Arch Tracker

Project: Brussels Airport Connector
Architect: UNStudio
Ben van Berkel, Gerard Loozekoot with Wesley Lanckriet and Joerg Petri, Maud van Hees, Milena Stopic, Perrine Planché, Deepak Jawahar, Hans Kooij, Benjamin Moore.
Location: Brussels, Belgium
Client: The Brussels Airport Company NV
Building surface: 23,182m2
Programme: Connector building between the Terminal and Pier A
Status: Competition entry
Local architect: M. & J-M. Jaspers-J. Eyers & Partners
Structural advisors: Ney+Partners and Technum-Tractebel Engineering
Visuals: MIR and Moka-Studio

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The New Amsterdam Plein & Pavilion at Peter Minuit Plaza has now officially opened to the public in New York City’s Battery Park. The pavilion was designed by Amsterdam-based Ben Van Berkel/UNStudio in collaboration with Handel Architects LLP, New York serving as associate architect. The project’s landscape was conceived by Parks Dept. Landscape Designer Gail Wittwer-Laird. [more images and project description after the break]
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UNStudio unveiled their entry for the Waalse Krook, Urban Library of the Future and Centre for New Media in the Belgian city of Gent. The proposal by Ben Van Berkel & Caroline Bos-led didn´t win the competition, but we are very happy to share it with our readers. Architects description and more photos after the break.

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UNStudio, in collaboration with DP Architects, has been selected from a shortlist of five practices to design Plot A of the SUTD (Singapore University of Technology and Design) campus.

Located on a site of 76,846 m2 and close to both Changi airport – Singapore’s principal airport – and the Changi Business Park, the SUTD will be Singapore’s fourth and most prestigious university. The Singapore University of Technology and Design will offer four key academic pillars: Architecture and Sustainable Design (ASD), Engineering Product Development (EPD), Engineering Systems and Design (ESD) and Information Systems Technology and Design (ISTD). The SUTD will be a driver of technological innovation and economic growth, with the new campus acting as both a catalyst and a conveyor for advancement, bringing together people, ideas and innovation. More info and images after the break. Leer el resto de esta entrada »

IaaC is pleased to invite you to the open lecture of Ben van Berkel, UNStudio

Tuesday 10th of November
19:30 > IaaC Auditorium
C/Pujades 102. Poble Nou

Ben van Berkel studied architecture at the Rietveld Academy in Amsterdam and at the Architectural Association in London, receiving the AA Diploma with Honours in 1987.

In 1988 he and Caroline Bos set up an architectural practice in Amsterdam. The Van Berkel & Bos Architectuurbureau has realized amongst others projects the Karbouw office building, the Erasmus bridge in Rotterdam, museum Het Valkhof in Nijmegen, the Moebius house and the NMR facilities for the University of Utrecht.

In 1998 Ben van Berkel and Caroline Bos established a new firm: UNStudio (United Net). UNStudio presents itself as a network of specialists in architecture, urban development and infrastructure. Current projects are the restructuring of the station area of Arnhem, the mixed-use Raffles City in Hangzhou, a masterplan for Basauri, a dance theatre for St. Petersburg and the design and restructuring of the Harbor Ponte Parodi in Genoa. With UNStudio he realized amongst others the Mercedes-Benz Museum in Stuttgart, a façade and interior renovation for the Galleria Department store in Seoul and a private villa up-state New York.

Lecture:
Attainability

UNStudio has won the limited competition for a 40,000 spectator football stadium for the most successful club in the Chinese Super League: Dalian Shide FC. The stadium will be built in the club’s hometown of the city of Dalian, on the southern tip of Liaodong peninsula in Northeast China.

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Project: Dance Palace
UNStudio: Ben van Berkel with Christian Veddeler, Wouter de Jonge and Jan Schellhoff and Kyle Miller, Maud van Hees, Hans-Peter Nuenning, Arnd Willert, Nanang Santoso, Imola Berczi, Tade Godbersen, Patrik Noome
Theatre consultant: theateradvies bv, Amsterdam Engineering: ARUP
Client:  “Petersburg City”
Location: St. Petersburg, Russia
Building surface: 21,000 m2
Building height: 28 m
Status: 1st prize competition entry Leer el resto de esta entrada »

Project: Raffles City Hangzhou
UNStudio – Concept Design and Schematic Design: Ben van Berkel, Caroline Bos, Astrid Piber with Hannes Pfau, Markus van Aalderen
Team: Juliane Maier, Marc Salemink, Shu Yan Chan and Andreas Bogenschuetz, Marina Bozukova, Brendon Carlin, Miklos Deri, Gary Freedman, Juergen Heinzel, Alexander Hugo, Abhijit Kapade, Marcin Koltunski, Fernie Lai, James Leng, Peter Moerland, Rudi Nieveen, Hans-Peter Nuenning, Hyunil Oh, Yi Cheng Pan, Steffen Riegas, Rikjan Scholten, Ioana Sulea, Christian Veddeler, Luming Wang, Zhenfei Wang, Rein Werkhoven, Georg Willheim
Advisors – LDI: China United Engineering Corporation, Hangzhou SMEP, Fire, LEED: Arup
Facade: Meinhardt Façade Technology, Hong Kong Transport: MVA, Hong Kong
Client: CapitaLand
Location: Hangzhou, China
Building surface: 389,489 m2
Building site: 40,355m2
Programme: Mixed-use, incorporating commercial buildings: Class A office buildings, five-star hotels and high end residential buildings.
Status: Planned realisation 2012

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UNStudio has been selected as the winning team in a competition for the design for the new Grand Hyatt Tower, a 110 meter tall tower in Frankfurt, Germany.

From UNStudio
From the six projects presented, the jury, chaired by Prof. Johann Eisele, chose the designs by UNStudio – Ben van Berkel (Amsterdam), and Kohn, Pedersen, Fox (New York) and recommended proceeding with the UNStudio design for further development.

According to Ben van Berkel the design for the Grand Hyatt tower celebrates and highlights the cosmopolitan character and diversity of Frankfurt. ‘It has three different elevations that are linked to the different aspects of the city. The tower takes up the variation and diversity offered by the city of Frankfurt and reflects that multiplicity of experiences back to the city itself. The tower can be perceived differently from each perspective; it appears needle-thin from one spot, strong and straight from another, and complex with a slight twist from yet another.”

The new tower will house a 5-star-plus hotel with 405 rooms and suites, a ballroom, spa, various restaurants, a lobby bar and a public Sky Lounge on the top floor, and the possibility of an adjacent congress center. The hotel tower consists of 30 floors at a height of approximately 110 metres and an area of 54,562.70 m2 for hotel tower + plinth.

 

 

 

 

 

 

UNStudio has released a new video featuring the recently realized Music Theatre in Graz.

The building is structured to combine a unit-based volume (the black box of the theatre) and a series of movement-based volumes (foyer and public circulation). Because this organising principle is made constructive, a fluent internal spatial arrangement is actualised, efficiently connecting spaces to each other. The multipurpose auditorium can seat up to 450, and that is adaptable to a great variety of performances. The free-flowing space of the foyer is made possible by a spiraling constructive element that connects the entrance to the auditorium and to the music rooms above, thus welding together ‘with a twist’ the three levels of this side of the building. This twist forms a 3D interpretation of the repetitive pattern, executed in the muted tones of stage make-up, which  is applied to the facades and then enveloped by a glittering mesh.

Architectural exhibits in Millennium Park designed by London-based Zaha Hadid and Amsterdam-based Ben van Berkel of UNStudio emphasize the importance of boldly imagining a better future for all. Both are intended to echo the audacity of the 1909 Burnham Plan, which proclaimed, “What we as a people decide to do in the public interest we can and surely will bring to pass.”

The Burnham Pavilions will be open and free to the public in Millennium Park from June 19 through October 31, 2009.

BURNHAM PAVILIONS

The iconic centerpieces of the Burnham Plan Centennial will be two temporary architectural pavilions in Millennium Park. World renowned architects Zaha Hadid (London) and Ben van Berkel of UNStudio (UNStudio, Amsterdam) designed these bold Pavilions to echo the audacious future-looking images and words of the Burnham Plan: “What we as a people decide to do in the public interest we can and surely will bring to pass.”

The Pavilions will open to the public on June 19, 2009, when the Grant Park Symphony and Chorus will simultaneously premier a new work composed by Michael Torke called Plans that commemorates the words most often attributed to Daniel Burnham: “Make No Little Plans.” The pavilions will close on October 31, 2009, when they will be dismantled for re-use or recycling.

Partners for the Burnham Plan Pavilions include:

    * The Art Institute of Chicago
    * The Burnham Plan Centennial Committee
    * City of Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs
    * Illinois Institute of Technology
    * Millennium Park, Inc.
    * University of Illinois Chicago School of Architecture

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