UNStudio has designed the final portion of a 225,000 square meter (2,420,000 square foot) urban plan for the district of Oosterdokseiland in the city center of Amsterdam. Located at the tip of the island, the last sub-plan will consist of a lively social hub and 72,500 square meters (780,000 square feet) of public facilities, apartments and office space for Amsterdam-based company Booking.com.
“The design for this fully integrated new urban campus is envisioned as a highly multifunctional living and working environment, enriched with special amenity and public programmes,” said UNStudio Founder Ben van Berkel. “The urban gesture of the building weaves together with the existing streets, while the east side of the building will become a recognisable emblem for Oosterdok.”
Managed by developer BPD, the Oosterdokseiland development project began over fifteen years ago, and has since become the home of many new office buildings and public buildings, including libraries, hotels and a range of restaurants and cafes. While development was slowed due to the effects of the global economic recession, the final two lots on the island will now be completed.
“Oosterdokseiland is an appealing, central place to live, work and relax near Central Station,” said Grondzaken Alderman Eric van der Burg. “We are pleased to be able to create new public and living space here as well as offer Booking.com, which has its roots in Amsterdam, a venue that suits its growth and innovative way of working, something that is mirrored in the spirit of the city itself. Interdependence and mixing functions are at the heart of this project.”
Jeroen Galle, project director ODE on behalf of BPD: “In recent years Oosterdokseiland has become a dynamic place to come to, every day hundreds of people to work, live and go out here. It has become a modern part of the city of Amsterdam,” said Jeroen Galle, project director ODE on behalf of BPD. “The latter sub-plan, designed by UNStudio / Ben van Berkel, will be the finishing touch to the development of this area, overlooking the Oosterdok, the IJ and the old town.”
Finalized plans and images will be released at a later date. The area is anticipated to be completed by 2020.
It takes place in ground floor and has the peculiarity of being built entirely of wood. In the roof level a green cover its develop; where wild plants grow almost without maintenance, getting a new natural space merged with the foliage and tree tops.
The wood house is part of a series of cases of housing developed by the office that we call “housing habitat”, by the logic which means its relationship with the environment and all that this brings.
Each design decision taken in this regard have to do with the maximum efficiency achieved in spaces and exacerbation of outdoor life and contact with nature.
Diagram
The separation of home soil, seeking guidance, views and cross ventilation, green roof and shady areas surrounding the house, are based on decisions that facilitate this contact, and finally the maximum energy cost savings and possible resources.
Conceived in a modular way and in line with the technological possibilities that wood construction permits, this work built within five months, allowed to keep their immediate environment natural state without altering the ecosystem. Even if required could be removed in a matter of days and the environment remain intact.
We understand the wood used as structure, cladding, division and deck, playing the lead role in the material logic of this house and at the same time as a search engine about new constructive alternatives, based on systems indigenously, materials easy manufacturing and handling, existing throughout the territory of our country and adaptable to different geographical and climatic conditions
This house offers not only the response to timely and specific problem of your design and construction but also for studying the verification of a series of investigations that are carrying out for some years on the implementation of systems prefabricated dry low cost, quick realization.
The Arkansas Arts Center has selected five top architecture firms to compete for the design of a $55 million to $65 million museum expansion project in Little Rock, Arkansas. The project will include a renovation to existing theater and studio spaces, as well as new education facilities for families and gallery space to house the museum’s expanding art collection.
An advisory panel and selection committee named the finalists following a RFQ process featuring 23 local and international firms.
“After a very deliberate process that involved expert input and a focus on the particular needs of our institution, both the technical review panel and the selection committee agree that we have in this final group not only some of the best architects in the world, but those with the kinds of specific experience with museums and cultural institutions nationally and internationally that we need to successfully accomplish our goals,” said Todd Herman, executive director of the Arts Center.
Originally built in 1937 using funding granted by President Franklin Delano Roosevelt as part of the Works Progress Administration (WPA), the Arkansas Arts Center has undergone several expansions throughout its nearly 80 year history, the most recent of which occurred in 2001.
The finalists will now present their design approach and philosophies to a selection committee on Nov. 1. A winner is expected to be selected early in 2017.
Team : Thiago Bernardes, Camila Tariki, Francisco Abreu, Daniel Vannucchi, Fabiana Porto, Victor Campos, Gabriela Di Toma, Antonia Bernardes, Caroline Premoli, Fernanda Lopes, Luiza Landim
From the architect. The Aníbal Building is located in one of the densest and most upscale neighbourhoods of Rio de Janeiro, Ipanema. It houses the headquarters of three different companies distributed throughout three open floor plans. Both ground floor and penthouse spaces are shared by all the users.
The façade is composed of a package of different layers that filter light and sound. The outermost skin is a lattice of perforated aluminum that covers the upper working floors, which is followed by a green buffer and special soundproof windows.
Work spaces occupy open plans that are made possible by concrete waffle slabs that are supported by peripheral columns and load-bearing walls. Building installations, vertical circulations and columns are all located around the perimeter of the building. The full occupation of the site by the building brought the challenge of guaranteeing adequate daylight to its interiors, which is solved by using the library, which spans through all floors and is used as a large-scale skylight. The glass partitions of the library render it as a light prism, distributing daylight while filtering undesired radiation.
Paulo Mendes da Rocha is one of Brazil‘s most celebrated architects. And, in spite of the fact that very little of his work can be found outside São Paulo, his “Paulista Brutalism” is revered worldwide, earning him the Pritzker Prize in 2006 and, just last week, the Royal Institute of British Architects’ Gold Medal. In light of the RIBA Gold Medal news, as part of his “City of Ideas” column, Vladimir Belogolovsky here shares an interview conducted with Mendes da Rocha in 2014. The interview was conducted in Mendes da Rocha’s office in São Paulo with the help of Brazilian architect Wilson Barbosa Neto acting as translator, and was originally published in Belogolovsky’s book, “Conversations with Architects in the Age of Celebrity.”
Vladimir Belogolovsky: In your short text “The Americas, Architecture and Nature,” you say that “for Brazilians and Americans in general, the historical experience begins with the modern world. There is a difference between rebuilding old cities in Europe and building new cities in the Americas.” Could you elaborate this thought?
Paulo Mendes da Rocha: Of course, there is a difference in attitude when one builds in such a new place as Brazil or the American continent in general as opposed to Europe. The landscapes are different, cities are different, cultures are different. How can you compare St. Petersburg in Russia and Vitória, my hometown, in Brazil?
Paulistano Athletic Club, 1957. Image Courtesy of Paulo Mendes da Rocha
VB:True, these cities are very different, but interestingly, architecture which is being built now no longer offers much of a difference whether it is built in one place or another. It is now common to talk about national and regional characteristics as a reaction to global architecture. Do you see yourself as a Brazilian architect? I am asking this because you once said: “Architecture that is done here can only be interesting when it possesses a universal dimension. There is no such thing as Brazilian architect.” Why do you think so?
PMdR: Being an architect is not just about where you are. Architecture is universal. Just because I am here doesn’t mean I produce Brazilian architecture. I look around, I take advantage of the resources available, the materials; I acknowledge the climate and so on. Being an architect is a matter of knowledge – you explore the place and interpret how to respond to a particular site and situation. Water is water, gravity is gravity, and sunlight is sunlight. It is the same everywhere.
Paulistano Athletic Club, 1957. Image Courtesy of Paulo Mendes da Rocha
VB:Still, historically, the results were quite different. In the past architecture was much more responsive to specific place and culture. If you traveled in the 18th or 19th century, you would see a very apparent difference between, for example, French, Italian, and German architecture. Contemporary architecture, for the most part, has become indistinguishable.
PMdR: There was the time when classical architecture was also global and indistinguishable. But now in Brazil we have a good chance to produce architecture that is different from European and other places. Here we need millions of new housing units, which are in much greater demand than in Europe. This is a good moment for us to build in a new way and explore possibilities for what Brazilian architecture can become.
VB:Are you working on any housing projects at the moment?
PMdR: No.
VB:Why not?
PMdR: This is not architecture; what they are building is just boxes. There is no room for architecture in these projects; they simply provide the necessities.
VB:You don’t think architecture is possible on a tight budget?
PMdR: These are just boxes with utilities. They are not built to last. They are just like the latest version of a mobile phone. It is just utility, a tool, nothing more.
VB:What do you think about social housing projects by Alejandro Aravena in Chile? He told me that you participated in the work of the jury in the competition that he organized. I find his work very sophisticated and inventive and from what I can judge, his idea of half a house is very clever and, in my opinion, the solution is quite elegant and not just utilitarian.
PMdR: I think the question of whether this is architecture or not should be answered by people who live there. In any case, this would not work here in Brazil because the other half of the house still has to be built by the families and they will look like shit. We already have favelas here; people build as they want. What they have in Chile is just another model for favelas… It is a political trick; they want to use free labor to build cheap housing… I did not have an active role in that jury and I did express my opinion about these types of projects very clearly.
Paulistano Athletic Club, 1957. Image Courtesy of Paulo Mendes da Rocha
VB:What do you think about Oscar Niemeyer’s work? Was he Brazilian or universal architect in your opinion?
PMdR: What do you think?
VB:I think if he practiced elsewhere, his architecture would have been very different. So for me he is associated with Brazil. But what do you think? Was he a big influence on your work?
PMdR: What is architecture? I think it comes from the knowledge and skills of an architect. Some architects are true artists. He was a very close friend and I admire what he did. He was like Picasso, a great artist. You can’t put him into any category. Oscar was absolutely unique. Have you heard about Oscar’s curves being inspired by the surrounding mountains and women?
VB:Sure.
PMdR: This is all bullshit. But he would not argue against this because he liked the way it sounded.
Paulistano Athletic Club, 1957. Image Courtesy of Paulo Mendes da Rocha
VB:Wasn’t he the one who promoted these inspirations? Where do you think his curves came from?
PMdR: Common sense… Let me give you two examples. Take his Cathedral of Brasília. It was Brunelleschi who did his famous dome at the Basilica di Santa Maria del Fiore in Florence. You need perfect circular structure to resist stresses uniformly. The structure of a circle is always perfect. You can’t reinvent it. This is how structures work [Mendes da Rocha draws the shape of the dome, inverts it and adds a mirrored profile to illustrate an inverted dome]. And here you have the same dome but inverted. Isn’t it the Cathedral of Brasília? It is the same structure, and now we have different materials, we can do great spans and forms. This is not inspired by a woman’s curve; it is just the way structures work in principle.
Paulistano Athletic Club, 1957. Image Courtesy of Paulo Mendes da Rocha
VB:In principle, it all looks easy and rational, never mind the fact that Brunelleschi’s dome was not a circle and took years to resolve. Principles aside, some of Niemeyer’s sculptural roofs stand against the mountains as a backdrop, and I find it hard to believe that there is no direct link between the two… His buildings seem to fit perfectly into their settings, but you need to be Oscar Niemeyer to introduce such eccentric shapes that seem consequential and even inevitable when we try to rationalize them. I don’t think beauty is inevitable…
PMdR: Really? You don’t need to be a genius, just intelligent. You just need to do what Brunelleschi did and interpret it in modern ways. Let’s talk about the other example – Oscar’s Edificio Copan here in São Paulo [the building can be seen through Mendes da Rocha’s office window]. Oscar was an intelligent man, he said to the developer that we can make it into a popular place, well integrated into the city’s infrastructure, such as the metro and parking, and provide a commercial base with stores, cafes, galleries, and so on…
Look, an architect is not an exceptional person. We have schools with thousands of students who explore such projects. It is impossible to teach architecture, but you can educate people to be architects. All you need is intelligence. That site is not big enough for many buildings to be built there. You need one large building connecting all the various services along its base and you need to provide as many apartments as possible to make it successful for the developer, so you wouldn’t place a building on a straight line there.
More so structurally, it makes perfect sense to curve a very long building, so it is more stable in its resistance to the wind loads [he bends a sheet of paper into a double curve and demonstrates how this way it can stand on its own, as opposed to a flat sheet, which has no rigidity]. The fact that this building is curved has nothing to do with women, it is based on principles. It is a great building. I lived there myself. It is brilliant, but not because of its shape. It is wonderfully planned. The building is not just beautiful, it works. It has the capacity to transform a place in the city.
VB:Why do you think it is not possible to teach architecture?
PMdR: Every project is an emergency. You have to go there and see what needs to be done. You can only teach architects to think by empowering them with knowledge and skills.
VB:Do you teach?
PMdR: I am too old now. There is a law in Brazil – you can only teach up to the age of 70.
VB:It is a pity, the wisest can’t teach.
PMdR: I used to teach the final year of the design studio. I would not try to influence the students too much because they were almost professional architects themselves. Of course, they think they know everything, but the reality is that noone knows anything. But a good teacher has to act like he knows. Confidence is very important, not only knowledge. Every problem requires thinking, not readymade solutions. You know that you don’t know, but there is an urgency to do something. You have to discover the knowledge – that’s the whole point.
VB:Wouldn’t you say that it is not just about knowledge, but feeling?
PMdR: Some people are born into architecture. It is part of them. They have a need for building beyond the utilitarian. You can only be taught about traditions, construction methods, and so on. The rest is up to your talent.
VB:What words would you chose to describe your architecture?
PMdR: If I spent time thinking of words I would not have time left to do any architecture. [Laughs.] Architecture is a discourse. You could spend your entire life talking about it. Look at the Pyramid of Cheops at Giza. Why do people still talk about it?
VB:It is the Great Pyramid; it is magnificent, but also mysterious…
PMdR: There is no mystery there. That is the only shape the Egyptians could have built then. That was the only way to carry the stone to the top. Today we can build very different forms, but four and a half thousand years ago, that was the rational form to build. The Egyptians used the advantage of basic mechanics to push the stone blocs up the inclined plane. There are shafts there through which you can see the stars. I think the desire was to build this pyramid of crystal. This was realized when IM Pei built his pyramid of glass in the Louvre in Paris, but just like Niemeyer he did not talk about it. Architecture is not about inspirations, it is about history and principles. Inspiration does not exist. Architecture is about hard intellectual work. You have to think through problems and analyze history and reality rationally.
Paulistano Athletic Club, 1957. Image Courtesy of Paulo Mendes da Rocha
VB:You said that contemporary architecture is essentially the design of the city. Here is a short quote: “We need to untie the knot in the schizophrenic separation of architecture from urbanism, art from technique, and art from science.“ So you think that architecture is all of these things, right?
PMdR: It is not about what I think. This is how it is. Architecture always was and has been about technique, art, and science. If you don’t know how to read or write you can’t come up with a poem. You have to know these basic tools. It is all about extracting knowledge from such disciplines as anthropology, geology, structural mechanics, building construction, design, and so on to come up with a spatial interpretation, which is called architecture. It is a peculiar way of knowledge, not a form for form sake. It is about methodology.
VB:In a number of your projects, you rely on basic geometric forms. You stress that you focus more on the program rather than on form, on accentuating simplicity of the form rather than its complexity. Do you ever try to invent new forms in your work?
PMdR: Every project is different, but there is no need to invent a new form every time. For example, I designed a master plan for the University of Vigo in Spain where the topography is very complex, so I provided a series of straight elevated axes for students like promenades, so that all new buildings would be elevated off the terrain and connected to the main links. It is very simple. I don’t search for new shapes; I search for results that work. Some projects require different solutions. When I was designing Capela São Pedro in Campos do Jordão using clear and stained glass windows, I was searching for a form that would work best with the ideas of intensifying the views and creating multiple reflections and other optical illusions. It was important to come up with a particular solution, with a form that explored these ideas.
VB:Let’s talk about your Brazilian Museum of Sculpture in São Paulo. You conceived it as a garden with the sculpture gallery underground. Could you talk about the relationship of this project to the ground?
PMdR: I wanted the Sculpture Museum to be an outdoor garden. Fortunately, I could take advantage of the sloped site and turn it into terraces with the interior gallery hidden underneath, leaving the whole site open and free. Another solution could be to build a building with the sculpture garden on the roof, but it is always challenging to get roof access and in this project, the whole site serves as one big garden.
VB:The Museum, which is shaped as a portal, is somewhat reminiscent of Lina Bo Bardi’s Museum of Art here in São Paulo. This may not be a conscious reference; nevertheless, there is a visual connection between the two…
PMdR: Many people make such an assumption, but it is not so. You see, if the whole museum is placed underground it is confusing for visitors – where is the museum? I needed a symbolic gesture and to frame the view, to have a symbolic entry into the building underground. It is a huge mistake people make… Look at the scale difference, the purpose is also different. Her museum is up, mine is down. There is nothing in common. My suspended beam is not accessible. It is a symbolic portal; the top frames the important space. It brings attention to the entry. Its only function is to hold the lighting to light sculptures below.
The straight line is there to keep the balance between architecture and sculptures; it is a particular way to frame the collection. It is like walking around a sculpture and touching it… No one knows how to read architecture. [Laughs.] It is like literature – the author writes for everyone, but it is for people to interpret the meanings. Architecture could be anything and its interpretations are limitless. Architecture does not desire to be functional; it wants to be opportune.
Paulistano Athletic Club, 1957. Image Courtesy of Paulo Mendes da Rocha
VB:Would you say that your Paulistano Athletic Club of 1957, finished just several years after graduating from university, was your manifesto?
PMdR: I didn’t think about that then, but I would like to think so because in this building I tried to express many of my ideas. It was my first major project. It was not only about providing space to play basketball or other sports. It was about creating a beautiful space for people to interact within which expresses its structure on the outside. The building was conceived as a space of opportunity and when, for example, Merce Cunningham, an American dancer and choreographer came to São Paulo and was looking for space to perform, he was shown the Club and he chose it for his performances. Still, I don’t like manifestoes. Every project is unique.
VB:You said the city’s purpose is man’s supreme work of art. São Paulo is work in progress. How do you see this city in the future?
PMdR: If I took on one more project I would choose the whole city of São Paulo to correct many planning mistakes – how the energy is generated and distributed, its relation to the water, and so on. I would like to involve many people in re-planning the city in a better way for all the people. Every city is all about its people – how they go about their everyday lives. The people are the conscience of cities. I hope the people of São Paulo will be able to transform the entire city the same way my project transformed the Pinacoteca building here. The decayed urban chaos would turn into a beautiful city.
Belogolovsky’s column, City of Ideas, introduces ArchDaily’s readers to his latest and ongoing conversations with the most innovative architects from around the world. These intimate discussions are a part of the curator’s upcoming exhibition with the same title which premiered at the University of Sydney in June 2016. The City of Ideas exhibition will travel to venues around the world to explore ever-evolving content and design.
The new Currency Museum is located on the waterfront of Luanda, just in the heart of the city downtown, nearby the charismatic headquarters of the National Bank of Angola.
The purpose was pretext for two major interventions. On one hand, it disposes the museum spaces below ground, becoming more reserved and quiet. On the other, its roof establishes a new urban square that both denotes the museum and enables the celebration of public space, in some way expanding the new public spaces of Luanda’s waterfront.
The new museum, with about 4.800 sqm, reveals itself in the stereotomy generated by excavation, with its entry announced by the stairs void and the metallic parasols that generate shadow and urban scale. It includes two exhibition areas (permanent and temporary), complemented by public areas and an auditorium to support learning activities.
On the surface, the stone paved urban square generates a subtle topography justified by the bay views and the nearby context, allowing rest, pathways, diverse public equipment and redesigning its central ambition as a public space open to the city and the community life.
The MIT School of Architecture’sSelf-Assembly Lab has teamed up with Google to create Transformable Meeting Spaces, a project that utilizes woven structure research in wood and fiberglass pods that descend from the ceiling, transforming a large space into a smaller one. Designed as a small-scale intervention for reconfiguring open office plans—which “have been shown to decrease productivity due to noise and privacy challenges”—the pods require no electromechanical systems to function, but rather employ a flexible skeleton and counterweight to change shape.
This skeleton is composed of 36 fiberglass rods, which are woven together into a sort of textile or cylindrical braid. Thus, the structure behaves “like a Chinese finger trap: The circumference of the pod shrinks when it’s pulled, and expends when relaxed.”
Courtesy of MIT Self-Assembly Lab
Courtesy of MIT Self-Assembly Lab
Expanded fully, the pods measure about ten feet in diameter and eight feet tall, providing space for up to eight people to either sit or stand inside.
Furthermore, the inside of the spaces are lined with felt, so as to dampen outside noise.
Courtesy of MIT Self-Assembly Lab
We’ve had four people sitting in there at tables, or standing in there for a meeting, said MIT Self-Assembly Lab’s co-director, Skylar Tibbits. We also thought it could be a sort of nap pod. It’s more about the transformation of space rather than trying to present what happens in that space. We’re just trying to create different capabilities.
Research on the project is ongoing, and in the future, will be concentrated on applying these transformable materials to larger-scale architectural practice, for instance in retractable stadium roofs. With such technology, the Lab hopes that stadium roofs or even stadiums themselves, among other systems, could be collapsed after use without major disturbances to the urban landscape.
In Hidden Dimension, Boston-based Russian photographer Anna Yeroshenko converts a series of architecture photographs into three-dimensional structures. The work is intended to transform the viewer’s perspective of forgettable utilitarian buildings and encourage a closer look at the physical and social impacts of the built environment on our everyday lives.
Architecture has always been my subject, said Yeroshenko. I was hoping to create an absurd, impossible environment that would make the viewer feel displaced, cramped, or desolate, and also to draw a parallel with the real built environment and how it affects us.
Yeroshenko begins by photographing buildings she considers ugly and cluttered in Boston, being careful to omit distracting environmental context. Without preconceiving of the final result, she folds the photos in order to give herself authorship over her surroundings through a series of iterations. Finally, mimicking the style of architectural renderings, Yeroshenko uses artificial light to photograph the final sculptures without contradicting the original light source.
From the architect. The Paul Bourget neighborhood has long been a « terra incognita » of the ParisianThe Paul Bourget neighborhood has long been a « terra incognita » of the Parisian cityscape. To the outside it is a citadel hanging above the tumultuous traffic on the « périphérique » ring expressway and the swirling canopy of the Kellerman Park. Inwards it’s a modest piece os post-war urban planning boom, introverted and peacefully forgotten. With a striking sense of community, so close and yet so distant from the hustle of the nearby Porte d’Italie. Do we know of other places in Paris where residents seem to come « out of the woods » to enter the city ?
Looking like two gentle urban « Totoro » figures, the project stands on the site of a previous building scrapped down after it caught fire. It sets the mood for the gradual uplifting of the whole area around a central garden opening on the beautiful western horizon ranging above the Kellerman Park towards the Charlety stadium.
Courtesy of KOZ architectes
Most of the apartments enjoy this breathtaking metropolitan view, extending to spectacular balconies suspended in mid-air. They also benefit from features bringing extra comfort to everyday life that required cleverness and perseverance to fit inside the dense tower blocks required by the urban masterplan: living rooms are larger than asked by the client and true closed kitchens, large landings offering sunlight and views to the outside, and real wood flooring in all apartments. Because social housing is not « all in the façade » architecture !
To break the built mass each block is split in two to form four pavilions marked by the sharp contrast of their outer skin materiality.
Facing the west: a dress of stainless steel reflecting in the urban skyline atmospheric variations of rain, blue and gray skies or flaming sunsets. The perforated patterns of the steel plates play an active part in breaking down the loud humming of the expressway and its reverberation towards public space. Towards the central garden, fluted larch façades bring the vibrating, sensitive and intimate scale of wood.
Cut volumes generated by urban rules, topped by Totoro’s ears. It looks a bit like a city drawn by children … This instantly familiar and rambunctious world is highlighted by the double-height community hall and its cozy garden, strategically set at a corner next to a small square. A Place long awaited by the neighboring residents to create a mixed-generation social hotspot around various activities ranging from art studio to cooking, NGO meetings and gardening.
No show off, but the patient turning of programmatic, codes, site and cost constraints into strong statements serving quality of life and pride in a rising anew neighborhood.
Situated in the shore zone of Lake Biel amidst lush vegetation, wild willows and natural meadows the house keeps strong spatial connection to the surrounding nature. Therefore the interior spaces get extended by a large porch on the ground floor and two terraces on the first floor. Porch and terraces generate inbetween spaces where the clients can experience the play of nature, the change of the seasons and the twittering of birds but still be protected and feel safe. Large windows connect inside and outside. The sunlight enters the interior spaces through a filter of timber lamellas framing the outside of the porch.
Since slight floodings may occur the house is elevated eighty centimeters above the ground. The living area on the ground floor is designed as a free-flowing open space opening up towards the garden side of the house. Freestanding elements as the fireplace and the kitchen island partition the space and create different spatial qualities. The private rooms are located in the upper floor and each room has access to an outside terrace which gets formed through a setback of the ouside wall. The setbacks on the first floor create more privacy for the inside and help to interlock the house with the surrounding.
Sig Nordal 