Office: Atelier Kempe Thill | ArchDaily

Beaumont Eurorennes Buildings / Atelier Kempe Thill + Atelier 56S

Hadir Al Koshta — Thu, 04 Jul 2024 12:00:00 +0000

Formal Urban Planning - Rennes, France, the capital of Brittany, has initiated several large urban development projects, the most spectacular of which is the reorganization of the entire train station area with the ZAC (Zone d’aménagement concerté) EuroRennes, including the completely new construction of the main train station. This development is the logical consequence of the connection of Rennes to the TGV high-speed railway network to Paris, 350 kilometers away, with a journey time of just 100 minutes and trains running every hour. The station area has therefore increased significantly in value and given a real boost to the city’s urban development. The French railway company SNCF has freed up a wide swathe of land along the tracks and is gradually selling it to the highest-bidding project developers. The city has founded a semipublic urban development company that links the allocation of land to competitions in which the design of the team of architects plays a decisive role. This is an attempt to ensure urban and architectural quality. The FGP team of Philippe Gazeau and Louis Paillard, in collaboration with Agence Ter, was chosen as the master planner of the entire area. The master plan assumes that individual buildings stand next to each other as loose volumes similar to urban villas and smaller high-rise buildings, thereby creating an open city impression despite high urban density. The buildings form classic streets and squares. In addition, the master plan requires all buildings to have façades that slope in both plan and section, including façades that are designed to overhang in a “rock-like” manner to create an organic and sculptural effect. Atelier Kempe Thill, together with the Rennes-based architectural firm Atelier56S, were invited by the client Legendre Immobilier to the competition for the Beaumont construction site directly opposite the train platforms.

Refuga Wintergarden Tower / Atelier Kempe Thill + Abscis Architecten + UAU Collectiv

Paula Pintos — Thu, 02 Nov 2023 03:00:00 +0000

Transformation of the Herkenrode Barracks. In 2015, the planning team consisting of Abscis architecten, the UAU collectif, LAND landschapsarchitecten, and Atelier Kempe Thill architects and planners, in cooperation with the local property developers Kolmont and Vestio, won a competition by invitation for the development of the Herkenrode barracks in Hasselt, the capital city of the province of Limburg in the east of Flanders. The design team proposed a substantial conversion and retroactive densification of the block in the city center that adheres to the historical model of the medieval city but also supplements it with new spatial, social, and ecological qualities. What was proposed was rededicating the former drill grounds for the infantry soldiers in the middle of the block as a calm, green oasis in the city center. To link the new park with the public urban space as optimally as possible, three new passageways were thus integrated into the existing block and oriented the block perimeter development more intensively toward the greened courtyard space. The existing refugium of the “Sisters of Herkenrode Abbey” from the Renaissance (1544) as well as several monumental barracks buildings from the late nineteenth century are therefore embedded quite carefully in the new park concept and have been converted in part into residential buildings. One section of the northern block perimeter development from the twentieth century was demolished due to building damage and replaced with contemporary residential buildings, under which there is a two-story underground garage for the necessary parking spaces. With its cubic volume and its light brick façades, the new architecture is oriented toward the surrounding development and opens up to the green interior of the block with its spacious balconies and inserted entrance halls. These buildings were designed by Abscis and the UAU collectif.

Waterzicht Apartments / Atelier Kempe Thill + BUUR + urban platform + evr-Architecten

Paula Pintos — Mon, 09 Oct 2023 03:00:00 +0000

The project “Waterzicht” is part of this new master plan called “De 4 Fonteinen.” It is right on the canal with a view of the 50-hectare De Drie Fonteinen Park on the other side, which dates back to the late eighteenth century and is one of Belgium’s oldest landscaped parks. It was designed as an English landscape garden and creates a romantic atmosphere with its old trees. The project borders a very fragmented and rugged hinterland on the eastern side. Here some powerful, transformed industrial buildings are situated, on the one hand, and a large working-class area with small terraced houses, on the other. In addition, the small river Senne flows here, which is completely channeled within dam walls. Its banks were replanted as part of the redevelopment above the walls. In the south, the picture is completed by the ring road of Brussels, visible from afar, which crosses the canal at a distance of about 300 meters with the impressive 1,700-meter-long and 35-meter-high Vilvoorde viaduct.

Ten Kerselaere Residential Care Center / Atelier Kempe Thill

Paula Pintos — Sat, 19 Aug 2023 09:00:00 +0000

Amidst the fields. In 2013 Atelier Kempe Thill won together with Daniel van Doorslaer an invited competition for the construction of a new retirement home in the small rural town of Heist-op-den-Berg in Flanders, Belgium. The task requested the substantial extension (c. 120 new residential units) of an existing senior housing center from the 1970s. The proposed concept was a master plan with four elongated urban villas in an open and car-free park. This idea plays on the one hand with the small-scale and rural context of the surrounding area, while emphasizing the horizontal character of the Flemish landscape with its two to three-story buildings. On the other hand, the master plan allows a step-by-step implementation with a reasonable degree of architectural freedom for each building. Each urban villa intends its design to serve the specific needs of its target group and implements the possibilities of the available budget and the design funding guidelines. The resulting master plan reflects and reveals with its differentiated "care landscape for the elderly" the social complexity of senior care in the twenty-first century.

Wintercircus Renovation / Atelier Kempe Thill + Baro Architectuur bv + SUMproject

Pilar Caballero — Sun, 03 Jul 2022 14:00:00 +0000

The official inauguration of the ERDF spaces marks the first step in the reopening of the old Wintercircus, later the Mahy garage and home to a unique collection of vintage motors. Built behind the street façades, this place has always been one of the best-kept secrets in Ghent. Until now, that is. Access, via 3 entrances, is soon to be given to the breathtaking space of the central square.

Sint Lucas School of Arts / Atelier Kempe Thill

Paula Pintos — Wed, 03 Mar 2021 02:00:00 +0000

In the case of the St. Lucas school of arts in Antwerp, Atelier Kempe Thill was confronted with a very low building budget as a starting point. In addition, the client asked for a complex space program that had to be partly integrated into an existing building. In order to manage the reduction of the demands, optimisation on various levels and general minimalism have been major design criteria. The new house has been developed in collaboration with the various users of the institute to create contemporary conditions for education in arts. The aim was to use the new building as a means to re-organise the education process as well as the institute itself, to prepare it for the challenges of the 21st century.

Spijkerkwartie Terraced Houses / Atelier Kempe Thill

Paula Pintos — Mon, 22 Feb 2021 03:00:00 +0000

Towards high-density low-rise. This project is in its core a typological experiment: a maximum of individual homes with private gardens on a relatively small urban plot; a model for the development of more compact settlements with a density of approx. 40 houses per hectare. It aims to offer an alternative to living on the periphery of big cities for people who would like to live in a private house in a more urban context. The project tries to find answers to the typological challenges inherent to high-density low-rise developments: How much individuality is possible? How much privacy is necessary? How much collective form is required? How much community and social interaction is desirable?

The City Palace Apartments & Office Complex / Atelier Kempe Thill

Paula Pintos — Wed, 02 Dec 2020 03:00:00 +0000

Antwerp New South has a high residential density and the ambition to become a new urban area. With which character ultimately? Will it be experienced as truly urban or rather as a highly dense suburban area? With the City Palace, Atelier Kempe Thill has not only the opportunity to contribute to this orientation but also to design one of the most important buildings on the central square of the whole area: the Panamarenko square. Atelier Kempe Thill sees the development of the new area primarily as a challenge to contemporary urban architecture, in the sense of a multifunctional, urban, all-around architecture that contributes as much as possible to the public space. The project is therefore designed with an active ground floor and a surrounding two-storey arcade of slender columns. These unite the ground floor and the first floor, which, combined with generous windows, form a kind of urban base. Together with the terraces of the upper floors, this theme is consistently developed around the entire building, which thus functions without any rear side.

Henry Koerner Hall Student Residence / Atelier Kempe Thill

Paula Pintos — Mon, 09 Nov 2020 06:00:00 +0000

Pankow-Niederschönhausen is a neighbourhood in Berlin characterised by an open urban structure, large and green private gardens, and streets planted with big powerful trees. The originally intended closed and dense urban blocks haven‘t been achieved in the entire area over time, but are still to be found on its edges. Instead, the neighbourhood is dominated by an informal development of urban villas, semi-detached, and single-family houses which could be described as “urban suburb”. Embassies of many countries were erected there during the GDR era, which resulted in a delicate balance between residential and public functions. The former embassies, designed in a late modern style, stand all on spacious plots of land with park-like gardens. The embassy buildings in Pankow were no longer needed after the German reunification and as a result, remained empty.

Winter Garden Housing / Atelier Kempe Thill

Pilar Caballero — Mon, 06 May 2019 03:00:00 +0000

Atelier Kempe Thill searched for an architectural expression that could create a dialogue between this more traditional view on things and a possible more modernist orientation towards the future at the same time. The slightly higher budget compared to more common circumstances allowed in the end a very solid materialization hard to find within the contemporary condition of European housing.

Junky Hotel Amsterdam / Atelier Kempe Thill

Daniel Sánchez — Sat, 24 Jan 2015 00:00:00 +0000

The Amsterdam-Bijlmermeer housing development, which was erected in the nineteen-seventies based on CIAM principles under the direction of Siegfried Nassuth, has been being overhauled since the mid-nineteen-nineties due to a wide range of social and structural problems. In this case, urban renewal means, above all, radically demolishing large-scale, honeycombed housing blocks and replacing them with differentiated, small-scale block development and terraced housing. At the same time, the existing shopping center is being upgraded through the addition of a wide range of new, public facilities and thus assumes supraregional importance. In the northern part of the downtown area, a new market square is being constructed, surrounded by the district town hall, a swimming pool, the Bijlmer Park Theater, and the already existing police station. In addition, the established public park is being regenerated and made better connected with the district center via the square.

Parliament for the German-Speaking Community / Atelier Kempe Thill

Daniel Sánchez — Wed, 21 Jan 2015 01:00:00 +0000

A Parliament for the German-Speaking Community

Town Hall Borsele / Atelier Kempe Thill

Daniel Sánchez — Sun, 18 Jan 2015 00:00:00 +0000

The municipality of Borsele in the Dutch province of Zeeland was founded in 1970 by the merging of 13 villages. Heinkenszand was assigned centre of this newly formed administrative unit and a new town hall was built for the 25.000 inhabitants. More then 30 years after the opening, the building was in need of rehabilitation. On the one hand, the façade as well as the roof weren’t fully waterproof anymore. Furthermore, the building had to undergo an asbestos abatement to adapt to modern building standards. On the other hand the interior of the building had to be renovated in order to create a flexible and modern office environment. The building climate had to be improved in order to reduce energy loss.

“Zilverzijde” Social Housing / Atelier Kempe Thill

Cristian Aguilar — Wed, 09 Jul 2014 00:00:00 +0000

Radical Tabula Rasa

Urban Podium In Rotterdam / Atelier Kempe Thill

Kritiana Ross — Mon, 30 Apr 2012 00:00:00 +0000

23 Town Houses in Amsterdam / Atelier Kempe Thill

Kritiana Ross — Fri, 27 Apr 2012 00:00:00 +0000

Atriumtower Hiphouse Zwolle / Atelier Kempe Thill

Kritiana Ross — Tue, 24 Apr 2012 00:00:00 +0000

Youth Center in Amsterdam / Atelier Kempe Thill

Kritiana Ross — Sun, 22 Apr 2012 00:00:00 +0000

In the garden city