Waar wil ik als architect voor staan, wat wil ik overbrengen? Wat is belangrijk in mijn ontwerpen en wat zijn inspirerende voorbeelden? Kortom; wat fascineert mij?
Wat mij kenmerkt, zijn mijn conceptuele ontwerpen. Ik ga uit van het idee, van de gedachte achter het werk. Mijn ontwerp-processen beginnen met onderzoek naar de vraagstelling. Eerst wil ik de vraagstelling theoretisch oplossen en vanuit die theorie begin ik te ontwerpen. Vaak wordt de oplossing ook pas gevonden tijdens het ontwerpen. Vanuit deze conceptuele houding zoek ik vaak naar de extremen, het uiterste. Dit om mijn idee zo goed mogelijk over te brengen aan de toeschouwer.
Het afgelopen jaar op de academie heb ik mijn fascinatie moeten verzamelen. Ik kwam er achter dat deze ontzettend breed is. Vandaar ook dat er hier maar een selectie staat van de beste voorbeelden.
CANCER CENTRE AMSTERDAM - MVRDV
The Cancer Centre Amsterdam, part of the Antony van Leeuwenhoek Hospital in Amsterdam, needs to be rebuilt and enlarged on its existing site. A temporary institute is to be erected during the construction activities. This is conceived as a series of containers on a small site next to the A19 motorway, within the Zuid-as Development Zone in Amsterdam. The tight location demands a vertical institute. The location next to one of the busiest highways of the Netherlands provides the opportunity to attract more attention for the institute. Each container has been painted in a way that together they advertise the existence of the institute.-
PIG CITY - MVRDV
- About
In 2000, pork was the most consumed form of meat at 80 billion kg per year. Recent animal diseases such as Swine Fever and Foot and Mouth disease are raising serious questions about pork production and consumption. It is evident that the current pork industry cannot proceed in the same way without causing many casualties.
Two opposing reactions can be imagined. Either we change our consumption pattern and become instant vegetarians or we change the production methods and demand biological farming.
Let us assume that we remain pork-eaters. Do we then have enough space for biological pig farming?
With a production of 16,5 million tons of pork, The Netherlands is the chief exporter of pork within the European Union. In 1999, 15.2 million pigs and 15.5 million humans officially inhabited The Netherlands. One pig needs an area of 664 m2, including current food processing: composed of 50% intensive grain production and 50% industrial by-products.
In the case of organic farming, pigs would be fed with 100% grain, leading to a required 130% more field surface due to the reduced grain production. This would cause a demand of 1726 m2 per pig, including the organic food processing. This would mean that there would be only 774 m2 per person left for other activities. In other words, 75 % of the Netherlands would be dedicated to pigs.
Can we combine organic farming with a further concentration of the production-activities so that there will be enough space for other activities? Is it possible to compact all the pig production within concentrated farms, therefore avoiding unnecessary transportation and distribution, and thereby reducing the spread of diseases? Can we through concentrated farming, create the economical critical mass to allow for a communal slaughterhouse, a self-sufficient fertiliser recycler and a central food core, so as to solve the various problems found in the pig-industry? -
BRICK HOUSE - Caruso st John
- About
This family house stands amongst dense residential streets in a busy part of West London. The constricted plot is shaped like a horse’s head, surrounded and overlooked by three taller buildings, and can only be reached by a carriage way through the facade of an adjacent Victorian terrace. The paradox of making a new building on a site of almost insuperable difficulty can only be explained by the will of the clients, and their determination to make a new home in this particular part of the city where conventional sites were used up many years ago.
In this design, the accidental but wildly spatial shape of the site has been used to form the living spaces. The interior plan is completely separate from the typologies ofthe London town-house or the inner city loft, while still retaining a strong sense of dwelling at the heart of the city. Walking around the house takes you across broad spaces, to corners with windows over-looking small gardens, to intimate rooms deep inside. The exterior form of the house that is generated by this varied arrangement is incomprehensible from within. Instead, the form appears unbound and soft, as if an internal force is pressing the walls and roof out against the buildings around it. Like a baroque chapel in Rome buried deep within the city’s close pattern of narrow streets, the expansive interior is a place of escape and dreams. -
PERSISTENCE OF TIME - Dali
Wie herkent dit beeld niet? Het kwijtraken van de tijd, het verlopen en het loskomen. Salvador Dali heeft dit heel sterk neer weten te zetten. Iedereen snapt gelijk zijn bedoeling.
