An angular wooden staircase ascends the lobby of this office renovation in the Dutch town of Hoofddorp by Amsterdam architects Studioninedots (+ slideshow).
Studioninedots was tasked with renovating an entire 1970s office building. The architects began by removing an existing staircase and enlarging the space around it to create a void that visually connects a communal area on the ground floor with the levels above.
The staircase acts as the focal point of this large atrium and was made by cladding a steel structure in plywood sheets to create a series of bridges and access points to the various floors.
Broad treads encourage spontaneous interaction between employees of the different firms that occupy the shared offices.
“The staircase as a tool for communication, lends the building a collective identity,” said the architects. “As a vertical lobby that offers views of all floors, it tells occupants that they are part of a larger world.”
Elsewhere, the architects employed a pared-back approach so that they “could channel more resources into one spectacular, shared amenity that boosts the whole building” – the staircase.
Latticed panels milled from the same plywood used for the staircase create decorative railings around the edges of the atrium.
Removing suspended ceilings revealed cast concrete beams that contrast with the warm wood of the staircase.
Large windows fill the lobby with natural light and provide views of the surrounding neighbourhood from every level.
From an abandoned and anonymous office building to a vibrant multi-tenant complex. That’s De Burgemeester, a commercial property in Hoofddorp renovated by Studioninedots and opened on 5 November 2013. The secret of the transformation? A vertical lobby featuring an open staircase where people meet face to face, a space that brings people together both literally and figuratively.
We space. That’s our name for this communal area at the heart of the building. It’s a place that brings people together. Out of the concrete floors we carved a 14-metre-tall void that houses a giant staircase that cuts diagonal lines through the void as it makes its way upwards, linking the different floors to one another. Now people are on the move, making their way back and forth on the timber steps. Some of them linger for a chat, and there’s space on the broad treads to sit for a moment. The sound of chatter and the aroma of coffee from the café below now fill the hall. Most of the office space has already been leased, bringing the building back to life once again.
De Burgemeester was part of the ‘cloud’ of blue foam models on show in the Dutch pavilion at the 2010 Venice Architecture Biennale. In an exhibition entitled Vacant NL, the pavilion housed a vast model that depicted all the unoccupied buildings in the Netherlands. The exhibition proved confrontational for the way it captured the sheer scale of empty space and rendered it visible at a glance, and for the conclusion expressed: the era of growth is finished, and scarcely anything more needs to be built.
At the same time, that sea of blue also contained a promise. Vacant NL posed a creative challenge to architects: discover the potential of these buildings; adapt them for our era of economic stagnation and population decline; transform them, temporary or otherwise, into flexible and sustainable structures; to ensure a new appreciation of these buildings.
What’s more, the crisis offers opportunities. The pressure of cost-cutting measures creates scope for other values. More does not necessarily mean better, and that’s something increasing numbers of people are coming to realize. Born out of the idea of cutbacks and facilitated by the internet, a flourishing culture of sharing has emerged.
Thanks to Greenwheels, Peerby and Airbnb we borrow and rent cars, tools and even homes from one another. People in more and more cities are setting up resident associations to make their neighbourhoods more sustainable. And vacant sites are taken as ‘test sites’ for new spatial developments such as urban farming. The sense that ‘everybody for himself’ no longer works, and the feeling that we can really achieve something by joining forces, is gaining widespread support. And, just as important: we’ve come to realize that it’s all much more fun together.
The renovation of De Burgemeester is a response to these developments. Ymere housing association granted the building a new life as an office complex and in 2012 asked us to draw up a proposal. But the persistent crisis thwarted that ambition; it turned out to be unfeasible for a single client to occupy the entire building. That’s the reason it was decided to team up with an investor called Lingotto and turn the building into a multi-tenant complex.
Since office space with all sorts of extra amenities was no longer a realistic option with a lower budget, we completely changed our original proposal. Workspaces are fitted out without any frills so that we could channel more resources into one spectacular, shared amenity that boosts the whole building. The sculptural staircase, a social space where people can meet, a place that connects people to one another both literally and figuratively. The staircase as a tool for communication, lends the building a collective identity. As a vertical lobby that offers views of all floors, it tells occupants that they are part of a larger world. And precisely that feeling is the major quality of the renovated building.
On top of that, we maximized those qualities that De Burgemeester already possessed: views of the surrounding neighbourhood and generous amounts of daylight. The openness and transparency achieved through the addition of glass partition walls and the voluminous atrium ensures views to the outside from almost everywhere within. Suspended ceilings have been removed to reveal the authentic concrete floor with T-beams. Now this rough, column-free load-bearing structure determines the atmosphere. The timber-clad stairs and banisters add warmth to the interior. The staircase is constructed of steel and wrapped with simple sheets of plywood with a transparent varnish finish. Custom-made railings are milled from the same sheets using an affordable industrial technique that lends the result an almost handcrafted appearance.
To complete the story, we also designed the building’s visual identity. The leitmotif for the colourful graphic design is the comma, an optimistic punctuation mark that evokes positive expectations. De Burgemeester is already well on its way to meeting those expectations.
This mixed-use complex in Rotterdam by Mei Architecten en Stedenbouwers features a tower with protruding storage areas that look like welding masks bolted onto the facade.
Photograph by Jeroen Musch
Dutch firm Mei Architecten en Stedenbouwers designed the eleven-storey tower for the final phase in a redevelopment of the audio-visual production centre complex in Rotterdam’s Schiecentrale district.
Photograph by Jeroen Musch
The tower is built over the north-west side of a renovated power plant and accommodates offices, apartments and combined live-work units.
Photograph by Jeroen Musch
Glazing surrounds three sides of the new building, but the east elevation is clad with stainless steel mesh that provides solar shading for communal corridors.
Photograph by Jeroen Musch
The protruding storage spaces are dotted across this elevation and there are around ten on each floor.
Photograph by Ronald Tilleman
“The store rooms are like loose cubes,” the architects told Dezeen. “They were designed especially for this project and produced in series.”
Photograph by Ronald Tilleman
Each one is formed from a synthetic composite material and is covered with a UV-resistant gel coating.
Photograph by Jeroen Musch
“The architecture is sturdy and spectacular, and in harmony with the character of the former dock area,” added the architects.
Here’s a project description from the architects:
Schiecentrale 4b
A harbour building to live, work and relax in.
Schiecentrale 4b is the final phase in the redevelopment of the former Schiehavencentrale and surroundings. The combination of office spaces, dwellings, and combined living/working units adds life to the area, which has become the audio-visual centre of Rotterdam in recent years.
Schiecentrale 4b consists of a striking new structure built around the north-west sides of the old Schiecentrale building. The new complex provides the media centre with various types of dwellings, for people closely involved in the audio-visual sector and people in other creative disciplines who like the port atmosphere still palpable in the area.
The new structure consists of around 55,000 square metres of space. Office space accounts for 7000 square metres of that. Also included are 156 living/working units and twenty ground-accessed quayside dwellings that are 3.5 floors in height. Additional facilities include a supermarket (2000 square metres), a gym (600 square metres), 400 parking spaces in a supervised garage, and a semi-public deck 3000 square metres in area. A sun terrace, stand and playground complete the picture.
A main feature of the project is the tall narrow building, 130 metres long and 50 metres tall, built on top of the old power plant. The 11-floor structure contains the offices and living-working units. These are accessed from a gallery finished in stainless steel. Attached to the gallery are storage spaces, which are situated directly opposite the front doors.
All spaces on the west side of the building are fitted with glazed façades. This part of the building offers a wonderful view of the Nieuwe Maas and the harbour. The partitions of the living/working units can be opened from floor to ceiling with harmonica doors, allowing the creation of an exterior space within the building volume.
On account of the great flexibility, all technical installations in the spaces as well as on the façades are carried out as ‘assembly’. The complex exudes the character of a typical port building in which technology from the offshore and processing sectors has been integrated.
Gabled houses in vivid shades of red, orange and yellow line the streets of this new residential district in Groningen, the Netherlands, by Dutch studio architecten|en|en (+ slideshow).
The project was initiated as part of a masterplan by Dutch firm MVRDV to propose housing for 35 different sites within the city limits. Eindhoven studios architecten|en|en and diederendirrix teamed up to plan one of the sites, which is located on a former sports field.
While diederendirrix designed an apartment building for the northern boundary of the site, architecten|en|en planned a series of four urban blocks, each comprising approximately 25 row houses.
“Now the site acts as a new garden village, within the boundaries of the city,” architect Frans Benjamins told Dezeen.
Each three-storey block is finished in a different colour, which covers everything from the brick walls and steel roof tiles, to eaves, doors, window frames and letterboxes.
Gardens are contained at the centre of all four blocks, comprising a mixture of private and communal spaces.
“The original idea behind the courtyards was to create community areas, but because the houses are a mixture of sale and rent, we chose for the safe route – private gardens with semi-public courts between,” added Benjamins.
A standard two-bedroom house type was designed for the long edges of the blocks, while larger family units fill the gaps along the sides.
Photographs are by BASE Photography.
Here’s a project description from the architects:
Court Housing
The celebration of the Dutch Housing tradition.
On a former sports field within the ring road of the Dutch town of Groningen, a new residential district is being realised by creating a ‘scenery landscape’. This plan achieves the coherence and transition between the ‘garden village’ De Oude Hoogte and the industrial area on the northern side of the ring road. The division into sequential living atmospheres provides a varied range of housing typologies.
The northern boundary of the plan is formed by a long apartment building – designed by diederendirrix architects- that functions as a noise barrier towards the area behind it. Here, in the southern part of the plan, a connection to the existing garden village has been realised by the continuation of the road structure and the layout of the scheme in closed perimeter blocks. These blocks contain both the scale and characteristic design of the sloping roofs of the neighbouring buildings.
The housing blocks are designed in different configurations which create a variety of perspective spaces between them. The layout of the housing blocks consist of a combination of standard row houses on the long sides and specials on the short sides. Within these special dwelling types the entrances towards the streets and the inner courtyards are elaborated as white voids, based on the design of the nearby historic gateway named Cortinghpoort.
The inner areas contain a typical Dutch layout of private gardens with storages that are situated on a collective exit. The extra-large meandering design however provides an abundance of space resulting in a comfortable inner area.
The materialisation of the building blocks consist of a shell made of glued bricks, repetitive window frames and sloping roofs with steel tiles. By using just one colour for all these materials in each block, an almost artificial image is created. Because of their white colour, the corners and inner areas automatically become the special elements.
Brains Unlimited is the name of this recently completed trio of buildings, which provides a neuroscience research facility for Maastricht University in the Netherlands (+ slideshow).
Designed by Dutch firm Wiegerinck, the buildings are located on the developing Maastricht Health Campus on the southern edge of the university grounds and provide a centre for both education and research.
The complex is divided into two wings. The first – spread across two buildings – accommodates teaching rooms and offices, alongside spaces for start-up businesses and university-run enterprises. The second houses an advanced scanning facility containing three magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scanners.
The exterior of each building is different, but all three were designed to feel like part of the same family.
“The design is based on an ensemble of building elements in a green inner area,” said the architects. “This ensemble of building elements varies in height and is given an architectural detailing that is expressed in great diversity within a certain degree of coherence.”
For the two blocks that make up the main wing, the architects designed gridded structures made from dark prefabricated concrete. For the six-storey block, they infilled this with red enamelled glazing, while the four-storey building features a facade of wooden panels.
The exterior of the single-storey scanner laboratory is made up of structural glazing and aluminium columns, and is described by the architects as having a “reserved, abstract design”.
Glazed corridors connect the three buildings at ground level, spilling out into a hall at the centre of the complex. This space functions as a reception and leads through to an auditorium just beyond.
Here’s a project description from the architects:
Brains Unlimited Maastricht
Vision to make the impossible possible
Under the leadership of Prof. Dr Rainier Goebel, the Cognitive Neuroscience department at the Maastricht University (Department of Psychology and Neuroscience) expressed its ambition in 2008 to further expand its name in the field of brain research. The department also wished to offer research groups and external parties the possibility of using advanced research facilities. The largest clients for this are start-up businesses and university spin-offs. They can rent space in the building from the Stichting Life Sciences Incubator Maastricht (SLIM). The new research institute is called ‘Brains Unlimited’.
At Brains Unlimited, scientists, entrepreneurs and clinicians work under one roof, undertaking research into the function of the human brain in order to gain new understanding and to develop clinical applications that can then be commercialised. Brains Unlimited also offers professional education in the field of neurophysics and neuro-imaging and it provides accommodation for spin-off companies in its BioPartner Incubator. The results of the research support the development of new treatments, diagnoses and technologies for such diseases as Alzheimer, Parkinson, epilepsy, schizophrenia and MS.
To fulfil its ambition, the university has built a new educational, office and laboratory facility for brain research. The education rooms (auditorium and classrooms), offices and laboratories are accommodated in the main building. The adjacent Scanner Lab houses state-of-the-art research equipment in the form of three MR (Magnetic Resonance) scanners. The most important asset is the fMRI (Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging) scanner with an ultra-high (9.4 Tesla) magnetic field of which only four exist in the entire world.
The intrinsic relevance of this fundamental research has convinced Europe, the Province and the business community to make the challenging financial running of this project feasible through subsidies and contributions under the motto ‘Vision to make the impossible possible’.
Brains Unlimited is the first project to be completed at the Maastricht Health Campus. The Health Campus is a valorisation campus where ideas and innovations from scientific research and practical care are developed (further) and clinically tested on-site. Work is currently being undertaken on the ‘Living Lab Limburg’ and ‘Particle Therapy Center’ follow-up projects.
Research concept
‘Synergy and meeting’ were the keywords used by the client and user when selecting the design team. This range of ideas offered the greatest chance of achieving the fundamental principles.
Brains Unlimited physically and virtually brings together education, fundamental research and industry. The meeting between these different ‘blood groups’ is essential for achieving the intended innovation and accumulation of knowledge. Forced and unforced contact was of primary importance in the spatial organisation of the building. In addition, the design team was selected on a ‘Total Engineer’ basis so that it was able to provide an optimum response to the requirement to work out the concept meticulously to the very last detail.
Location and fit
The planning preconditions were formulated by von Brandt Stadtplaner und Architekten on the instructions of the Municipality of Maastricht. The basis for these was the Master Plan for Randwyck Noord produced by Prof. O.M. Ungers in 1990, in which the aim is to achieve a pluralistic city structure using the “Stadt in der Stadt” theme. This theme involves creating ensembles that have a strong spatial interrelationship. The result is “Raumformen, vom Einzelraum über die Raumgruppe bis zum Raumkomplex” which together create a “Mikrokosmos, in dem die Komplexität des Makrokosmos reflektiert wird”. The diversity of function, scale and design of the built environment are accepted. Public space and green structures form important elements for creating clarity and cohesion in the area.
The site is located on the southern edge of the university campus. Brains Unlimited is the first project to be undertaken on the currently undeveloped strip of land that is enclosed by the Oxfordlaan and the Oeslingerbaan – on the north and south side respectively – and the Universiteitssingel and the P. Debeyelaan on the east and west sides.
The development line is to a large extent determined by two factors: on the one hand the building line on the Oxfordlaan and the Oeslingerbaan that has to be retained and, on the other hand, the existing stand of trees surrounding the historic skating rink which also had to be retained. This skating rink is used as an organising element for traffic management on the site.
Brains Unlimited is the first project of the university on this campus with a clear relationship to the ground level. After all, the first floor of all of the other buildings will be open to the public. Brains Unlimited has deliberately deviated from this in order to increase the human dimension, contact with the outside space and the liveliness of the area as part of the required synergy.
Design concept
The design is based on an ensemble of building elements in a green inner area. This ensemble of building elements varies in height and is given an architectural detailing that is expressed in great diversity within a certain degree of coherence. To support the image of City Walls and heterologous development within the walls, the main building is initially segmented into three smaller “modules”. In contrast to the City Walls, these modules are slightly offset from each other, creating an ensemble of smaller building elements.
The architectural detailing of the building elements is based on the theme of “unity in diversity”. For this purpose, all aspects of the floor tiles are visible like staves and thus form a strong Leitmotiv. As in the game of Dominoes, the last tile put down passes on half of its properties to the next tile and the same method has been adopted with the construction of the different building elements in the ensemble. Each building element takes over part of the previous building element but then adds its own aspects to this so that they still derive their own individual identity from this.
The southern building block (building element A) accommodates the SLIM Incubator and the central vertical access to the ensemble. The building element has a band structure with an infill. The protruding bands are made from dark-grey prefabricated concrete. The infill material consists of two red enamelled glazing units that are positioned randomly in respect of each other. The frames are made of dark-brown anodised aluminium. Perforated aluminium strips are placed between the bands. These are dark-bronze anodised. The strips act as a vertical sunblind and give the building a certain elegant lightness.
The northern block (building element B) accommodates the Department of Psychology. The structure is similar to that of building element A. The building element manifests more towards the garden side and therefore has an infill that is formed by planks of oiled Accoya wood. The vertical strips here are designed in a lighter bronze colour.
The entrance to the ensemble is formed by a separate, one-storey building. The building forms the link between the central hall and the Scanner Lab. The entrance building has a reserved, abstract design, consisting of aluminium bands and structural glazing units, jointed together using sealant. In turn, the central hall forms the link between building elements A and B; a joint between the building elements. It is a transparently designed volume consisting of a slender aluminium curtain wall with glass. The reception area and reception function are located in this volume. The physical link between building elements A and B is created using three footbridges, arranged above each other, that keep the transparency of the central hall intact. This hall therefore forms the synergy junction where all blood groups meet each other. The auditorium, espresso bar, reception, education rooms, kitchenettes and sanitary rooms are all incorporated in the hall.
Sustainability forms an integral part of the design concept. A number of passive structural measures have been incorporated first. The façade incorporates fixed structural horizontal and vertical sunblinds in order to protect against the direct heat load from the sun on the east, west and south façades. This saves on the cooling capacity required and guarantees an unrestricted view for the user. The choice of a column-free and beam-free span has also been evaluated for lifecycle costs. The other façade materials (glazing and preserved wood) have been selected on the basis of their environmental impact and maintenance requirements.
A number of energy-saving measures have also been incorporated in respect of the systems. These include heat recovery from the MR equipment cooling, CO2-controlled ventilation, natural ventilation, daylight- and motion-controlled lighting, choice of type of lighting sources, Building Management System control for equipment in stand-by mode, etc. A BREEAM-bespoke plan (ambition: BREEAM Very Good) has been instigated for the project with the Dutch Green Building Council. The Very Good score was achieved in the design phase.
The initiation phase for Brains Unlimited came about through collaboration with the European Union, the Province of Limburg, Maastricht University, MUMC+, Siemens, Forschungszentrum Jülich, the university’s property department and the end users.
Within its organisation the university appointed a compact core group that remained virtually unchanged from the moment of formulating the vision through to project completion. The core group included end users and the property department.
On the basis of vision and experience of complex projects, the design team was selected to be a ‘Total Engineer’ team, which means that it was assigned an extensive role. The design team became responsible for the design from landscaping to fitting out. There was very little change in the client team and in the design team. Personal involvement was essential for monitoring the design concept and the building quality.
When configuring the project organisation and selecting the consultants and contractors, the university always strived to achieve integration and compactness. Because of its technical complexity the ‘Brains Unlimited’ project was split into two sub-projects.
A European tender resulted in Siemens – as a supplier of state-of-the-art research equipment – being awarded a Design & Build contract for the Scanner Lab. Wiegerinck took care of the design up to the environmental permit level and then remained involved as aesthetic consultant so that the entire project was detailed architecturally as a single ensemble.
For the other building elements a call for tenders for the Total Engineer was issued at the same time. Five design teams were requested to present their vision for this project. Wiegerinck formed a compact design team together with Arup. All of the required design disciplines were represented within these two firms.
The tendering strategy and the associated selection criteria for the contractors were determined during the design process. This resulted in a tender for a single lot and an award of contract on the basis of the Most Economically Beneficial Tender in which price and quality (in the form of planning and action plan) were jointly evaluated.
Both the Scanner Lab and the main building were designed by a compact team. Architect, building services consultant, structural engineer and landscape architect worked closely together to arrive at the required building concept. Every last detail was discussed and agreed in order to achieve a strong degree of integration and high level of finish.
The construction processes commenced with a vision presentation by the design team to all of the persons involved in the construction phase of the project. This created support for the high level of requirements with regard to the quality of construction and the detailing. Intensive sessions were also held during the construction phase, during which complete agreement was sough between all aspects of the construction and the contractors.
“Usually we throw [a mobile phone] away after a couple of years, but this one is made to last.”
He continues: “You throw away a lot of good components [when you throw away a phone], because usually it’s only one item that is broken. With this phone you can only throw away components that are actually broken, or need repairing or upgrading.”
“If it’s getting slow you only upgrade the speed component, if you need a better camera you only upgrade the camera component. In this way you can keep the good stuff and the bad stuff you upgrade.”
“I’m just one guy at the Design Academy, I can’t make this phone myself,” says Hakkens. “So I put this video online and in the first 24 hours I had one million views on YouTube. I got a lot of nice emails from companies and people who want to work on this.”
Hakkens also put the project on Thunderclap, a crowdspeaking site where supporters donate their social reach rather than money.
His Phonebloks Thunderclap campaign closed yesterday, having gained 979,280 supporters. On closing, an automatic message about Phonebloks was sent out to all of his supporters’ social media contacts, reaching over 380 million people.
The approach has been successful in getting the attention of major players in the mobile phone industry.
“The whole point was to generate a lot of buzz,” says Hakkens. “So companies see that there’s a huge market and they need to make a phone like this.”
Design Academy Eindhoven graduate Dave Hakkens
We drove around Eindhoven in our MINI Cooper S Paceman. The music in the movie is a track called Family Music by Eindhoven-based hip hop producer Y’Skid.
This railway station in the Netherlands by Dutch studio NL Architects comprises a cross formation of shipping containers that frame a transparent waiting room and cafe (+ slideshow).
NL Architects designed the Barneveld Noord station for Dutch national railway service ProRail, which is upgrading 20 stations across the country as part of a campaign called Prettig Wachten, or Pleasant Waiting. The aim is to make waiting for trains a more comfortable experience for passengers.
“One of the keys to the success of Prettig Wachten is to introduce human presence on these stations, to create some sort of informal supervision,” said the architects, explaining the concept to add features such as WIFI and artwork to stations.
The architects used shipping containers to create a temporary structure that could easily be relocated.
“Containers seemed a cheap and light material that can easily be put together and taken apart, ” the architects told Dezeen. “These huge building blocks allowed us to create a large sculpture with minimal effort.”
Three of the containers form a roof above the glazed waiting room. One has an open bottom, creating a double-height space, while the other two are sealed to provide overhead storage.
A fourth container has been flipped on its side to form a clock tower in the middle of the structure. A toilet is located inside, with a skylight overhead to let in natural light.
A gilded chicken sits on the top of the tower, as a reference to the local egg farming industry that earned the route its nickname “chicken line”.
Photography is by Marcel van der Burg, apart from where otherwise indicated.
Here’s a project description from the architects:
Barneveld Noord
ProRail, responsible for the railway network in the Netherlands, together with the so-called spoorbouwmeester Koen van Velsen (the national supervisor for railway architecture) started a campaign to make waiting more comfortable: Prettig Wachten.
Photograph by Bart van Hoek
Travellers experience waiting on a station as much longer then waiting within a vehicle. Surveys have indicated that waiting time is experienced as three times longer than it actually is. In this respect especially small and medium sized stations proof a big challenge. These smaller stations are usually unmanned, desolate, often creating a sense un-safety. What can we do to improve them?
The waiting areas of in total twenty stations throughout the country will be upgraded, both functionally and cosmetically: introduction of washrooms, wifi, floor heating, railway TV. Or art! One of the keys to the success of Prettig Wachten is to introduce human presence on these stations, to create some sort of informal supervision.
Photograph by Bart van Hoek
An effort is made to create small multifunctional shops. In Wolvega for instance a flower shop will be opened, the florist will also be serving coffee and will even be cleaning the restrooms.
Photograph by Bart van Hoek
In Barneveld Noord a bike-repair shop will be included run by people that are ‘differently able’. They will contribute to the maintenance and hopefully prevent the broken window syndrome. In Barneveld Noord a new station will be build. Well station, perhaps more a bus-stop. But then again, quite an intriguing bus stop. It is supposed to be a temporary structure. Hence the station will be build out of shipping containers. The containers contain space, but also form space. They will be combined into an explicit arrangement. Together they form an ambiguous but strong sign. Minimum effort, maximum output.
Long section
Three containers are ‘suspended’ in the air. Together they form a ‘roof’. One contains the installations, the other storage. The third will be opened at the bottom. It forms the headroom for the enclosed but fully transparent waiting area, creating a double high space.
Cross section
The fourth container is flipped to an upright position. It makes an instant tower. The tower contains a clock. And a wind vane. Since Barneveld is the egg capital of the Netherlands – the station is located on the so-called Chicken Line – not the typical rooster will be mounted, but a gilded chicken. The tower holds a lavatory, 11.998mm high, topped by a glass roof. Royal Flush.
Front elevation
Project: train station in the framework of Prettig Wachten, 2011, Completion: 2013 Initiative ‘Prettig Wachten’ and Supervision: Spoorbouwmeester Koen van Velsen / ProRail Client: ProRail NL Architects: Pieter Bannenberg, Walter van Dijk, Kamiel Klaasse Project Architect: Gerbrand van Oostveen Team: Kirsten Hüsig, Barbara Luns, Gert Jan Machiels and Gen Yamamoto with Aude Robert and Christian Asbo Consultant: Movares Contractor: Strukton
Dutch Design Week 2013: Dutch creative agency …,staat has designed the interior and branding for this alternative supermarket in Amsterdam, where ingredients are grouped together as recipes rather than food types (+ slideshow).
The interior for Bilder & De Clercq by …,staat includes a cafe area, which has a counter decorated with handmade turquoise tiles.
Wooden panels are hung across the ceiling and merge into shelves behind the bar to display bread.
Sections of the counter are cut out to accommodate freestanding wooden units with glass shelves.
Instead of traditional supermarket aisles, the store features bespoke white tiered frames with wooden surfaces for displaying food. The steel frames are grouped according to the ingredients of each dish, which is pictured and described above the produce.
The graphic identity, packaging and kitchenware for Bilder & De Clercq was also designed by …,staat.
The black, grey and turquoise colour scheme is applied to take-away coffee cups, printed recipes and store cards.
The range of kitchenware includes chopping boards, vegetables peelers and spatulas, all of which come in wood or metal.
Dutch Design Week 2013:Dutch firm Bierman Henket architecten has added an extension shaped like a rugby ball on top of a neo-classical museum in the city of Zwolle (+ slideshow).
Bierman Henket architecten created the extension for The Museum De Fundatie, which is housed in a former courthouse designed in 1838 that now contains a collection of international art, sculpture and curiosities.
Located on the edge of a market square that links the medieval city centre to an area of nineteenth-century parkland, a shortage of space around the museum and the technical complexity of extending underground led the architects to propose placing the extension on top of the existing building.
The architects explained that their design “couples the classical, static building with the fluid dynamics of a contemporary extension in a vertical direction.”
Eight steel columns pierce the original building and support the two-storey extension, making it structurally independent.
The extension’s exterior is covered in 55,000 three-dimensional tiles produced by Royal Tichelaar Makkum with a blue and white glaze that helps the structure match the colour of the sky.
The curving, open spaces inside the extension contrast with the typical arrangement of adjoining exhibition halls found in the old building.
A large window on the northern side fills the interior with daylight and provides visitors with a panoramic view of the city.
The project won the Spatial Exterior category at the Dutch Design Awards last week, with the selection committee commenting that: “the project generates a huge impact in the city” and “has an incredible presence”. The top prize at the awards went to fashion designer Iris van Herpen’s collection featuring 3D-printed garments.
The architects sent us this project description:
Museum De Fundatie, Zwolle Extension: 2010-2013
Museum De Fundatie in Zwolle, situated on the border between the mediaeval city centre and the open 19th century parkland with its canals, has been extended with a spectacular volume on the roof of the former Palace of Justice.
The courthouse on Blijmarkt was designed by the architect Eduard Louis de Coninck in 1938 in the neo-classical style. De Coninck intended this style of architecture to symbolise the unity in the legislation of the new kingdom. The building has a double symmetry with a monumental entrance and a central entrance hall extending over two floors.
On the city side the free-standing building is slightly recessed in relation to the unbroken, mediaeval façade of Blijmarkt. Together with the classical façade structure of a tympanum on Corinthian columns, this gives the building a solitary character.
The building is also free-standing on the canal side, in the green zone of Potgietersingel. The canals were laid out as a public park in the English landscape style in the second half of the 19th century, following the demolition of the city walls.
Due to its location the building became a link between two distinct worlds: one an inward-orientated, mediaeval, fortified city with a compact and static character and the other a 19th century park with an outward-orientated, dynamic character.
In 1977 the building ceased to function as a Palace of Justice and it was converted into offices for the Rijksplanologische Dienst, the government planning department. A mezzanine was constructed in the two high court rooms. Since 2005, following internal renovation by architect Gunnar Daan, the building has been the home of Museum De Fundatie.
The museum has an extraordinary collection including works by Rembrandt, Saenredam, Turner, Monet, Rodin, Van Gogh, Mondrian and Van der Leck. In addition, the museum organises modest, but much discussed exhibitions. Under Ralph Keuning’s directorship these temporary exhibitions became so successful that extension of the museum became unavoidable. Despite the inherent problems of extending the palace in the historical city centre, the museum resisted the temptation to abandon this national monument and opted to extend it.
Bierman Henket architecten designed the extension of the former courthouse in 2010. Architect Hubert-Jan Henket succeeded in persuading the client not to add an extension next to the existing building: this would have destroyed its solitary and symmetrical character. An underground extension proved spatially too complicated. Instead Henket designed an extension with an autonomous volume on top of the monumental building.
In the same way that the Palace of Justice links two worlds in a horizontal direction, Henket couples the classical, static building with the fluid dynamics of a contemporary extension in a vertical direction.
The superstructure, just like the substructure, is symmetrical in two directions, but the shape rather resembles a rugby ball. Together, the two totally-different volumes form a new urban entity. There are also two contrasting interpretations in the interior: the classical succession of rectangular museum halls below versus the fluid, open spaces in the elliptical volume above.
Right from the outset, both the Rijksdienst voor Cultureel Erfgoed, the department responsible for the preservation of monuments and historical buildings, and local conservation societies were enthusiastic about the radical concept for the expansion. Under the motto preservation through development the customary debates and public inquiry procedures were considerably shortened. Planning permission was granted in record time.
Straight through the existing building, eight steel columns stand on eight individual foundations. The columns support the new extension – with two exhibition floors that total 1,000 m2. So, structurally and architecturally, the extension is independent of the old building.
The extension – also called the Art Cloud – is clad with 55,000 three-dimensional ceramic elements produced by Koninklijke Tichelaar in Makkum. Together, the mixed blue-and-white glazed tiles measuring 20×20 cm and 10×10 cm, form a subtle surface which, depending on the weather, merges into the heavens. On the northern side daylight floods into the two, new exhibition floors through a large, glazed pane in the tiled superstructure. Inside, visitors have a panoramic view of the city.
With the extension, the original central entrance hall has been carried through as an atrium where the two museological worlds converge. A glass lift in the atrium conveys visitors to the various floors. The stairways are located on the outer part of the floors. In the old building they are stately and straight, in the new development they are flowingly curved.
A glass passageway runs between the existing building and the extension − where new and old meet. On the one side visitors look into the atrium and on the other they have a view of the city and the underside of the tiled extension. With its aim of presenting contemporary and old art in one building – Museum De Fundatie now has a new, truly-unique identity.
Dutch Design Week 2013: designer Christien Meindertsma has compiled photographs of hundreds of jumpers knitted by an elderly woman into a book and organised a flashmob in her honour (+ movie).
Christien Meindertsma‘s book celebrates the creations of Rotterdam resident Loes Veenstra, who has knitted more than 500 jumpers since 1955.
Museum Rotterdam and visual arts studio Wandschappen asked Meindertsma to create “something new” with the jumpers that Loes Veenstra had knitted, mostly using yarns donated to her over the years.
“In the book I tried to categorise the sweaters so that you can see the same yarn or pattern return in different pieces,” said Meindertsma. “What is quite special is that almost all pieces were knitted without a pre-made pattern; she just improvised and used what she had at the time.”
The jumpers are photographed against a neutral backdrop that enhances the patterns and the use of different yarns and threads that have become available since the 1950s.
When Meindertsma discovered that the jumpers had never been worn she organised a surprise flashmob of people wearing them on Mrs Veenstra’s street.
Groups of dancers, a marching band, a choir, baton twirlers and hundreds of volunteers wearing the sweaters appeared on the street, where Mrs Veenstra was able to view her entire output for the first time.
The project won Best Autonomous Design in the Product category at last week’s Dutch Design Awards, whose selection committee described it as “a good translation of a special story into a carefully designed book,” adding: “the flashmob puts a smile on your face.”
Dutch Design Week 2013: Dutch artist Arne Hendriks proposes shrinking the human population to an average height of 50 centimetres as a way to reduce the amount of food and natural resources we consume.
The Incredible Shrinking Man is a speculative project devised by Arne Hendriks in response to the current trend for a taller population, which he claims is no longer “a desired result in an age of increasing scarcity”.
Hendriks, himself almost two metres tall, accepts that the increased height of the global population is the result of better food, medicine, hygiene and living circumstances, but argues that being taller today represents “a burden, on ourselves and on the planet.” He therefore presents a range of conceptual ways to reverse the trend.
“At 50 centimetres we’d only need about 2-5 percent of the resources we need now,” Hendriks points out. “If the 20th century was all about growth, perhaps the 21st century is about downsizing.”
Lactose intolerance celebration in Beijing
His proposals for obtaining the “theoretical goal” of a universal height of 50 centimetres include elixirs that support slower growth and genetic growth experiments with zebrafish. Hendriks also organised a party in Beijing celebrating lactose intolerance, as the inability to digest milk contributes to slower growth.
Despite potential disadvantages, such as a brain size that “wouldn’t be much bigger than a walnut”, Hendriks claims that the height reduction would allow the entire global population to fit in the world’s six largest urban centres, leaving the rest of the planet free for agriculture. Only renewable energy would be needed and “one chicken will feed a hundred”.
The Disproportionate Restaurant
Initiatives undertaken as part of The Incredible Shrinking Man project include investigative workshops, exhibitions and the creation of a Disproportionate Restaurant that serves portions tailored to the 50-centimetre-tall customer of the future.
The project won the Future Concepts category at last week’s Dutch Design Awards, where the selection committee said: “It is performed with so much zest that you can only take the idea seriously.”
It’s been a long established trend that people become taller. As a direct result we need more resources, more food, more energy and more space. The body has become a materialization of our obsession with growth. But what if we tried to turn this around? What if we use our increasing knowledge of the human body to shrink? If the 20th century was all about growth, perhaps the 21st century is about downsizing. And that doesn’t have to be a bad thing.
The Incredible Shrinking Man is a speculative research project that investigates what it would take to downsize the human species to better fit the Earth. At first this seems like a preposterous idea, but certainly not more preposterous than the irrational appreciation of the fact that we continue to increase in size. We’ve long surpassed the limits of the healthy. At The Incredible Shrinking Man the greenhouse effect isn’t about CO2, it’s about people growing beyond natural limits because of their sheltered lives, much like plants in greenhouses. What happens when circumstances change? Auxologists like Robert Fogel and John Komlos continue to point out that global increased body height is the result of better food, better hygiene, better medicine and better living circumstances. And although increased height may indeed be the result of such improvements, height itself is not healthy and the question is if it is still a desired result in an age of increasing scarcity.
If your height increases by 20%, your body grows proportionally in all directions (1.2 x 1.2 x 1.2 = 1.73). That means your weight actually increases by 73%. All that extra weight needs extra food, extra water, extra energy. From an evolutionary perspective being taller at some point in history undoubtedly represented an advantage. In this day and age however it’s a burden, on ourselves and on the planet. That’s why The Incredible Shrinking Man proposes to shrink the human species to 50cm. Again, this seems radical, but perhaps less so if you consider that the shortest person alive today, Chandra Bahadur Dangi from Nepal, is only a little over 54 centimeters tall. Thus 50cm is our theoretical goal, so as to make sure we map all known possibilities, and a little beyond. At 50cm we’d only need about 2% to 5% of the resources we need now, and although it is an extreme goal it’s also familiar because most babies are born this size.
Obviously there are many challenges in achieving an average universal human height of 50cm. For example, our brain size wouldn’t be much bigger than a walnut. One of the researchers for The Incredible Shrinking Man, Don Platt, is collecting evidence that brain cells could be much smaller without losing their function. It might even make us smarter since the distance an impulse has to travel is shorter. Other things are more difficult to control. How threatening would your cat become and what kinds of problems would large insects pose? What about the weather? Hail storms would become extremely dangerous. But we’re human. If anything, we’ve an established track record with proving our ingenuity in overcoming even the most difficult challenges. Also fear is a very unrewarding impulse if you’re trying to achieve new visions for mankind so at The Incredible Shrinking Man we like to think more of the adventures and new possibilities such a radical new idea would facilitate.
One of the most rewarding results of our shrinking would be the overwhelming and sustainable abundance of the natural and cultured environment. We would in fact shrink into a world of abundance. Renewable energy produced today would be more than enough to satisfy our demands. One tomato will make a decent soup and one chicken will feed a hundred. Redesigning the already built environment would take all of our imagination and inventiveness. Up to 95% of the cities could be recycled, condensed, ‘re-wilded’, or just left as a cultural and material resource for future generations. The Incredible Shrinking Man calculated that at 50cm the entire world population would be able to live in the six largest agglomerations, Tokyo, Mexico City, Sao Paulo, Mumbai, Delhi and New York/Newark – leaving the rest of the world empty, or turned into agricultural lands. This redistribution of the human race would ask us to think of our relationship with the planet in ways unimaginable before.
The thing is that the Incredible Shrinking Man is actually working on a cultural paradigm shift. Away from our obsession with growth, towards an appreciation of smaller and less. It’s both pro-active and a way of coming to terms with a change in reality. This is as much about investigating the actual possibilities as it is about redesigning our desires, our needs and our biological and cultural make-up. We need to re-educate ourselves. Within The Incredible Shrinking Man we run into manifestations, projects and products that can help the research transform itself into the actual change it pursues.
This can be the development of an elixir to support slow growth rates while reducing the chance of cancer, it can be a celebration of lactose intolerance, or a letter to the Congolese government to protect the 135cm Mbuti pygmees from genetic extinction. It can be genetic growth experiments with zebrafish, or shrink experience machines to get a sense of what it would be like to be smaller. The most important thing is that we start rethinking and embrace the possibilities of the small because like the famous economic thinker Ernst Schumacher said: “Small is beautiful”.
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.
