Archinect - News

Henning Larsen designs Europe's largest mass timber logistics center for Bestseller

2023-10-26T17:39:00-04:00

Henning Larsen has revealed designs for a new mass timber logistics center project in Lelystad on Flevopolder Island, the Netherlands.

The project includes a restaurant with roof garden and terrace for employees and boasts several sustainable credentials, including the retention of 40% of the 70-acre total site for landscaping and wildlife habitats. Another 10% increase in its overall biodiversity will also be achieved through its realization. The firm says its construction is driven by circular economy principles and the desire to create a fairer working environment tied to reduced emissions.

Image courtesy Henning Larsen

For the design of Logistic Center West (LCW), Henning Larsen proposes constructing a wetlands network that wraps the site, supported by a high-tech irrigation system that also aids in flood mitigation and rainwater harvesting while preventing off-site contamination from commercial activities. The large 1.66 million-square-foot logistics hub is topped by a 331,022-s...

Barcode's new CasaNova residential project seeks a new social synergy in Rotterdam

2023-10-03T13:25:00-04:00

Barcode Architects has shared photos of the firm’s newly completed CasaNova residential tower project in Rotterdam, the Netherlands.

Defined by its triangular volume and hand-cut red natural stone-paneled facade, the 236,806-square-foot structure rises from a base plinth to a height of 36 stories, preferencing social connectivity throughout and via a 5th-floor outdoor roof garden that’s shared with residents of the firm’s smaller The Muse design from 2020.

Image: © Hans Wilschut, courtesy of Barcode Architects

The plinth also contains co-working spaces, a communal kitchen, a gym, and hotel rooms. Inside the tower, a total of 116 high-end residences offer sweeping 300-degree views of the city’s skyline. Triangular balconies totaling 161 square feet are formed at the corners of the tower, and residents are once again channeled toward a greater social cohesion which takes place on the walk from the parking garage entrance to the towe...

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...

MVRDV's new demountable science building has over 120,000 reusable components

2023-05-25T19:36:00-04:00

Construction of MVRDV’s Matrix ONE project, a laboratory and office building in the heart of Amsterdam Science Park, has been completed.

The six-story, 140,000-square-foot structure is the largest of seven buildings that now make up the Matrix Innovation Center, a site for scientists and entrepreneurs to develop sustainable solutions for current and future issues.

Image: MVRDV / © Daria Scagliola

As the main hub at the Center, Matrix ONE aims to be a guiding example to the other buildings at the Amsterdam Science Park. The building was made to be demountable, in which connections such as screws and bolts allow elements to be detached and reused. In addition, its floors are made using prefabricated concrete slabs with no fixed connections.

Image: MVRDV / © Daria Scagliola

The platform Madaster was used to provide a material passport system that registers all the materials and products incorporated in the building. It provides insight into the carbon dioxide storage for over 120,000 ...

MVRDV reveals 'ecology-first' master plan for health and technology campus

2023-04-18T08:00:00-04:00

MVRDV has designed what the firm describes as a “pointillist” master plan for a health and technology campus in the Dutch city of Nijmegen.

The project aims to reimagine the Noviotech Campus by unifying the currently disjointed campus buildings and adding new buildings in the empty spaces between them while merging the site into the surrounding city. The design team says it's taking an “ecology-first” approach by transforming the campus into a nature-inclusive landscape that connects the neighboring Goffertpark, one of the city’s largest green spaces, and the adjacent Jonkerbos War Cemetery to designated green corridors nearby.

Image © MVRDV

The master plan preserves six of the seven pre-existing large buildings on the site, including one that will be renovated. The buildings will serve as a grid into which new buildings are added over time over three phases of development. The campus aims to eventually expand to approximately three million square feet of leasable space.

A green sp...

Winy Maas transforms his former high school with colorful swooping addition

2022-02-03T13:41:00-05:00

MVRDV founding partner Winy Maas and Theobert van Boven of Van Boven Architecten are leading the transformation of their old high school Gymnasium Beekvliet in the Dutch village of Sint-Michielsgestel.

The main element of this design by the two alumni is a colorful, flowing addition that reaches out into the school’s plaza and improves circulation, creating a new focal point at the heart of the building. In addition, the space exhibits artwork by artist Ian Kirkpatrick throughout.

The initial mission of the project was to renovate the existing school building. The brief also called for a new auditorium, more space for regular school activities, and additional art and culture facilities to provide students with a challenging and stimulating learning environment while offering them more spaces to gather. To meet this demand, the design extends the existing roof structure and lowers it to ground level, closing the building’s circulation routes and forming a distinct entrance.

The sw...

The International Architecture Biennale Rotterdam appoints Derk Loorbach as chief curator of IABR–2022, SHOCK AND ROLL

2021-03-30T13:03:00-04:00

The International Architecture Biennale Rotterdam has announced the chief curator of its next edition: Derk Loorbach is the director of the Dutch Research Institute for Transitions (DRIFT) and professor of Socioeconomic Transitions at the Erasmus University Rotterdam's Erasmus School of Social and Behavioral Sciences.

Titled SHOCK AND ROLL, the 10th IABR will open in the fall of 2022 and commence a new series of biennales focusing on the "urgent need to put into design practice the all-embracing change to which science incites us, which the Paris climate objectives call for, to which the global community committed itself in the UN’s 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and with which the reality of the climate crisis confronts us every single day."

Related: Archinect Interviews George Brugmans, IABR - Part 1, Making City; Part 2, Arnavutköy, Istanbul; and Part 3, São Paulo, Rotterdam and Beyond

"With the appointment of Derk Loorbach, the IABR wants to take a crucial next step in a...

Rooftop trees planted at MVRDV's Depot Boijmans Van Beuningen

2020-04-13T13:44:00-04:00

Tree planting has commenced at MVRDV's Depot Boijmans Van Beuningen, the anticipated art depot that will feature exhibition falls, a sculpture roof garden and restaurant, and expansive public grounds.

Photo by Fred Ernst. Courtesy of MVRDV.

As part of the tree installation, 75 large birches will be lifted 35 meters to the roof of the depot. The rooftop forest was designed in collaboration with MTD landschapsarchitecten from Den Bosch. The tree species are Betula pubescens, a soft birch that grows to ten meters and is said to be resistant to varying weather conditions.

Photo by Arjen Ketting. Courtesy of MVRDV.

Expected to remain standing for several decades, the trees will be maintained via a special watering system to ensure the soil will never dry out.

This Dutch urban plan is completely car-free

2020-01-23T08:40:00-05:00

As part of an ambition to transform Merwede in southwest Utrecht, an urban plan design, led by Marco.Broekman has been underway since 2016 with a definitive design endeavor under development this year. Simply called Merwede, the new neighborhood includes 6,000 dwellings, high-quality public spaces dressed in greenery, courtyards, and habitable rooftops. Designed as a car-free community, pedestrians and cyclist are prioritized. According to the design firm's website, Merwede's mission can be summarized in five themes:

Mobile Merwede: Allowing residents of Merwede to move freely without their own car.
Healthy and sustainable: Designing Merwede to contribute to a healthy planet with healthy people.
Lively city district: Offering Merwede the liveliness and amenities of the city.
Green domain: Creating a Merwede that combines highly urban, green and relaxation at the same time.
Coulisse city: Merwede is a highly urbanized neighbourhood with respect for the human scale.

Containing over 200 bui...

De Zwarte Hond & Monadnock's new park pavilion plays with homeyness and intimacy

2019-12-07T10:39:00-05:00

Sitting at the heart of the Hoge Veluwe National Park is the new Park Pavilion designed by De Zwarte Hond and Monadnock. Designed to welcome visitors and heighten the quality of their visit, the pavilion offers a restaurant, park shop, education spaces, and reception areas. It inserts itself as a modest addition to the 5,400 hectare nature reserve that is the Hoge Veluwe National Park.

The architects focused on ensuring the building was an integral part of the landscape and the park experience. Pulling from the nostalgic qualities of a country house, the structure, when viewed from its narrow end, mimics the characteristic double roof of the home archetype. Moving beyond this, the building subtly transforms into an organic curvilinear form, with expansive glazing that highlights a more intimate and smaller scale, allowing users to take in the surrounding landscape.

A vaulted ceiling extends the full length of the space leading visitors through an intuitive path through the building....

Mecanoo completes Delft City Hall and Train Station

2018-09-28T19:44:00-04:00

Following the construction of the first phase in 2015, the Mecanoo-designed Delft City Hall and Train Station is now fully completed, the Dutch firm recently announced. The 28,320 m2 project sits on top of a train tunnel, which replaced an old concrete viaduct that divided the city since 1965. Now, the project connects Delft's historic city center to the east of the tunnel with the residential neighborhoods to the west.

Photo credit: Mecanoo.

The project's design celebrates the past and present of Delft, Mecanoo describes. As travelers ride the escalators, they can look up to see a gigantic 1877 map of Delft on the ceiling, which Mecanoo designed with Geerdes Ontwerpen. Outside, travelers can see the city and the old station. Walls and columns in the interior are decorated with a contemporary reinterpretation of Delft Blue tiles. The train station also directly connects to the city hall.

Photo credit: Mecanoo.

“Panels of fused glass with len...

KAAN Architecten designs transparent CUBE study hall for Tilburg University

2018-09-25T20:46:00-04:00

Tilburg University in The Netherlands has a new Education and Self Study Center known as the CUBE that was designed by Dutch practice KAAN Architecten. Tucked away in the northwest corner of campus and completed this past April, the 11,000 m2 building serves the university's faculty and 2,200 students.

Photo © Sebastian van Damme.

Designed with a homogenous layout and no closed-off facades, the compact building features a pared down aesthetic that blends into its green landscape and surrounding buildings on campus, such as the historic Cobbenhagen building built back in the 1960s.

Photo © Sebastian van Damme.

The interior is a spacious study plaza flanked by a transparent auditorium and two patios, KAAN describes. It also features open study spaces, lounges, a cafeteria, a gracefully spiraling staircase, and four open staircases. The glass-walled auditorium comprises of fully equipped lecture rooms, green patios, and smaller spaces for independent study.

...

Bloot Architecture refurbishes rundown 1950s villa into the charming Patio House

2017-10-25T19:41:00-04:00

Located at the edge of the National Park Veluwezoom nature reserve in the Dutch town of Velp, the Patio House was formerly a rundown 1950s villa. Just this year, Bloot Architecture successfully refurbished and expanded the building into an inviting, spacious new residence.

The architects limited the use of partition walls and added larger windows and passage ways to create better connectivity between the different spaces of the home and to allow natural light to filter in. As a zero-energy building, the house has solar panels on its roof to provide energy for heating and electricity, eliminating the use of gas.

Photo © Ossip van Duivenbode.

The architects also added a new concrete extension with a patio. “The concrete beam in the façade of the original house still defines the characteristics of the villa. Parallel with this beam is the unde...

The Danish government looks to the Skaeve Huse as a solution to Homelessness

2017-07-17T19:32:00-04:00

The Danish term “Skaeve Huse” roughly translates to special houses for special people. Since the early aughts, the government has been using this form of temporary housing to help shelter individuals who suffer from mental illness, drug addiction and/or have trouble adapting to normal living environments. Tiny house villages have become a common solution for cities experiencing high rates of homelessness. Even in the U.S., cities like Portland and Seattle are piloting similar programs.

Placed in settlements of 8-12 small single-family homes, residents are provided with homes through a conventional tenancy agreements. Social workers pay regular visits with the underlying idea being that with some supervision, residents can come to themselves and social frictions will disappear from the neighborhood. While most Skaeve Huses are temporary, Trudo Housing Corporation wanted to create a community that offered permanent, energy-neutral homes that could offer long-term benefits.

Studio Elm...

Dutch prisons converted into homes for refugees

2017-06-21T18:09:00-04:00

As the country’s crime rate and prison population have steadily declined for years, dozens of correctional facilities have closed altogether. So when the number of migrants started to rise—more than 50,000 entered the Netherlands last year alone—the Central Agency for the Reception of Asylum Seekers (COA) saw a solution.

Many prisons in the Netherlands have been repurposed to house refugees who are waiting to be granted asylum status, a process that usually takes at least six months. Free to come and go as they please, the refugees are not allowed to work but are encouraged to learn Dutch and build connections with the surrounding community.

Work on Europe's first hyperloop test facility in Delft has been completed

2017-06-08T15:24:00-04:00

Back in February, TU Delft won the first phase of SpaceX's Hyperloop Competition, beating out MIT and the Technical University of Munich, for their design of a human-scale Hyperloop pod. Well, last week, Europe's first hyperloop test facility on the TU Delft campus was unveiled.

Hardt, which was founded by some of the winners from Elon Musk's hyperloop competition, is the first European company to work on developing the futuristic transport system. They have been working in conjunction with the construction company BAM to build the 30-meter long test facility revealed last Thursday. The facility consists of a tube with a length of 30 meters and an external diameter of 3.2 and will allow Hardt to try out all the important systems at low speeds. Testing will focus on examining the safety, the propulsion, the gliding and the stabilization of the hyperloop vehicle. In addition, the company is also interested in looking into potential social issues concerning the new form of transportatio...

OMA to design major masterplan for Feyernood City in Rotterdam

2016-12-01T13:16:00-05:00

Rotterdam is the hometown and European headquarters of OMA and has many significant buildings by the firm. Now, it’s set to get a new major project. The Mayor and Aldermen of the city just approved a major new masterplan for Feyernoord City, home of the Feyenoord football team. Sited next to the Maas river in Rotterdam-Zuid, the plan includes a new stadium for the team alongside a redevelopment of the neighborhood and the existing stadium, De Kuip.

According to a press release, the 63,000 seat stadium will be the “landmark of Feyenoord City” and a catalyst for future development. The old stadium will be converted into apartments, commercial space and an athletics sports center. An 800m long boulevard, dubbed the Strip, will connect the former stadium to the new one. Additionally, the masterplan includes an 89,000 square meter park and 700 new residential unites.

“With the development of Feyenoord City, OMA contributes to the next phase of development for the city of Rotterdam, our hom...

BIG + BARCODE to design terraced “Sluishuis” complex in Amsterdam

2016-11-30T18:58:00-05:00

BIG has another terraced building in the works. This time around, the practice led a team with Rotterdam-based BARCODE Architects to design the competition-winning scheme for “Sluishuis”, a new 46,000 m2 mixed-use development proposed for IJburg Lake at the edge of Amsterdam.

The residential complex will be a “building inside the port, with a port inside the building,” Bjarke Ingels says. Showing off different silhouettes at various vantage points, the building will also include 380 apartments, about 4,000 m2 of commercial and public areas, 240 underground parking spaces, and a water-quality program that the architects say will provide enough room for up to 30 houseboats.

Toward the water, the building block lifts up to create a large opening that allows water from the IJ Lake to flow into the central courtyard as well as bring sunlight and views into the inner apartments of the building. The block then cascades downward and reveals more of itself toward the city.

A public promenade ...

Take a look at KAAN Architecten's new offices inside a 1950s-era Rotterdam building

2016-11-23T12:27:00-05:00

Just steps away from the iconic Erasmus Bridge, a new office for KAAN Architecten has joins the crowd of notable buildings in the heart of the Dutch city of Rotterdam. The project transformed 1,400 square meters of a site with a storied history. Designed by Henri Timo Zwiers in the mid-fifties, the structure was built on the grounds a former synagogue that was destroyed in the Second World War. Originally the premises of De Nederlandsche Bank, the building’s bright open spaces and rectangular floor plan lend itself well to an architecture office.

KAAN restored the industrial concrete structure, and counterbalanced the rough concrete with dark walnut. “The harmonious interaction between the warm comfort of the wood and the pre-existing concrete structure, envelopes the atmosphere in a graceful yet monumental feeling,” writes KAAN Architecten.

“The notion of sharing of knowledge is at the core of the division of spaces and the interior design of the new office. This rough space has the ...

The Netherlands considers a ban on gasoline-powered vehicles

2016-08-18T13:04:00-04:00

Gasoline-powered cars may soon be a thing of the past. But the Netherlands wants to get there quicker. The Dutch government is debating the possibility of banning new gas and diesel cars from 2025. The initial proposal, which was brought forward by the Labor Party, called for an outright ban of all petrol and diesel cars, but was eventually modified so the ban only affected the sale of new petrol and diesel cars. Traditional cars already in use will still run on the streets.

The proposal has since passed in the lower house of the Netherlands’ parliament. It now needs to pass through the Dutch senate.

In related news:

Inside the MVRDV House, the firm's new family home-style office

2016-07-22T19:25:00-04:00

MVRDV settled into their new office headquarters inside the remodeled Het Industriegebouw, nestled in the heart of Rotterdam. Now dubbed by the firm as the MVRDV House, the building was originally designed by iconic Dutch architect Hugh Maaskant in 1952. The new 2,400 square-meter interior is modeled like a family home, filled with ample working and gathering spaces that reflect the “work hard, play hard” balance many firms strive for in their office's design.

Now with 140 employees based in Rotterdam, “[t]he expanding MVRDV family needed a new house,” says MVRDV co-founder Jacob van Rijs. MVRDV's new office has “everything that [a] home requires, a living room, a dining room, a sofa for the whole house to sit together,” he described. Surrounded by various creative start-ups and design firms, MVRDV believes they fit right in their new neighborhood.

The Family Room serves as the firm's main communal space for social interaction...

Cutting out the (real estate) middle man: a closer look at Self-Builds

2016-07-15T13:46:00-04:00

It’s not a new argument to say that cities are increasingly morphing from social configurations to investment vehicles. [...] “Self-builds”, “Baugruppen”, and “zelfbouw” are just a few ways to define variations of building-it-yourself (BIY), whether done individually or as a collective. The end users (who are the commissioners), together with architects, decide on the design of their homes, and then take care of the construction themselves or have contractors do it.

The Netherlands moves closer to leaving gas and diesel cars in the dust

2016-04-19T18:47:00-04:00

The parliament of The Netherlands has passed a motion which would require that all new cars sold by 2025 will have to be electrified in some way [...] The Dutch government hasn't yet banned gas and diesel-powered cars, however, and the motion does allow for hybrid cars to be sold beyond 2025. [...] Although localized governments have sought to ban public cars from urban streets in a number of European cities, the Dutch Labor Party's motion is by far the most aggressive campaign

Related on Archinect:

Rotterdam considers paving its roads with recycled plastic

2015-07-10T18:39:00-04:00

The construction firm VolkerWessels unveiled plans on Friday for a surface made entirely from recycled plastic, which it said required less maintenance than asphalt and could withstand greater extremes of temperature– between -40C and 80C. Roads could be laid in a matter of weeks rather than months and last about three times as long, it claimed. The company said the environmental argument was also strong as asphalt is responsible for 1.6m tons of CO2 emissions a year globally

Utrecht to experiment with universal, unconditional "basic income"

2015-06-26T18:22:00-04:00

"What happens if someone gets a monthly amount without rules and controls?

Imagine if everyone was given a living wage, without any regulatory or qualifying hoops to jump through? The Dutch city of Utrecht, in a partnership with University College Utrecht, is running such a dramatic social experiment, starting at the end of the summer, offering an "unconditional form of payment to individuals, which covers their living costs". To start, the experiment will only provide the so-called "basic income" to those already receiving welfare, using a group of citizens receiving the normal welfare benefits as the control group.

Other news from The Netherlands:

Dutch court mandates reduction of greenhouse gas emissions

How to Think Like the Dutch in a Post-Sandy World