After five years of construction, MVRDV’s highly-touted mixed-use Valley project has officially opened in Amsterdam.
Behind the under-construction Canyon, recently-completed Grotius Towers, and last year’s Depot Boijmans Van Beuningen project, the three-tower scheme represents one of the firm’s larger and more significant works of recent vintage.
Featuring a cantilevered series of terraces and vertical forests designed by Piet Oudolf, the 75,000-square-meter (807,000-square-foot) development is meant as a stimulus to the otherwise bland Zuidas business district and includes an open fourth and fifth floor Green Valley, boutique ground-level retail and cultural offerings, and a covered grotto that further connects the public to what founding partner Winy Maas called a “first step towards transforming this part of Amsterdam into a greener, denser, and more human city.”
A total of 271 young trees and 13,500 small local plants were placed using a matrix that Oudolf designed and will mature as the building itself ages, evolving into a more lush and verdant building that positively impacts the health of its users. Valley is similar to the visually-complex Nieuw Bergen housing scheme in Eindhoven and recently took home first place at this year's Emporis Skyscraper Awards.
MVRDV shares: “Valley is an attempt to bring a green and human dimension back to the inhospitable office environment of Amsterdam Zuidas. It is a building with multiple faces; on the outer edges of the building is a shell of smooth mirrored glass, which fits the context of the business district. Inside this shell, the building has a completely different, more inviting natural appearance, as if the glass block has crumbled away to reveal craggy rock faces inside replete with natural stone and greenery.”
“The enormously complex shape required a special commitment to fine detailing that further enhances the design concept. MVRDV’s technology experts created a series of custom digital tools to perfect the building, from a tool that ensured every apartment had adequate light and views, to a program that made possible the apparently random pattern of over 40,000 stone tiles of varying sizes that adorn the building’s façades. Each of the 198 apartments has a unique floorplan, made possible by the interior designs by Heyligers Architects. And the outlandish cantilevers of the towers are possible thanks to innovative engineering, including eleven steel 'specials' bolted to the concrete building that take the overall appearance to the next level.”
MVRDV achieved a BREEAM-NL Excellent certification on the project and says the building's energy performance rates 30% higher than what local law requires. Maas said his team did not want to create a “one-note business center” — what they accomplished in the end is a sustainable building that condenses many of their standby design elements into a well-orchestrated and enlivening form.
10 Comments
Looks so much like AI generated by midjourney.
or is it the opposite?
It's a cycle: Blackboxes learn from what humans have done and humans then use the Blackboxes' results as a basis for their work. I mean that's how references have always worked - drawing from that pool of collective human creations. Blackbox AIs are able to do it at a vastly faster rate and larger scope than any human can.
The downside is: What if the prevalent use of Blackboxes eventually reduce human input into that pool to a trickle as more humans opt to rely on Blackboxes. There's a few millenia of human contributions to draw on but one day it might be exhausted ... or will Blackboxes rise to the challenge and produce hitherto totally unimagined futures.
Hey, they got it built, so kudos for that. It'll make for some great parkour videos in the near future.
more junk architecture that will not age well. SAD!
I can't believe I enjoy this. Not keen on the jaggedness of it all nor the flat glazed area but the stone conditions look insanely well detailed, and the skylight....reminds me of Fujimotos project in france with mega balconies. I like the intimacy of this approach but am fighting with the angles.
Agreed I want to hate it, but it looks pretty nice to me.
Really? What's the need for this excess?
I like it.
You have 2 diametrically different surfaces and a series of towers out of one building: one having a polished reflective (mirrored) surface and the other is jagged surface with a series of random terraces which creates a unique space outdoors with balconies, planters and cantilever units. It looks likes each unit is so different. Plus once the trees have matured and plants grown more, the surroundings would like more natural.
Wonder if some of the units are affordable.
My First impression and reaction to it was very disturbing. It’s as if the building was bombarded and destroyed by a war attack. During this time of war images in the public media makes it even harder to take this kind of representation acceptable.
As well as the Crowd in Seoul. It looks as the attack of the New York twin towers on 911. Simply unacceptable, sorry to say.
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