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MVRDV and Van Boven Architecten complete high school alma mater renovation in the Netherlands

2023-09-29T14:56:00-04:00

MVRDV has announced the completion of their Van Boven Architecten co-designed Gymnasium Beekvliet renovation project in the Netherlands.

The alma mater of both Winy Maas and Theobert van Boven was once the nation’s leading catholic seminary and was later used as an internment camp for political prisoners of the occupying Nazi regime during Worl War II before being modernized into a new grammar school in the early 1970s.

“I went to school at Beekvliet myself, as did one of my children, and my wife is also a teacher there. These connections strongly motivate me to design a unique and special building that does justice to the school’s rich history,” van Boven said in a preview last year.

Image: © Daria Scagliola/MVRDV

Located in the village of Sint-Michielsgestel near Eindhoven, the school now features a unifying new auditorium addition at the center of the school that’s meant to improve circulation. An existing classroom building and plaza area were also renovated. Ian Kirkpatrick, a C...

UNStudio refurbishes former banking HQ in Eindhoven

2023-04-11T17:55:00-04:00

UNStudio has just unveiled a completed redesign of a former bank headquarters building called Fellenoord 15 in the Dutch city of Eindhoven.

The project transformed the former Rabobank HQ into a 32,000-square-meter (344,440-square-foot) governmental facility equipped with the latest building management technology and capable of hosting more flexible work concepts that are better constituted for the demands of our century.

The building before its transformation. Image: Studio Hans Wilschut

The completed building following the redesign. Image: Studio Hans Wilschut

Taking the shell of the existing building, UNStudio says they were able to save roughly 40% of the CO2 footprint required by new construction. Its design enables the use of a new public space between the building’s entrance and the adjacent bus station. A series of high-tech sensors decreases energy consumption while increasing the efficiency of workers’ use of the building through data.

Image: Evabloem

Geotherma...

Stefano Boeri releases documentary about 'world’s first social housing vertical forest'

2021-12-22T14:59:00-05:00

Stefano Boeri Architetti has released a short documentary on the Trudo Vertical Forest, which the firm bills as “the first social housing vertical forest in the world.” Built in the Dutch city of Eindhoven, the project draws its inspiration from the firm’s Bosco Verticale in Milan.

View this post on Instagram A post shared by Stefano Boeri Architetti (@stefanoboeriarchitetti)

The 19-story tower rises 230 feet (70 meters) and contains 125 apartments designed to accommodate long-income users, particularly young couples. In addition, thirty homes in the building have been reserved for asylum seekers, political refugees, and people with disabilities.

View this post on Instagram A post shared by Stefano Boeri Architetti (@stefanoboeriarchitetti)

The facades are adorned with 135 trees of various species as well as 10,000 shrubs and plants. To service the extensive greenery, the scheme contains four collection tanks housing 20,000 liters of rainwater eac...

MVRDV unveils “Music Mountain” for Eindhoven

2021-05-25T09:29:00-04:00

MVRDV has unveiled their design for Eindhoven’s Heuvel shopping center, creating a cultural green quarter for the Dutch city. The scheme is defined by a “glass mountain” of cultural functions topped by a rooftop park, offering a sustainable solution for both the outdated shopping center and the Muziekgebouw music venue located within it.

Image: MVRDV

Under MVRDV’s vision, the site is transformed into an urban quarter for shopping, culture, and recreation. The existing buildings are expanded and broken open, allowing for a better connection with surrounding public spaces and cultural buildings. The covered passages of the shopping center are replaced with open streets, making the quarter an active part of city life, while the accessible roofscape creates a park that adds to the area’s appeal.

Image: MVRDV

Above the shopping center, the existing Muziekgebouw will form a stacked cultural building under a “glass mountain”. The glass mountain forms an eye-catching landmark, while also ...

Cantilevering auditorium tops UNStudio’s Eindhoven arts congress and conference center

2021-05-13T11:51:00-04:00

A consortium including UNStudio has won a competition for the design of the Elysion Congress Center (ECC), seeking to form a clearly identifiable, state of the art congress and conference center for Eindhoven, in the Netherlands. The winning scheme calls for an extension to the current Van der Valk Congress and Event Center, bordering a large parkland connecting the airport and city.

Image: UNStudio

The new scheme seeks to renovate and expand the building’s existing facilities, adding a 1,500-capacity flexible auditorium with a vertical foyer. The design team were challenged to ensure that the existing center could continue operations during the construction of the new facilities. This constraint gave way to a unique design solution in which the extension is placed next to the existing building, with the auditorium cantilevering across the top of the conference center building.

Image: UNStudio

The ECC’s foyer, with wooden staircases and vertical gardens, forms the main connector o...

Social housing goes green with another urban forest designed by Stefano Boeri

2018-01-11T14:15:00-05:00

A social housing project in the Netherlands plans to adopt a Vertical Forest designed by Stefano Boeri Architetti. Now Eindhoven will join the list of Vertical Forest cities Milan, Nanjing, Utrecht, Tirana, Lausanne, and Paris.

The client, Sint-Trudo, has instigated the first Vertical Forest project to be used by low-income social groups—tackling climate change and housing shortages in one project. The building will have 125 social housing units within 19 floors of apartments, which will be rented out at affordable rates and include balconies with hundreds of trees and plants.

Promoting sustainable architecture worldwide, the firm is committed to improving city environments for both the climate and its inhabitants.

Design Academy Eindhoven appoints Joseph Grima as the new Chair Executive Board / Creative Director

2017-07-14T13:46:00-04:00

Joseph Grima (40) is a graduate of the AA and the founder of Space Caviar (Genova, Italy), a design research studio operating at the intersection of architecture, technology, politics and the public realm. He has extensive international experience as curator, editor and writer in the fields of design and architecture.

Joseph Grima: “Despite the extraordinary proliferation of design schools in recent years, there is still an acute shortage of places that actually question what design is. Design Academy Eindhoven isn’t a school where students simply learn design—they design design, and each day rethink the parameters through which it shapes society. I look forward to working with the Academy’s exceptional staff to help them build a place in which the future is born.”

Wiel Arets Architects completes E’ Tower in Eindhoven, the Netherlands

2013-11-13T14:10:00-05:00

Wiel Arets Architects recently completed the E' Tower in Eindhoven in the Netherlands. The design of the 22-floor, 110-apartment building is derived from the Brick Expressionist style that was common during the city's industrial period and throughout Northern Europe in the early 20th century.