pink facet

UNStudio's Agora Theatre is an extremely colourful, determinedly upbeat place. The building is part of the masterplan for Lelystad to revitalise the pragmatic, sober town centre. The Architects responded to the ongoing mission of reviving and recovering the post-war Dutch new towns by focusing on the archetypal function of a theatre. Both the interior and exterior walls are faceted to reconstruct the kaleidoscopic experience of the world of the stage.

4 bridges

bureau SLA were commissioned to turn the two buildings into a home for the National Glass Museum. It was suggested to turn Cochius’ former residence into an exhibition area and to use the second villa as offices, storage facilities and a cafeteria.Although the spaces were enough, the Architects thought that creating both buildings fully accessible to the public would be a better solution. Their idea was that the museum’s employees could eat in the restaurant, the visitors could have full access to the collection of glass, including that in storage, and the administrative staff could work in the library. Furthermore, the exhibition rooms could be far more spacious and instead of the small rooms of the existing villas, in which visitors need to climb up and down stairs all the time, circulation and exhibition spaces could to be much more generous.

In the end, bureau SLA designed 4 bridges that draws everything together in an elegant manner. Visitors can idle through extensive rooms with only one lift is needed and an enormous amount of space is gained. The bridges serve as storage space in which all the museum’s objects are on display, in cases specifically designed for the museum by Piet Hein Eek. The bridges were constructed from several layers of polycarbonate panels and covered by a translucent skin of grey, powder-coated, aluminium mesh. During the day they contrast sharply with the refined old villas, whereas at night they glow in reflection of the 9000 glass objects inside them.

omni-directional

Quote: Following the definition of the Masterplan in 1998 for the center of Eindhoven in Holland, studio Fuksas developed the four projects associated with it: the 18-Septemberplein, a square of 7.000 m² with an underground parking lot of 2.300m² for 1.700 bicycles, the Piazza Shopping Mall, a shopping center covering approximately 20.000m² with 6.000m² of office space, the Media Market, a store for sales of electrical appliances and electronic equipment and the Admirant Entrance Building.

The Admirant entrance building is at the same time part of a newly developed shopping area by Heijmans Real Estate, a prominent Dutch building developer. It is located just at the border between the new area and the 18th September square, forming the main gateway to a new shopping axis. This prominent position called for an iconic building, a request that the Admirant entrance building fulfils entirely. It is like a precious jewel, which attracts the public’s attention and leads pedestrians to the heart of the new district. Due to the non-orthogonal shape, the Admirant is non-directional. If we compared the facades of ordinary buildings to billboards one would refer to the Admirant as more of an advertisement column. Its smooth curves allow a dynamic flow around it.

There is no front- or backside; the building envelope is experienced continuously. The building consists of two elements: the 5-storey high primary concrete structure and the glass/steel envelope. Commercial spaces are located on the ground and first level and office spaces on level three and four (plus an additional technical level). The shape of the floor slabs being determined by the form of the façade reach from 950m² on the ground floor to 250m² on the highest office level. Except for the staircase, no vertical elements block the visual connections on the inside of the building. Four big indents of the building envelope create a fascinating diversity of spatial configurations on the inside of the building.

The geometry of the façade varies from vertical surfaces to amorphous shapes, which create a dynamic inside of the building and allow an experience of the facade completely detached from the floor levels. Sophisticated details of the connection of the floor edge to the facade underline this experience. The facade built as today, is a result of intensive form finding during the conceptual phase and subsequent form optimization in the later stages. Its system consists of triangulated glass-faces ported by rectangular, hollow steel profiles. The outstanding design made an exceptionally high quality structural design and precise fabrication essential.