In architecture, a portfolio is not just business. It is you. It is whatever you have drawn in the past, showing the creations that show you. During the process of building up your portfolio , makes you look back at everything you created in the past. Many things forgotten already, making you realize that you achieved far more than imagined. This portfolio shows my designs in reverse; first you will see the end result of my graduation, ending with a grasp of my Bachelor phase. It also shows the differences in projects I have passed: from the dwelling in BSc6, the utility buildings during the internship and contract at MB architecten, along the Interior semester from MSc1, the Materialisation from MSc2 towards the Public Realm of my graduation. Not choosing to specialize, but choosing to broaden the view. Especially the graduation project Public Realm was a large challenge: taking the leap from straight forward designing - using proportions, materialization and programme as leading factors - to the psychological view on architecture of the studio of Public Realm. Until then I never read so many architectural books and articles to understand human behaviour, in particular the behaviour of the man in the street and what makes him behave as he does. Choosing the Public Realm studio has not been the easy choize for graduation, not even the most sensible, but indeed the most rewarding afterwards for showing myself that I can take every challenge.
Bob Blom
Studio Public Realm Rotterdam - Graduation Project TU Delft
Studio Interior Architecture - MSc1 TU Delft
MB Arc Architecten: from commission to preliminary design - BSc6 TU Delft
Studio Public Realm Rotterdam - Graduation Project TU Delft
RESEARCH
The city of Rotterdam is, due to the bombing of World War II, a mixture between pre-war and post-war buildings. This forming of a new centre in an existing city, during a modernist period, resulted in a broad set up dominated by traffic and transit, climaxing in the Coolsingel. Through analysis of the functions and traffic in the city center of Rotterdam, a clustering became visible of the entertainment sector in the area west of the Coolsingel. Besides the traffic and transit structure, there is a shopping street network, a pedestrian zone with its core at the Lijnbaanfrom Van den Broek and Bakema. STREETSCAPE The shopping street network is divided in a core with regional commercial functions (mostly chain stores), spurring out into secondary streets East-West direction. Analyzing the streetscape from within the street itself makes you look through the eye of the pedestrian itself, how the street is perceived by its target group. Through this analysis, a thorough identity of the streetscape of the design location can be realised. Also an improvement of the surrounding streets is suggested.
ARCHITECTURAL AND ATMOSPHERICAL IDENTITIES When designing a masterplan for the inside of a building block, you have to perceive a connection to all sides. Whether thatÂ’s an attracting or distracting connection, depends on the pursued effect. Where the Rotterdam architecture is known for its extremes, the architecture of this specific location demanded a design coherent with the surrounding large scale architecture. Therefor the cornerblocks of the Coolsingel and the ensemble of the Lijnbaan are integrated in the architectural form, and the atmospherical identities of the Stadhuisplein and the Meent are entering functionwise.
Studio Public Realm Rotterdam - Graduation Project TU Delft
Studio Public Realm Rotterdam - Graduation Project TU Delft
a Kevin Lynch strategy
Studio Public Realm Rotterdam - Graduation Project TU Delft
LAYERING OF CITY SPACES AND ITS SOLID FACTORS When looking at the Lijnbaan in its current conditions, the street is only activated during opening hours of the stores. Through adding a sports park on the roof, adding sports functions in the non-used top floor and adding dwelling, The Lijnbaan gets a more dynamic social coherence. Regarding the Aert van Nesstraat, the plinth was not activated and social coherence was lacking. These items are needed the most when you try to establish a connection between the characterful Meent area and the vibrant Schouwburgplein. By adding complementary functions like a small scale theater, a hotel, both for the entertainment sector, and by adding social coherent functions for activating the street and connecting to the Meent area, the street will get activated and the connection is established.
Studio Public Realm Rotterdam - Graduation Project TU Delft
Studio Public Realm Rotterdam - Graduation Project TU Delft
Studio Materialization and Design Development (MADD) - MSc2 TU Delft
STARTING POINT
When starting up a new project, I was taught to start with creating a concept. Whether you extracted it out of the form of the location or out of the pit of a fruit did not matter - as long as you created a concept to stick on to. Then MADD came along my path: Materialisation and Design Development, taught at the faculty of Architecture of the TU Delft, concerning an integral development of a design, with its base in materialisation and facade design. Integral development focuses on parallel progress during the design process of all aspects: location, floor plans, facades, materialization and installations. As the location is rather industrial, it made sense to create a building out of raw, tectile materials. The building would stand on a plot between dwelling and the industrial harbour. To connect the dwelling area to the water, The building block is split in parts. By doing this, the interior of the block comes out like cutting open a piece of fruit. Dealing with the building like this, you automatically sense that the building asks for a tough shell and a soft interior. By sliding the particles, the interior opens up to the parallel transit. In this natural way of coming to a concept, you answer many questions in the first phase regarding the programme, the location, the materialization, the climate and the facades.
The facades have prefac concrete panels showing the outlines of the Boijmans van Beuningen museum. The panels at ground floor level show in relief the name of Boijmans van Beuningen. From across the water you will read the text and see the image, but from up close you more experience the depth and tectility of the relief concrete elements.
Studio Materialization and Design Development (MADD) - MSc2 TU Delft
Studio Materialization and Design Development (MADD) - MSc2 TU Delft
Studio Interior Architecture - MSc1 TU Delft
In Rotterdam, the Witte de Withstraat is known as the core of the artistic scene. When visiting the WdW, you immediately experience an athmosphere totally different than in the rest of Rotterdam. Trying to grasp the architecture is easier: you will find the buildingblocks packed together, all having the same plinth and roof height. Due to this, the buildings are not characterized as buildings on its own, but just as parts of the block itself. To emphasize that the buildings are characters on their own, I turn the situation around: building one block, built up out of several ‘houses’. the building functions as one, but uses the roof rhythm to fit in to the scale of the existing building blocks in the WdW. Through the building, you feel the walls parallel to each other forming the cast of the athmosphere within. Most elements are monotone to keep the attention to the function of the building: the exposed art. Since there are many different kinds of art displayed in Witte de With and TENT, the need of differing spaces is demanding to have adaptable and extreme spaces. By using the ground floor as the functional area - book store, restaurant, lecture room, rest rooms - the exhibition spaces are free to cameleonize every time to adapt to the demands of the contemporary art exhibited.
Studio Interior Architecture - MSc1 TU Delft
Studio Interior Architecture - MSc1 TU Delft
When entering the port of IJmuiden from of the North Sea, the first thing you will see in the future is the business complex Port of IJmuiden. Following the sea dike, outside of the locks towards the harbour of Amsterdam. In bad weather, rough seawater will spatch over the dikes. In these salty conditions, especially the robustness of the material is important, protecting itself and its users. Of course, nautical elements are corresponding to both the location and the target group.
MB Architecten: from commission to preliminary design - BSc6 TU Delft
FACADES - DEFINITIVE DESIGN FLOOR PLANS AND FACADES - PRELIMINARY DESIGN
FACADES AND FLOORPLANS - PRELIMINARY DESIGN INTERIOR - PRELIMINARY DESIGN
MB Architecten: from commission to preliminary design - BSc6 TU Delft
On the edge of the centre of Leiden, a large terrain of a former factory became available for housing, with innovative projects with private developing of housing within a given volume. My proposal, for two young urban professionals both working at home, is characterized through its contradiction between private and public. The private spaces are behind stretch metal, while the public spaces are opening to the streets. Internally, spaces can open up to each other to create privacy or openness when needed.
A grasp of the projects of the Bachelor-phase at TU Delft Architecture
Redeveloping a harbour area from a sustainable perspective challenges you to look at the beauty of worn concrete buildings like the Visafslag. The shedded roof and large span offer possibilities like northern roof light and inner gardens. The location offers a raw vibe which challenges you to bring in a dwelling area without ruining this brutal beauty. Looking at the entire harbour, the location contains three peninsulas. By developing these peninsulas in enclaves on themselves, these peninsulas start competing with each other as being attracting and distracting poles. A dune-like area, where the dunes contain parking garages, a building block area with appartments and retail, and an area for craftmanship and family housing. Especially the new head of the Visafslag is important for reversing the direction of this iconic building. It used to look the other way, to nowhere actually. It grasps the line of the shedded roof and offers an overhang to introduce the public entrance of the Visafslag with its crafts and arts. Now it looks towards Scheveningen center, proudly raising its chin.
A grasp of the projects of the Bachelor-phase at TU Delft Architecture
A grasp of the projects of the Bachelor-phase at TU Delft Architecture