommodates a series of glass cubes where staff can hold informal meetings, have lunches or take phone calls.

Wooden bridges and staircases connect the floors both inside and outside, and it is possible to walk up one side of the building to the canteen and then back down on the other side.

“On one hand, you have this proud, strong iconography, and on the other hand you’re offered social spaces and human character on every floor,” said Zuidgeest. “None of the floors are the same and when you manoeuvre through the building you experience how each floor has its own character and qualities; each one has its own surprises.”

Above: photograph is by Jeroen Musch

The building is already in use, although the complex is scheduled to open officially in May 2013.

Above: photograph is by Jeroen Musch

MVRDV has designed a few buildings with pixellated volumes, including a pair of skyscrapers that caused controversy for bearing a resemblance to the exploding World Trade Centre on 9/11. See more projects by MVRDV »

Photography is by Jiri Havran, apart from where otherwise stated.

Here’s the full project description from MVRDV:

MVRDV completes DNB Bank Headquarters main building in Oslo

The central building of DNB’s new bank headquarter cluster developed by Oslo S Utvikling (OSU) is completed. The MVRDV designed main building has 17 unique floors and a surface of 36,500m2. The pixelated volume based on small-scale working units adapts to the various influences of the urban context, combining an efficient and flexible internal organisation with a variety of specific communal spaces such as the main entrance lobby, a transparent trading floor, a sheltered public passage, respect for urban view lines and collective terraces overlooking the fjord to the south. The glass and brick exterior expresses both the transparency and stability of DNB as a modern financial institution.

Above: photograph is by Jeroen Musch

The development of the new headquarter cluster is a strategic operation concentrating the DNB offices formerly spread out over Oslo at one location, aiming for synergy and a clear identity. The objective was to translate the social and democratic character of the organisation into a building with excellent working conditions and spatial qualities that would stimulate efficiency, identity and collaboration.

The design is based on an ideal work group of the bank, a pixel of 6×6 metres, whose versatility permits adaptation to the flexible nature of the organisation. Besides more than 2,000 flexible work spaces the building contains a panoramic 140 seat canteen on the top level, the executive lounge with a view over the fjord, the board room, in the heart of the volume DNB’s trading room with 250 work stations, and the main entrance with the reception and access to the concourse that connects to the two neighbouring volumes. The collective spaces are connected by a staggered continuous internal route of collective terraces, all being executed as glass pixels, encouraging informal meetings and communication between employees.

Above: photograph is by Jeroen Musch

This route meanders from the reception upwards through the building, connecting all 17 levels office levels with the communal areas. A series of wooden stairs and bridges allow employees to switch levels or even to walk up to the canteen on one side of the building and down on the other side. The route accommodates communal areas to the office floors and is made homely with a series of pantries, informal meeting areas, reading-rooms, lounges and fire places. It gives access to the various outdoor terraces and roof gardens. All these collective spaces offer views to the surroundings and transparency from out side. The route is naturally ventilated and has a high performance glass fit for the cold Norwegian winter.

The generic office floors recline and are recessed in various places to answer to the urban context creating communal indoor and outdoor areas and outstanding daylight conditions. At street level the building volume is opened to give space to sheltered entrance zones, and intersected by a public passage creating a public route between Oslo Central Station and the fjord. The pixelated design allows this specific response whilst being highly efficient and flexible. As a result, every floor of the building is both unique and generic: the pixelated volume makes the generic specific.

Above: photograph is by Jeroen Musch

The structure is conceived as a steel rack wrapped in a brick skin, covering all exterior terraces, walls and ceilings with bricks, which adopts Norwegian environmental standards and gives a human scale to the building. It appears as a rock, a strong shape within the boundaries of the Barcode.

The international Norwegian financial institution DNB decided to concentrate their twenty office locations currently dispersed over the city in the Bjørvika Barcode, an urban plan by MVRDV / DARK / a-lab next to Oslo Central Station. In 2007, the masterplan team was commissioned by developer OSU to design the urban concept for DNB’s headquarter complex. A new cluster of three volumes (80.000m2) and a common basement with a 3,000m2 underground concourse, which interlinks the three buildings of the bank, was developed. MVRDV was commissioned as architect for the central main building and co-responsible for the urban concept and concourse.

Above: photograph is by Jeroen Musch

MVRDV has collaborated with Norwegian co-architect DARK Arkitekter AS and various Norwegian engineering firms. Project management is executed by Norwegian firm Vedal Project AS. The second building of the DNB cluster is designed by A-lab and the third building by Dark Arkitekter, within the overall Bjørvika Barcode masterplan. The cluster will be officially opened May 14th 2013.

DNB is the largest financial services group in Norway. The Group consists of brands such as DNB, Vital, Nordlandsbanken, Cresco, Postbanken, DnB NORD and Carlson. In 2003, MVRDV, together with Norwegian firms Dark and a-lab, won the competition for the Bjørvika waterfront development with the design of the Bjørvika Barcode; a dense, open and differentiated urban master plan along Nyland Allé, that is developed and realised by OSU in phases. DNB Life Insurance (DNB Scandinavian Property Fund) bought the 3 buildings last year for 4,8 billion Norwegian krone.

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by MVRDV appeared first on Dezeen.

Architects and designers including Kengo Kuma, Toyo Ito, Shigeru Ban, MVRDV and Konstantin Grcic have designed a series of downloadable architectural structures that are just for dogs (+ slideshow).

Organised by Kenya Hara, the creative director of MUJI, Architecture for Dogs is set to launch next week as an open-source network where dog-owners can download the templates for each of the thirteen designs, then build them for themselves.

Each designer was asked to think up a structure that would alter the way that people interact with their pet, so Atelier Bow-Wow have designed a ramp for a daschund (above) that helps it make eye contact with its owner, in spite of its short legs. “We thought about stairs, but their bodies are too long and they risk hurting their hips,” said the architects, explaining their design for a folding slope.

Meanwhile, Konstantin Grcic has designed a mirror for a poodle (above), as apparently it is the only dog that can recognise its own reflection.

Shigeru Ban has used his trademark cardboard tubes to create a maze for a papillon (above), while Sou Fujimoto has recreated the scaffolding-like structure of his House NA project in Tokyo in his house for a Boston terrier (below).

Sanaa‘s Kayuzo Sajima came up with a design for a fluffy white cushion (below) that matches the fur of the bichon frisé.

“Bichons love soft surfaces and snuggling into large blankets,” said Sajima. “The typical space designed for dogs in the interior of a house is at the convenience of the human and is frequently a cage-like container you keep in the dark corner of a room. This design however is a warm, inviting version of that crate.”

Kengo Kuma has devised a system of wooden components (above) that can be used to construct a hill, which a pug can either sit inside or climb up onto.

MVRDV wanted to “give the curious and playful Beagle a space of its own” and have created a gabled kennel (above) that rocks back and forth.

For a spitz, Hiroshi Naito has created a curving bed of tubes and wooden blocks (above), while Toyo Ito‘s design is a four-wheeled mobile home for a shiba (below).

As chihuahuas are known to love burrowing, Reiser + Umemoto thought the best structure for one would be a comfortable outfit (below). “We wanted to create something that would make the dog feel protected and safe,” said the architects.

Other structures include a reimagined hammock by Torafu (below), a staircase in a box by curator Kenya Hara and an upside-down suspended cone by the Hara Design Institute.

The Architecture for Dogs website is set to launch on 15 November, when people will be encouraged to upload photographs of the structures they’ve built and share any improvements they’ve made.

The structures will also be presented in December as part of Design Miami.

Other designs for dogs on Dezeen include a special staircase at a house in Vietnam and a combined chair and kennel.

See more stories about animals »
See more stories about open-source design »

Photography is by Hiroshi Yoda.

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curated by Kenya Hara appeared first on Dezeen.

News: the Dutch city of Almere has won a bid to host the World Horticultural Expo in 2022 with proposals by MVRDV for a square-shaped peninsula covered in gardens.

As well as hosting the six-month festival, the 45 hectare development will create a new city quarter over a lake and will accommodate a university, offices, homes and leisure facilities.

MVRDV are also the urban planners for Almere and will develop these plans as part of a wider strategy to expand the city with 60,000 new houses and 100,000 new work places.

“We will build a city that is literally green as well as ecological,” said MVRDV’s Winy Maas. ”A city that produces food and energy, cleans its own water, recycles waste and holds a great biodiversity.”

Maas also suggests that the merging of city and coutryside could “offer essential argumentation to the global concerns regarding of urbanisation and consumption.”

Read more about the proposals in our earlier story.

See all our stories about MVRDV »

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for World Horticultural Expo appeared first on Dezeen.

Dezeen Wire: Dutch architects MVRDV will create 676 miniature LEGO towers at the Venice Architecture Biennale later this month for an exhibition to promote the inclusion of architectural discourse within European Union development policies.

Top and above: Porous City

Named Porous City, the exhibition will form part of a series initiated by the European Forum for Architectural Policies (EFAP) and will open at Spazio Punch in Giudecca on 26 August.

Above: Freeland

The architects will also present another exhibition for the biennale, named Freeland, where cartoon animations will highlight the issues of urban planning by creating a series of utopian scenarios.

Biennale director David Chipperfield talked to Dezeen about his theme for the event in an interview we filmed earlier this year.

See more stories about MVRDV here, including a recently completed call centre with QR codes on the facade.

Here’s some more information from MVRDV explaining all of their activities at the biennale:

MVRDV and The Why Factory at the 13th Venice Architecture Biennale with Freeland and EU CITY Program

By invitation of Director David Chipperfield, MVRDV and The Why Factory contribute to the 13th International Architecture Exhibition, entitled Common Ground. The main contribution consists of the collaborative project ‘Freeland’ forming part of the single exhibition in the Central Pavilion at the Giardini. Further contribution is made by Winy Maas and The Why Factory with ‘Porous City’ to the EU CITY Program, initiated by the European Forum for Architectural Policies (EFAP) representing Europe for the first time at the Venice Architecture Biennale.

Presented as an animated documentary on a multi-screen surround projection, Freeland explores the prospects of complete liberation of urban planning. It questions whether classical centralized planning is still needed in times of increased individualization and if instead a self-organized city can be imagined. What can be organized individually and when will we need our neighbours? What are the “minimal common grounds” of our developments? Freeland is rooted in two projects: it combines the practical side of the development strategy designed by MVRDV for Almere Oosterwold with the research on bottom up urbanism addressed by the AnarCity studio led by The Why Factory at TU Delft and the Berlage Institute.

MVRDV’s Almere Oosterwold is a revolutionary model in urban planning as it steps away from governmental dictate and invites organic urban growth, stimulating initiatives by which inhabitants can create their own neighbourhoods including public green, energy supply, water management, waste management, urban agriculture and infrastructure.

The Why Factory’s AnarCity unveils utopian scenarios that fantasize on radical liberated urbanization in different situations and contexts such as the fall of government, climate crises or voluntary anarchism. The movie takes the viewer on a time-travel back to the utopian Freeland. Successes, failures and surprises play out in a series of intriguing narratives.

Besides the main contribution ‘Freeland’, Winy Maas and The Why Factory are involved in additional programs and events of the 13th International Architecture Exhibition at various locations. At Spazio Punch at Guidecca ‘Porous City’, an exhibition of 676 LEGO towers at a scale of 1:000 will be on display at the launch of the EU CITY Program, a manifestation representing Europe for the first time at the Venice Architecture Biennale.

The EU CITY Program, initiated by the European Forum for Architectural Policies (EFAP), advocates the importance of architecture as a common ground for European cultural expression. EFAP is concerned with the urgency for architecture, urban design and creative industries to be part of the European Union policies and starts a discourse through the EU CITY Program about how the European Union can evolve the frameworks of city making towards cities that meet our needs.

Furthermore Winy Maas has been appointed advisor for the first ever Kosovo entry, and The Why Factory will present the AnarCity movie by the Berlage Institute and launch two books .

‘Freeland’ is a collaborative project by MVRDV and The Why Factory and was made possible by the financial support of the City of Almere. Rotterdam based SYNPLE made the animation. The ‘Porous City’ showcase has been generously supported by the LEGO Group, Denmark.

The Exhibition Common Ground in the Central Pavilion at the Giardini and the Arsenale will present 63 projects by architects, artists, photographers, critics and scholars who have involved other colleagues in their projects with whom they share a Common Ground, making it a total of 110 participants.

The launch of the EU City program will take place on Monday, 27 August at the central venue of the Architecture Biennale. The exhibition Porous City will be opened on Sunday, 26 August at 18.00 at the Spazio Punch, Giudecca 800/o, Venezia 30133, Italia. The 13th International Architecture Exhibition will be open to the public from 29th of August through 25th of November 2012 with previews on 27th and 28th of August.

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for Venice Architecture Biennale appeared first on Dezeen.

Dutch architects MVRDV have proposed extending the city of Almere into a lake by building a square-shaped artificial peninsula covered in gardens (+ slideshow).

The 45 hectare extension is part of the Dutch city’s bid to host the World Horticultural Expo in 2022 and would host the six-month festival as well as providing land to build a new university plus offices, homes and leisure facilities.

Designs for the exhibition comprise a patchwork of gardens that the architects have called a “plant library” as well as a series of pavilions and greenhouses.

Once the expo is over, the green development would provide a permanent addition to the fast-developing city that was first established in 1976 on the outskirts of Amsterdam.

“We dream of making green cities,” says Winy Maas of MVRDV. “A city that is literally green as well as ecological. A city that produces food and energy, cleans its own water, recycles waste and holds a great biodiversity.”

The winning candidate is expected to be announced in October.

MVRDV have come up with a series of design concept for Almere, including a series of artificial islands and a neighbourhood based on a string of beads.

Winy Maas also chatted to Dezeen about their UK house project Balancing Barn in an interview we filmed last year. Watch the movie »

See all our stories about MVRDV »

Here’s some more information from MVRDV:

The City of Almere presents its plans for the Floriade 2022 candidature. Almere is one of the four Dutch cities left in the race for the prestigious horticultural Expo which takes place once every ten years in the Netherlands and is currently open in Venlo. The MVRDV plan for Almere is not a temporary expo site but a lasting green Cité Idéale as a green extension of the existing city centre. The waterfront site opposite the city centre will be developed as vibrant new urban neighbourhood and giant plant library which will remain after the expo. The ambition is to create a 300% greener exhibition than currently standard, both literally green and sustainable: each program on the site will be combined with plants which will create programmatic surprises, innovation and ecology. The site with a vast program such as a university, hotel, marina, offices and homes will at the same time be more urban than any other Floriade has been before, literally constructing the green city. The Nederlandse Tuinbouwraad (NTR) will decide in October which city will be organising the next Floriade in 2022.

Amsterdam’s metropolitan area stands at the verge of a large housing growth. With 60.000 new homes the city of Almere will realise the largest share of this new development. Almere has the ambition to combine the urban growth with improved quality for its citizens. MVRDV proposes the ‘green’ extension of Almere city centre opposite the existing centre, transforming the lake into a central lake and connecting the various neighbourhoods of the Dutch new town. The plan foresees a dense exemplary and green city centre extension which at the same time is very flexible: an invitation to the Floriade organiser NTR to develop the plan further.

Winy Maas discusses the plan: “We dream of making green cities. City that is literally green as well as ecological. A city that produces food and energy, cleans its own water, recycles waste and holds a great biodiversity. A city which might even be autarkic: A symbiotic world of people, plants and animals. Can this symbiosis between city and countryside offer essential argumentation to the global concerns regarding urbanisation and consumption? Can we realise in the next ten years an exemplary ‘green’ city which realises this synthesis? And could this city be the Floriade 2022?”

Almere Floriade will be developed as a tapestry of gardens on a 45ha square shaped peninsula. Each block will be devoted to different plants, a plant library with perhaps an alphabetical order. The blocks are also devoted to program, from pavilions to homes, offices and even a university which will be organised as a stacked botanical garden, a vertical eco-system in which each class room will have a different climate to grow certain plants. Visitors will be able to stay in a jasmine hotel, swim in a lily pond and dine in a rosary. The city will offer homes in orchards, offices with planted interiors and bamboo parks. The Expo and new city centre will be a place that produces food and energy, a green urban district which shows in great detail how plants enrich every aspect of daily life.

MVRDV earlier developed the Almere 2030 masterplan and the radical DIY urbanism plan for Almere Oosterwold, and has engaged in vast research concerning urban farming, urban density and many aspects of modern agriculture. In 2000, MVRDV realised the Netherlands pavilion at the Hanover World Expo. Almere is one of four remaining candidate cities besides Amsterdam, Groningen and Boscoop region. In October the winning scheme and city will be announced by the NTR.

Program (selection): 45ha city centre extension with panorama tower, green housing exhibition (22.000m2/115 homes) hotel (30.000m2), university (10.000m2), conference centre (12.000m2) various expo pavilions (25.000m2) smart green house (4.000m2), care home (3.000m2), childrens expo, marina, forest, open air theatre, camping and other facilities (25.000m2).

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by MVRDV appeared first on Dezeen.