Stadsdeelkantoor Zuideramstel / Claus en Kaan Architekten
Architects: Claus en Kaan Architekten/ Felix Claus & Jaap Gräber
Location: Amsterdam, The Netherlands
Design team: Jan Kerkhoff, Mike Heemrood, Emal Karanzai, Hilmar Goedhart, James Webb
Client: Dura Vermeer Vastgoed BV
Constructed area:10,000 sqm
Budget:$1,215 Euro / sqm
Project year:2008
Photographs: Luuk Kramer
The district offces of ZuiderAmstel, Amsterdam will be the face of an ensemble of mixed-use residential and offce buildings. As a result, the area will be lively for most of the day.
floor plan
The project consists of two L-shaped buildings that embrace a courtyard. The volume containing the offces offers shelter for the residential block. A parking garage is situated underneath the building and is accessible from the side of the Amsterdam RAI Exhibition and Convention Centre. In this way the residential neighbourhood is not burdened by extra car traffc.The architecture of the ensemble, bordering the Zuidas planning area, combines contemporary urban allure with self-evident simplicity.
section
The offices floors are shells that can be flexibly subdivided according to more individual needs, allowing a greater durability to the building as opposed to a more specific type of use.
Contrasting to the public, street-facing facades, the inner facades have relatively smaller openings, to allow more privacy for the inhabitants. The white stuccoed facades facing the court yard suggest a ‘ton sur ton’ effect with the bark structure of the birches that will be planted there.
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16 comments »
Ok… so I admit I didn’t read this post… only glanced at the pictures. Is this a joke or am I just not getting the architectural significance of this? I mean were the designers were trying here? I’m a big fan of minimalism, simplicity, etc… but this looks like generic monotonous boredom. What am I missing here? Why is this significant, or “good”, or worthy of our attention?
As boring as this may seem, it’s very difficult to achieve this type of minimalism and have it look good, only those with mature design sensibility are able to do this. The craziness or “artistic” architecture that you might be looking for is very easy to achieve – just pull a bunch of points in Maya or Rhino…
It’s not a minimalism. It’s just a modern architecture ala 70’s.
They definetely have the trackrecord to prove your theory, Z99.
I also feel the need to defend this well detailed and organized building somewhat.
It confuses me that there is no differentiation between the two volumes, while these are two different uses (residential and office). I think the aesthetics and cleanliness of the whole project are a better fit the offices a lot better.
Again, clean, well detailed architecture is appreciated, even preferred… but this looks like not even trying.
Your point about the different uses is a good one. Why does every window on every facade look the same? Why is the exterior material the same everywhere. This is a building of multiple uses!? Could’ve fooled me… again.. IT LOOKS LIKE GENERIC OFFICE PARK ARCHITECTURE.
And no, criticizing a clean, well detailed project doesn’t mean I don’t appreciate those things, it just means I think they need to do more than that. It also doesn’t mean I’m looking for some crazy, blobby, rhino, rendered, excitement.
The “excitement” I would like to see is infinitely more subtle and intelligent than that. People should not assume that everyone who criticizes a clean, well-detailed project is a first year architecture student that just discovered Maya.
Firstly, I’m not looking for any “craziness”, I dislike that type of architecture. I despise Maya/Rhino architecture more than this, but that does not make this “good”. I appreciate intelligent, thoughtful minimal architecture. This is not that.
This does not appear to be thoughtful, minimal architecture. It does not appear to create intelligent spaces that I would want to exist in. Again, if it does do these things and I’m somehow missing it, please point it out to me.
It does indeed look like the 1970’s/80’s, repeated, identical floor plates stacked on top of each other. It looks like typical developer office park architecture. I’m simply asking if it is not that, for someone to explain to me how it is not.
I completely agree with you jason. This is not minimal. This reflects the modern movement in the 1970/80’s. There is nothing minimal or intelligent about this. This is just stacking floor slabs on another. There is just a thoughtless repetition of openings.
The least they could have done is balance the openings to create some interest. This will go down as just any other public building developed by some in house government architects who just do their job.
Without commenting on the organisation at all i think that actually, the main reason why this building will not be remembered for its architectural value is not the repetitive pattern of windows, no problem with that, but the detailing that is actually in my opinion very poor (aesthetically) although, ironically, minimal. For those familiar with i.e Peter Markli`s office buildings this will be easy to understand. This kind of architecture needs more articulation in details, think Mies.
its to plain and boring for my like, it seems dry and unattactive sometimes its best to leave the past behind us and move along with the times.
Sure…but there might be a way of not being boring with just using materials in a surprising way instead of focusing on formal novelty all the time (this project does not do either of course). After all this is just a housing project. Is housing today meant to be iconic?
The hanging stairwells are a great detail. I don’t think however that it’s boring or otherwise bad, it was build for a specific purpose and for specific clients, and more importantly, “it was built” so there must have been concessions and meetings and a thought process and budget planning before setting the first shovel into the ground. Not everything is meant to please everyone not every building designed and built for everything, get that through your head archdaily commenters.
my only big complaint is that architects who do exposed concrete exterior facades rarely think about how terrible they look in the rain. its like the building’s mascara is running…minimal yes, but not completely thought out.
white stucco…nm
brought to you by the architects that work inside this
http://www.flickr.com/photos/artifice/994461141/in/set-72157602940633038/
I think people have to deal with budgets as well. Before start to be negative, please see the budget (1215€/m2). With this amount I appreciate the idea of doing an aesthetically clean project – to be filled in creatively by the users. I am not saying that this is top – but it looks that the brief was not allowing to have much more on the plate.
I don’t like the Dutch architecture. I think it’s most of the time outdated, but this is only my personal idea