Kleiburg Mutations

Kleiburg Mutations is an attempt to visualize the immense variety of individual choices of the new inhabitants of the Kleiburg estate to customize their homes.

Kleiburg Mutations maps the seemingly endless range of modifications -some big, some small- of the ideal cell as conceived by Fop Ottenhof in 1974.

Kleiburg Mutations shows the permutations of the two main unit types: a dynamic sequence of the varying positions of rooms, kitchens and bathrooms including the types and positions of facade elements as far as we could track them down (not all information is available, so some units remain a mystery: )

Click GIF to enlarge

Public Space: vocalize your rights

The roof of Forum Groningen proofs to be ‘public space’: the square on top has been occupied by the Youth Orchestra to protest against budget cuts!

“Public spaces have often been valorized as democratic spaces of congregation and political participation, where groups can vocalize their rights”. Caves, R. W. (2004). Encyclopedia of the City. Routledge. p. 549. (Wikipedia)
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Image: Phillip Pruim @oogtv
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#haydnjeugdstrijkorkest
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#publicspace #publicsquare #rooftop #kulturgebirge

Glocken Spiel

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#soundon

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click clip: 2020 09 17_Ding Dong_single(2)

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In the framework of the renovation of the space under the elevated highway A8 in Koog aan de Zaan several art projects were proposed. Glocken Spiel was not executed at the time. But why not?

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It can still be implemented. The Highway A8 was build right through the heart of town separating Church and City Hall in an absolutely radical way. Since the revitalization was about ‘connection and separation’ (as was the original viaduct: ) the attempt was to establish a new relationship between the freeway and the church. About 3000 cars pass every hour. If we place a sensor on the road counting the vehicles and hook it up with the steeple, the church bells could ring according to the traffic intensity. An acoustic signal after every 1000 cars passed. This would enable a new sense of time. Pulsating with the rhythm of congestion.

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With @vincentringoir

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#glockenspiel #A8erna #koogaandezaan #dingdong #accousticart #nlarchitects #haha #bringthenoise

 

Living with the machines

Market forces squeeze the air out of any floorplan. At the same time spatial requirements for technical installations are expanding, mainly due to considerations about sustainability. Extrapolation of this process of contraction on the hand and expansion on the other eventually forces the living room to fully coincide with the machine room.

Good IDEA for the AMC

The AMC, the Academic Medical Center in Amsterdam, is the largest hospital of The Netherlands. And one of the biggest buildings in the country.

The AMC was designed by Architectenburo Duintjer Istha Kramer van Willegen in collaboration with ir. D van Mourik and opened in 1981. Now the facades are up for renovation. What to do with the immense surface?

The AMC was conceived as a city, the volumes build an intricate sequence of interior streets and squares that are all day lit. This Cité Médicale provides a remarkably pleasant experience for both patients, medical staff, students and visitors.

The AMC in principle consists of two spatial types; six so-called beddenhuizen, interconnected tower blocks with the rooms for the patients rest on an extensive low rise base with the operation rooms, research facilities, public spaces and services.

Both facades consist of horizontal concrete bands alternated with strips of glass or corrugated steel plates. The four story base features characteristic window cleaning galleries resting on protruding consoles that together render a sculptural expression. Brut is beautiful : )

The spatial organization of the AMC is incredibly innovative. The building features a rather amazing section: in the low rise pedestal so-called sub-floors, floors that contain the necessary installations, intersect the regular floors. So one floor with medical rooms is followed by a floor dedicated to the technical facilities! This principle allows maintenance and adaptation of the ducting over time without jeopardizing the operations below.

The ‘interstitials’ are quite perceptible. On the outside, the sub-floors are obscured by corrugated steel plate. Can we replace this opaque cladding with glass panels?

Opening up the technical floors will bring to the fore the hidden beauty of the AMC: exposing the intricate insides like the Anatomy Lesson.

Some sort of ‘sandwiched’ Centre Pompidou could come into being that would reveal the brute intelligence of this structure.

CIRCUIT CITY

The city of Zandvoort aspires to bring back the Formula 1 to its gorgeous circuit by 2020.

The municipal council of the car crazy coastal city unanimously voted in favor of investing 4 million euros into returning the Grandprix to the Netherlands. NU.nl reports.

GroenLinks (the green party) added an amendment stipulating that the return of the Grand Prix must be done as sustainably as possible. A narrow majority adopted this amendment : )

The elegant curves of the race track formed the basis for our project Circuit City in 2002.

CIRCUIT CITY

Street Races are immensely popular. The illegal races are generally held in peripheral business districts and warehouse areas.

While designing these ‘Business Parks’ it might be a good idea to consider the activities that normally are just a derivative of the real function in an early stage. The hypothesis is that a reciprocal relation between both types of use could come into being: a situation of mutual benefit.

Circuit City optimizes the infrastructure for new Business Areas for driving fast. In the weekends and evenings ‘illegal’ races can take place. And during the day the circuit is a wonderful driveway along which you can park. Official races can be organized that will have a positive effect on the surrounding corporations: the glamour that comes with motorsports will reinforce the ‘dynamic character’ of the entire district, real estate values will go up. Identity, fundamentally lacking from this type of generic environment, can be derived from the additional function: infrastructure becomes Logo”.

More here: http://www.nlarchitects.nl/slideshow/98/

Remote Controlled Trash Bin

Our Remote Controlled Trash Bin now has a more intelligent follow up: the Smart Trash Can.

Where our trash bin, that was built in the early nineties (and is now pretty much trashed), still depended on human skill and dexterity in handling the joystick, the new invention deploys sensors and a PC to calculate where your waste will fall and autonomously moves to catch it!

https://bit.ly/2MQkBVD

what? wow! why?

While going through our archive (we are in the process of moving: ) we made some strange discoveries like the one above: an early handcrafted collage (from before the Internet and Photoshop) of an escalator with two different inclinations. But why?

Kleiburg: a self fulfilling prophecy

On May 30, 2011 we launched a Blog post about Kleiburg. It had just been announced that four teams were selected to further develop their plans to rescue the building. Our pamphlet supported the idea of preserving the mega-structure with the slogan: if you’re short-sighted what use is a vista? And to articulate the latent potential of the building we published a Mash-up of a proud photograph of Kleiburg on the cover of Wallpaper magazine:

“Many attempts to renovate the slabs in the Bijlmer, Kleiburg in particular, have focused on differentiation, in an attempt to get rid of the uniformity, the repetition, to ‘humanize’ the architecture. BAD idea. Time for a new approach: emphasize the intrinsic beauty. Sublimize. Kleiburg will soon make it into Wallpaper”.

A year later we were invited to become part of the winning team Consortium DeFlat. The result of the collective effort was stunning and in 2017 the building was awarded with the EUMiesaward. What a blast! And the prediction came through: this autumn Ellen Himelfarb of Wallpaper visited the Bijlmer. Kleiburg did not actually land on the cover but never the less made it into the magazine : )

Bazaar Lelylaan

According to Monitor sociale veiligheid openbaar vervoer Lelylaan is still considered the most unsafe station of Amsterdam. What can be done to improve this gloomy hub?

Time to re-launch the brilliant solution that we proposed in 2010: pick up the least appealing element and copy paste it until it becomes gorgeous 🙂

What about an exotic market under the tracks? A bazaar could turn the Station into a destination and as such improve the well-being of travelers; density as a catalyst for safety.