Roosendaal Pavillion / René van Zuuk Architekten

Architect: René van Zuuk Architekten
Location: Roosendaal, the Netherlands
Client: Gemeente Roosendaal / NL
Design Team: René van Zuuk, Jorrit Spel, Chimo Villa Belda
Program: Pavillion - shops/lunchroom/office / entrance for parking area
Project Year: 2005-2009
Constructed Area: 620 sqm
Photographs: Christian Richters

In 2001 the city of Roosendaal (a provincial town in the southwest of the Netherlands) decided to ban cars from the New Market in the centre of town by building a huge two storey underground parking. In order to create a new public square the city of Roosendaal asked the urban design office Quadrat to make a proposition. In their scheme they proposed to pave the square with red and brown brick, plant 15 trees, make three exits for the underground parking and as the most visible and important element they proposed a restaurant and coffee pavilion in the form of an oval.

In 2005 a public design and construction bidding for contractors was organised. Just before they had to submit their entry to the city, the municipality decided to include the pavilion as well. Therefore they asked the office of Rene van Zuuk to make a design for the pavilion including the contract drawings over a very short span (5 weeks), due to these limitations there was no time to make big changes in the urban scheme and the location and the form of the pavilion was copied from the original urban proposal.

The idea behind the urban proposal was that the pavilion would divide the square in two parts in such a way that you would still have the feeling of being on one big square. Because of the market activities which occupy the entire square twice a week, the terraces of the pavilion needed to be placed above the ground floor . Originally the terraces could only be reached by going through the pavilion. Rene van Zuuk decided to make the terraces accessible from the outside of the building as well so you can walk from the square up onto the sloped roof to the terraces letting the roof become a public area. The entrances from the roof to the building are made by cuts in the sloped surface giving every floor its own terrace. The rest of the roof acts as a big stage which allows artists to give a performances in front of the building.

On the south side the pavilion reaches its highest point. This part of the building cantilevers over the main entrance of the parking garage allowing daylight to penetrate deep into the two levels below.

In order to make the cuts in the roof and to accommodate the cantilevering part of the building, the structure is made by a simple braced steel grid of 4.2m x 4.2m and 3 m high.

The orientation of the grid coincides with the location of the entrance of the main shopping passage. This results in a new direction on the square making the space more dynamic. The original square dates from just after the war until the 1970’s, the architecture was cold and the color monotonous. The new urban scheme is warm in nature thanks to the trees and use of brick. It was obvious that the pavilion should blend in with this character and therefore wood was the most appropriate choice of material. Because the quality of most of the original buildings around the pavilion is not that high, the urban scheme and the new pavilion have to work together as a catalyst to upgrade this part of the city.

site plan

parking area 01 floor plan

parking area 02 floor plan

ground floor plan

second floor plan

upper floor plan

roof plan

north east elevation

north west elevation

south east elevation

south west elevation

section 01

section 02

section 03

section 04

section 05

section 06

Aqaulis Pier / Andrew Bedov

Situated along the Moskva River in Moscow, Andrew Bedov’s Aqaulis Pier creates a dynamic infrastructure hub that provides an alternative circulation route for the users. The pier is designed to replace the 15 moorings in the city by creating one central unit with an efficient water bus transportation system to help commuters cross the river.

The smooth form creates a fluid continuity for both the exterior and interior spaces. Inside the structure, open spaces provide room to relax while resting upon countless sofas, dinning in a small café or reading in the library. On the exterior, a viewing platform extends allowing users to enjoy the natural beauty of the river.

More images after the break.

As seen on Tuvie.

Design for Teheran / Giuseppe Iodice

As we shared earlier this week, the Desiging in Teheran international competition urged designers to creatively rethink the potential a retail area can have upon an evolving metropolis (Grzegorz Witold Woronowicz’s won as we reported earlier on AD). Giuseppe Iodice’s proposal placed third as it aimed to create an architecture that ”would investigate a social, political, cultural function and become an element of dialogue between different cultures…thus assuming a role of balanced mediation between western and eastern culture without renouncing its expressive identity.”

Inspired by the high mountain ranges in Teheran, the structure’s form presents itself, initially, as a monolithic mass. However, upon approaching the structure, the large form finally breaks. As light penetrates the solid components, it is evident that “inner gorges” are hidden behind the exterior. These “gorges”, and the interplay of light and shadow that they create, attract passersby who are curious about the inner-holdings of the structure. Therefore, a dialogue is created between the seemingly mute exterior of the building and its dynamic inner nature.

From a distance, the building sinks into the ground (”Teheran” itself means “going down”) to create an angular volume. Before reaching contact with the ground, the volume tapers as to create a “great sculpturesque point of view” to attract people passing through the space.

Musée Hergé

After two years of construction, the Musée Hergé designed by Christian de Portzamparc is complete. Situated in a forest and connected by a footbridge to Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium, the museum is dedicated to Belgian artist and Tintin author Hergé. The museum highlights Hergé’s life and works through cultural facilities, permanent and temporary exhibition areas, and a video projection room.

“It was at the close of the exhibition, organized by the Pompidou Centre about me in 1996, that I met Fanny and Nick Rodwell. They had seen the exhibition, liked it, and wanted to talk to me about their project for the Hergé Museum…Hergé had not only cradled and enchanted my own childhood, but he was also cradling and enchanting the childhood of my children,” explained de Portzamparc.

When finding inspiration for the museum, Portzamparc immediately looked to the ideas and figures present in Hergé’s writings. Although it took almost a decade for those images to transfer into an architectural language, the result is a space that richly commemorates the famed author. ”What is clear to me, now that the museum exists, is that there were infinite sources of inspiration for the project,” explained de Portzamparc.

The museum is separated from the town, a location Portzamparc found to be advantageous in allowing the visitor to experience and focus on the “four landscape objects”. These four objects are different exhibition areas that illustrate various “kinds of character” through experimenting with form, color and design derived from Hergé’s drawing style. Meandering footbridges link the exhibition spaces while large, comic-strip-like bay windows allow natural light to fill the spaces.

As seen on Dezeen. Photographs are copyright Nicolas Borel and Hergé/Croix de l’Aigle.

Crystal Clear / C.F.Møller Architects + Kristin Jarmund Arkitekter

C. F. Møller Architects, in collaboration with Kristin Jarmund Arkitekter, have won a major competition to design a new landmark for Oslo. Their project, entitled Crystal Clear, consists of three towers, which are composed of stacked, prismatic volumes that will provide a dynamic new addition to the city’s skyline.

More about the towers after the break.

The three towers in the 90,000 m2 development will include offices, commercial spaces and possibly housing. The buildings will feature glass rectangular faces that seems to cut into the more solid portion of the structure. These areas will allow light to penetrate deeper into the areas, making the spaces brighter and creating a better work environment. The addition of gardens in such places will also offer workers a new atmosphere unlike their office spaces. During the evening, as these portions emit light, the stacking aesthetic of the solid volumes becomes more dynamic and sculpture-esque.

“Crystal Clear is a unique proposal for a modern, Nordic cluster of towers - a Norwegian urban rock, that in an exiting way adds to the city’s strategic endeavour to interlace town and port into a contemporary and lively waterfront, and at the same time fulfils the client KLP Eiendom’s vision to build the most groundbreaking high-rise offices in Scandinavia, ” explained Partner and architect Mads Mandrup Hansen. C. F. Møller Architects’ hand-picked team from Copenhagen, Aarhus and Oslo understands the regional conditions and worked to push the city forward with their design.

ATKINS and Norwegian Erichsen og Horgen AS are appointed as engineers on Crystal Clear, which is expected to be completed within 3-5 years.

Xixi Wetland Art Museum

Chinese Studio Pei-Zhu has designed the Xixi Wetland Art Museum located in a rural nature preserved near Hangzhou, China. The concept stems from the interaction between building and nature. As leaves fall from trees they arrive naturally on the ground. The resulting form creates shelter against the earth.

This design creates the genuine qualities of scattered, fallen leaves and shelter through five buildings. Some leaves overlap and attach with other leaves. One leaf remains separate, yet still unites in visual language with the linked leaves. The four linked structures house functions for business, recreation, a hotel, restaurant, and reception. The single standing leaf is the art museum.

The buildings are covered by light colored, reflective zinc panels that have a brushed finish, resulting in a diffused and soft reflection of their interactions with people and nature. this blending influences a person as they experience the museum. All colors, light, and details merge into a continuous representation that is not recognizable as individual objects, but are distinguished as a uniform and natural image.

Seen at designboom. More images after the break.

Best Tall Building Award 2009 : Linked Hybrid by Steven Holl Architects

The Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat (CTBUH) has named Steven Holl Architects recently completed the Linked Hybrid complex in Beijing the recipient of the “Best Tall Building” in Asia and Australia award for 2009. Annually, the CTBUH recognizes one outstanding tall building from each of four geographical regions: Americas, Asia and Australia, Europe, and Middle East and Africa. The “Best Tall Building Overall” will be selected from among these four recipients at the Awards Dinner on October 23 during the CTBUH 2009 Chicago Conference.


The 220,000 square-meter Linked Hybrid complex that won the 2009 award includes eight towers linked by a ring of eight sky bridges housing a variety of public functions. The complex is located adjacent to the former city perimeter of Beijing. To counter current urban development trends in China, the complex forms a new twenty-first century porous urban space, inviting and open to the public from every side. In addition to more than 750 apartments, the complex includes public, commercial, and recreational facilities as well as a hotel and school. With sitelines around, over, and through multifaceted spatial layers, this “city within a city” has as one of its central aims the concept of public space within an urban environment, and can support all the activities and programs for the daily lives of over 2500 inhabitants.