CHEPOS built environment magazine
HOSPITALS
MUSEUM VOORLINDEN | HIGHLIGHTS DDW 2016 | A PLEA FOR INTERNSHIPS
55
NOV. 2016
Holzer Kobler Architekturen. Rendering by LMcad Studio.
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possible and perhaps never. To a certain extent this obviously remains the case, but from a design and engineering point of view they can be incredibly interesting places. They are one of the many places where we can celebrate human ingenuity.
“I love hospitals, together with airports and research laboratories, they are the most sophisticated machines in which everything, the building, the systems, the machines, the people, all work together for a single, clear explicit purpose.�
Within cities they sort of take on the role as bastions of healthcare, where people in white coats between white walls come together to fight disease. The multi-layered beast that is the 185.000 m2 building complex of the Rotterdam Erasmus Medical Center, beautifully demonstrates this. As we are expected to grow older, the hospital building and its services will play an important role in fulfilling this prophecy and keeping the standard of healthcare high. Therefore, it is of the utmost importance for us as designers and engineers to shape these environments in ways that contribute to these wonderful beehives of efficient and effective healthcare provision.
This excerpt comes from Jacob Voorthuis his column on page 32 that he wrote for the File theme of this issue of Chepos. This sentence made me look at and think about hospitals in a different way during the process of making this issue. Beforehand I was intent on writing on how one wishes to visit hospitals as least as
Even though hospitals to a certain degree could be regarded to as bastions, they are not static givens within the cityscape, as they have been and are changing considerably. Quite some hospitals in the Netherlands have been remodelled, extended and in some cities even built completely anew. The world of health-
CHEPOS built environment magazine
care is a dynamic and fast-changing one, so how do its buildings try to keep up? That is what we have dived into for this issue. First by unravelling where the hospital typology came from and how the conglomerates of merged types could be dissected. Besides that we have taken a look at a number of hospitals in the Netherlands in conjunction with a number of parties involved in the developments of said hospitals, to see what is changing and how the built form of the hospital is being redeveloped. Just as hospitals are not unchanging bastions, the Chepos magazine itself also was clutched by the imminent grip of change. First of all we have a new chairman. Furthermore, we have a number of new and eager editors, some coming from as far as Zimbabwe. The appearance of the Chepos also underwent a change as we have refreshed the layout. Finally, after having had the pleasure of calling myself editor in chief for over a year, I will pass on the baton to Ilke Broers who as Chepos-grandma (her words not mine) will ensure that your thirst for Chepos does not go unquenched. Cheers! Justin Agyin Editor-in-Chief
EDITORIAL 3
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FILE: HOSPITALS
NL NEWS 4 CHEPOST 6 REPORTING FROM THE FRONT 7 la Biennale di Venezia 2016 EDITOURS 8 NOTHING BUT THE SUNNY SKY 10 a visit to Museum Voorlinden RAIL AWAY 12 HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO ALMERE 16 COLUMN ADRIAAN JURRIËNS 17 the least romantic thing about being a self-employed architect DDW 2016 18
FROM PAVILIONS TO PEELS typology of the Dutch hospital LESS BRICKS, MORE BYTES a renewed vision for the 21st century NEW CHAPTER FOR AN OLD BUILDING Academisch Medisch Centrum Amsterdam HOSPITALS EVOLVE AT A KILLING PACE a conversation with Arnold Sikkel A BUILDING THAT FITS A HOSPITAL COLUMN JACOB VOORTHUIS getting to the right place
4 INDEX
22 24 26 28 31 32
10 7 12 THAT’S WHY TOURISTIC HOTSPOTS AND THEIR ENVIRONMENT REPLACE OR RENOVATE THE PÉGÉ-HOUSES? municipalities in doubt FARNSWORTH HOUSE JACKED UP! YOU STILL HAVE MUCH TO LEARN. a plea for internships STYLOS DELFT
18
36
TOOLS 34 35
3X1 LIGHT FESTIVALS LET’S PLAY! AGENDA
41 43 44
36 38 40
INDEX 5
The Seven Netherlands
Text: Miguel Gallego & Tafara Simon
The Seven New Netherlands is a concept Karres + Brands has come up with as a contribution to the Landscape Challenge 2070. The landscape in the Netherlands is constantly evolving, which resulted in a rigorous fight with nature in order to reclaim land and even to survive. The idea behind this concept is to work with nature rather than working against it. This led Karres + Brands to propose a new administrative system that consists of seven new regions. Each region will have its own character such as agriculture and power production, governed by its natural conditions. An initiative to move with nature. Client: The Council for the Environment and Infrastructure (RLI)
Sliding cottage in Eindhoven Caspar Schols, a Dutch man with no architectural training, has built a transforming garden shed for his mother. She was looking for a quiet place in Eindhoven to paint, meditate and spend time with her grandchildren, so Caspar designed an unusual and versatile cottage made mostly out of wood, where the inner beam-and-glass structure is separated from the outer wooden walls and metal roof. Caspar mounted these two structures on runners so both the inner structure and the outer structure can be pulled outwards. This creates different layouts, both outdoors and indoors, where his mother can organize dinners, theater plays and so on. This cabin is located on the edge of a pond in Schols’s parents garden. The intention of Caspar was to create “a design with a lot of flexibility”. According to him, “You should be able to change the layers of the house almost as easily as changing clothes when desired.” One of the reasons for this flexibility was to create a space that could cope with the ever-changing weather of the Netherlands. Thanks to this design, under inclement weather, the walls can be closed completely, creating a warm and cozy environment. But when the weather gets warmer and sunnier, the walls can be pulled out, exposing the inner beam-and-glass structure, improving ventilation and allowing more light to come in.
Sustainable art storage for Rijksmuseum LIAG Architecten has just unveiled their new vision for a sustainable art storage facility, commissioned by Rijksmuseum Amsterdam and located in Amersfoort, next to the train station. The firm focused not only on creating a space that would enforce the safety of the artworks but also on developing a bright and welcoming building. In order to achieve this, LIAG Architecten has envisioned a simple yet sophisticated construction. The most important part of the building is a rather unexpected entrance, which is a golden, metal-coated arch that links the building with the train station. The inner program is based on minimizing the time and distance that the artworks have to go through during transportation. For that, on each floor a single corridor connects all the storage spaces, drastically decreasing the risks of accidents. As for the façade, The renders of LIAG display a solar panel system based on hundreds of reflective cassettes. The appearance of the building will be transforming constantly due to the fluctuating reflection of the sunlight. Because of the ever-changing angle and volume of it and the different positions of the cassetes, the building acquired an interesting dynamic feeling.
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Living Daylight Award The Supreme Court has been awarded the daylight award for 2016. Designed by Kaan Architecten, this project was recently completed, measuring 18.000 m2 and housing a staff of 350 people. The building is located in the city center of The Hague. The spaces within the building make way for light to flow through uninterruptedly, creating open perspectives and sightlines that give opportunity to impromptu meetings and a great deal of social interactions. Light falls into the building through various skylights and by making use of high ceilings that span the entire length of the building, a serene ambiance is created within the spaces. The Jury consisted of Alexander Rosemann (TU Eindhoven), Jeroen van Schooten (Team V Architectuur), Paul van Bergen (DGMR), Peter Lindeman (Rodeca Systems), Kees van der Hoeven (ArchitectenWerk) and Sander Mirck (MirckArchitecture).In their judgement, the jury members focused on the user experience, function and building physics.
The Gigantic Helical Ramps of the RAI Imagine. You are driving down the A10 in Amsterdam at night and are met with a pair of gorgeous helical silhouettes on your horizon, only showing their cleverly lighted edges, elegantly making their way from the night’s sky down to the ground. This is the scene that has been set by the Dutch studio Benthem Crouwel Architects. It is a project that has recently been completed in order to offer access to a multifunctional car park. This will be the main parking area for the RAI Convention Center. The two helical towers rise up to a height of 30 meters, each constructed from pre-fabricated concrete sections. The ramps offer a clever way of creating smooth traffic flow, having one helix tower as an entrance and the other an exit. These have been constructed at the intersection between Amsterdam’s business district and one of the city’s busiest highways.
Oosterdokseiland gets a new social hub UNStudio has designed a new multifunctional social hub for Oosterdokseiland in Amsterdam. The development of this area started over fifteen years ago, spanning 225.000m2 and this project has survived the challenging economic conditions of the past years, despite the slowdown in progress. The planning for the last two lots has finally begun and, according to the UN Studio the developer, BPD, agreed on completing the realization of the area. It includes 72.500 m2 of total space for public facilities, apartments and additional office space for Booking.com. The building has to become a recognizable emblem for Oosterdok and should blend in perfectly within its urban context, interacting with the existing streets.
Erasmusbrug turns 20 This year the Swan of Rotterdam still stands tall. Head high, it has been elegantly painting the sky with its white coat for an astounding 20 years. From the construction of the bridge until present day, it has always been loved. “The Swan” was opened by Queen Beatrix on September 4th in 1996. It played an important role in the development of the Kop van Zuid (South Bank). The Erasmusbrug has attracted quite a bit of attention in its years, appearing in films and inspiring photographers and poets. The Swan lives on and will forever be admired. It is merely timeless. A beauty.
Images: 1. The Seven Netherlands (source: Karresenbrands.nl) 2. Sliding 2 cottage in Eindhoven 6 (source: Dezeen.com) 3. 3 7 Sustainable art storage for Rijksmuseum (source: Liag. nl) 4. Supreme Court (source: Kaanarchitecten. com) 5. Helix ramps in Amsterdam (source: Dezeen.com) 6. Oosterdokseiland social hub design (source: Skyrisecities.com) 7. Erasmusbrug (source: Renswesterhof.nl) 1
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Sources: 1. Karresenbrands.nl 2. Dezeen.com 3. Designboom.com 4. Kaanarchitecten.com 5. Unstudio.com 6. Blogs.angloinfo.com
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ChePOST WOUTER LOOMANS 2ND YEAR MASTER STUDENT REAL ESTATE 23 YEARS OLD
How to stand out? Have you ever volunteered? Is your average grade higher than an 8.0? Have you been a member of a board or had a job at the university? Have you traveled abroad, undertaken an internship, started your own company or perhaps played a sport on a national or higher level? In other words: have you done enough to distinguish yourself from your fellow students? These questions were asked to me to in a competition to determine whether I was one of the most talented students of the Netherlands. Although I consider myself quite an active student, I was not selected for the second round, because I could not answer five of these questions with a yes. This got me thinking: Should I belatedly make the choice to study abroad or start my own company to not be outshined by my fellow students once I have graduated? I talked to different employers and their answers were reassuring. I bet almost all students struggle with the question what they should do to stand out, and that is why I have decided to share my insights with you. First of all, it is important to realize that there are two steps to get a job. First, you have to be invited for the interview and second, you have to get the job. Whether you get invited or not is most of the time based on a combination of your resume, your motivation letter and your network. For your resume to stand out, it
can be quite beneficial to have done as many intra- and extracurricular activities as possible. This is well-known and most students strive for this. However, it is only one third. You have to realize that the second part, your motivation letter, is at least of the same importance as your resume. I know a lot of students, including myself, who have worked hard for several years to create the best resume as possible, but then write their motivation letter in less than an hour. Make sure that your motivation letter is perfect too. The third way is your network. You have a great advantage if you get recommended to your interviewer. So, use every possibility that comes along: through your teacher, a fellow student or through an activity. Most of the time, this is worth more than a good resume. Then, after you have been invited, it is time for the job interview. You were selected because you stood out based on your resume, motivation letter and your network, but, so did the other applicants. Therefore, it is now time to distinguish yourself in another way. The different employers that I spoke to admitted that their choice is mainly based on the personality the applicant shows during the interview. The three aspects they find most important are whether you have a clear personality, whether you seem to be suitable for the job and whether you fit in the company as a whole.
Of course, by having done many of the aforementioned activities, you can develop a strong, noticeable personality. However, this can also be done in other ways and of course, different jobs require different personalities. Once, an employer told me about an applicant who had an enormous resume, was confident and a real ‘people person’, so basically a perfect candidate. However, the job involved crushing numbers all day behind two big screens. So in the end he hired another student, who was shy, had almost no experience and did not dare to look the employer in the eyes during the whole interview, because he thought he would be better suited for the job. This shows that in the end it is important to be yourself during the interview; if you put up a show, the employer will most likely see through it and you will not be chosen. And if you do put up such a great performance that lands you the job, then you have a big chance that in the long term it will not suit you. So, whether you apply for the most exclusive traineeship or just for a small unnoticeable job, make sure you get noticed. Even if you do not have that many activities on your resume, make sure you have a killer motivation letter, try to make maximum use of your network and once you get invited, blow them away with your own, unfeigned personality.
Have something you need to share? Send an email to chepos@cheops.cc and your article might get published!
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Reporting from the Front La Biennale di Venezia 2016
The 15th international architecture exhibition, La Biennale di Venezia, was titled Reporting from the Front and ran from the 28th of May until the 27th of November. This year’s curator for the Biennale was 2016 Pritzker Prize laureate Alejandro Aravena, who as curator tried to uncover where the present day challenges lie for architecture. What can be taken from this edition of the Venice Biennale? Text: Justin Agyin
In order to gather exhibition content from participants of the Biennale, Aravena had summarized his exhibition call in a number of battle words that were related to the ‘Reporting from the Front’ theme. Sustainability, inequalities, quality of life, migration, housing, informality, waste and traffic were some of these words. Through these battle words, people from different disciplines and countries could come together and respond to the exhibition call from their respective background. To quote Aravena himself on his objective: “Reporting from the Front will be about presenting examples where different dimensions are synthesized, integrating the pragmatic with the existential, pertinence and boldness, creativity and common sense.”
the issue of global inequality. Such exhibitions were juxtaposed to purely spatial and architectural contributions. In the different national pavilions at the Giardini, different responses to the theme ‘Reporting from the Front’ were to be observed as well. In for instance the German pavilion, the ‘Making Heimat’ exhibition addressed the issue of mass migration. The pavilion was not only filled in with an exhibition to convey a message, but the pavilion itself played an important role in doing so. The monument from 1938 was heavily altered, as four large holes were cut into its pristine white walls. In that way the pavilion would literally all the time be open to anyone and thusly symbolize the gesture of everyone is welcome, referring to Germany’s border policy.
With the aforementioned outset, this edition of the Biennale was more about the social aspects of architecture and bridging the gap between architecture and civil society. It is not that past editions of the Biennale had never dealt with this social aspect in architecture; for instance at the edition in 2000 curated by Massimiliano Fuksas, it already became more about both ethics and esthetics. With the 2016 edition however, the goal was to more explicitly examine phenomena that demonstrate new directions in architecture and to seek for positive messages in answers to contemporary challenges. In response to the theme of this edition of the Biennale, architect David Chipperfield who was curator of the 2012 edition, stated that architects are not societal doctors who can cure society through architecture, but that in small gestures or with different ways of thinking something can be done to move into the right direction.
Besides more politically burdened exhibitions, Korea responded in a different way to the theme with the FAR (Floor Area Ratio) game. This ‘game’ gave insight in the tension between making a profit from a maximum floor area on an as small as possible plot, and the quality of life in cities. The game showed the consequences of certain design decisions for both the quality of life and financial benefit, and so illustrated the complex challenges planners and architects face in dense urban areas to still try and provide comfortable dwellings.
This moving into the right direction can for instance be seen in the re-use of exhibition material from the 2014 edition, curated by Rem Koolhaas, by the reuse of drywall and metal studs to shape the 2016 exhibition. Another such example was the Al Borde exhibition in the Arsenale, which featured bags of money to painfully show the difference in land prices and building costs in Ecuador, compared to those in Venice and accordingly addressed
In addition, the exhibitions in for instance the Swiss, Belgian and Nordic pavilions responded in a more traditional esthetic fashion to the theme. The Belgian pavilion for instance, displayed the influence of time on buildings and on how the architecture of a building develops over time. Chronologically they face new fronts in dealing with new functions that transform their in- and exterior. A number of examples portrayed clashes between the old building and new architectural interventions. What in the end can be taken from this edition of the Biennale is that even though the exhibitions responded differently to the theme ‘Reporting from the Front’, there was an underlying message of good intentions attempting to provide answers to present day societal challenges as far as architecture can do so.
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Images: 1. German Pavilion: ‘Making Heimat’ (source: Metalocus) 2. Korean Pavilion: The FAR game (photo: Justin Agyin)
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Sources: 1. Schrijver, L. & Van den Bergen, M. & Van Westrenen, F. “Architectuurbiënnale Venetië: heel veel goede intenties”. July 07, 2016. Archined.nl 2. Google Arts and Culture platform, Biennale Architettura 2016.
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Miguel: “this is a fun building” When I came to the Netherlands this August, I had to do the obligatory visit to Amsterdam. I had already been in Amsterdam a couple of times, so I decided to do something different and visit the north part of the city. While I was crossing the river on the ferry I saw a building that caught my attention. This building is the “Silodam” and was designed by MVRDV. The magic of it is that it looks like if someone had taken different types of apartments with different colors and façades and stacked them together randomly forming a block. However, for some reason, it did not give a feeling of separation. The apparently chaotic building surprisingly felt social and united. But what surprised me the most was that this is a fun building. A building that when you look at it makes you smile. Coming from a country like Spain, where in the last years, due to the Spanish real estate boom, we have just built dull, anonymous and boring houses, this building was a breath of fresh air for me.
ENICE THE EDITOURS AMSTE Where did our editors go?
Eva: “the sheer show of force” It was twenty minutes before closing time. We stood at the entrance of the Fondation Luis Vuitton in Paris and decided to go in anyways. We rushed through the building, past all the modern art and ended up at the roof. In case you have never been there: the rooftop is a magnificent landscape consisting of mountains of white volumes, covered by enormous wooden beams and steel structures that carry large wings of glass. A few months later I happened to be in Venice, and by recommendation of a fellow student from Delft I entered the Louis Vuitton store there. I was surprised they let me in with the “practical” tourist clothes I wore, even greeted me kindly as I entered. On the top floor was an exhibition with sketches by Gehry and models of the building I had just visited in Paris. Models of cardboard and paper, sketches that, like Rorschach drawings, could have been anything but a building; and from these sketches a translation step to the building in clearer models. What a challenge it must have been for the architects to translate Gehry’s ideas into a building. And what a magnificent result it was, not for its design ideas, but for the sheer show of force of the construction and the mere fact that it was built.
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Lennart: “detail and human scale” Driving from Boston to Buffalo we decided to make a short stop at Cornell University in Ithaca, a city in upstate New York. The campus was apparently located atop a mountain, so we were zigzagging all over the place trying to reach our destination. As we turned the final bend we found a marvelous little building that -to my surprise- was designed by Ieoh Ming Pei (1917) in 1973. The Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art is a small concrete block with an extraordinary collection, including an original window from the Martin House Complex by Frank Lloyd Wright and a tripartite canvas by Roy Liechtenstein. But the building itself was the true gem! Every corner you turn you find another stunning architectural marvel. The building is streaked by sequences of portals that allow visitors to view across many rooms and light to enter from all directions. The top floor was the cherry on the cake as it caters for spectacular views on the Finger Lakes, framed by fifteen meters long panoramic windows. Contrasting to its brutal exterior it was designed with great attention to detail and human scale, showing once again the genius of now 99-year old Ieoh Ming Pei. Definitely a must-go if you happen to be in the area!
ERDAM PARIS ITHACA MALM Daan: “rising out of nowhere” In the north-western part of Malmö: 54 floors totaling 190 meters in height and rising out of nowhere. Calatrava’s spine-like Turning Torso is a major landmark, located in the district Västra Hamnen, also known as the City of Tomorrow and one of the first carbon neutral districts in Europe. Turning Torso is the tallest building in Sweden and one of the tallest residential towers in Europe. Due to the fact that most of the buildings surrounding the tower are under construction and are all low rise buildings, the tower can be seen from almost everywhere in Malmö and can even be spotted from some places in Copenhagen. Malmö is seen as the cultural center of the south of Sweden and the Turning Torso definitely contributes to this title. Apart from the Øresundsbron, the bridge connecting Sweden and Denmark, it was one of the most impressive architectural highlights I have seen during my trip around the south of Sweden and Denmark.
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Nothing but the sunny sky
Museum Voorlinden has been open for two months, but has already sparked much attention. The ‘oasis of rest amidst the dunes’ has seen negative publicity but has simultaneously been awarded with much praise. We decided to find out what it is then, that makes this museum such a sensation. Text: Bas Turk & Mats Rekswinkel It is a beautiful day in October as we walk onto the Voorlinden estate. Our visit begins with a casual stroll along the entranceway, which is flanked by beech trees. On the left side, sounds from a fanatic game of youth field hockey emerge, while on the right side a peaceful scenery of grazing cows marks the view. This leaves us only to wonder, where amongst all this liveliness of green will we find the absurdity that is museum Voorlinden? Just shortly thereafter we have our answer as we reach the end of the lane and gaze upon the museum amidst lines of trees and green lawns. The building seems rather offbeat in its outdoor surroundings but this is compensated
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by an embedment of wild flowers alongside the walls. These flowers make up the museum garden, designed by Piet Oudolf, an esteemed landscape artist, famed for projects such as the High Line and Garden of Remembrance in New York. Strokes of grass run amidst this sea of plants and flowers, which allow for visitors to walk in between the flowerbeds and peek inside the building. In this way Oudolf’s gardens act as a transitioning zone between the modern interior of the museum and the scenic nature outside. Museum Voorlinden is a project by Joop van Caldenborgh, who has amassed over one thousand pieces of contemporary art in his
fifty years of collecting. He hired Kraaijvanger Architects for the design and through close collaboration, they decided on the idea of making a daylight museum. ARUP was then involved in the project to design the roof structure. The office’s London-based lighting designer, Andrew Sedgwick, was put to the task and he created a unique skylight construction. The outcome is staggering. But as Sedgwick explains, the museum was actually designed to function at its peak during night time. Hidden LEDs are reflected against the ceiling at night, lighting up the room as if it were by day. Opening hours, however, withhold the public from witnessing this alleged phenomenon, which sadly remains a mystery.
Nevertheless, it still forms a remarkable piece of engineering. The construction consists of separate layers, each one filtering the light. “Each layer does one or more jobs, and together they do everything,” Andrew Sedgwick explains. The most outer layer consists of circular tubes, specially designed to let in only indirect light. Below this, there is a glazing layer for the separation of the in- and outside and the filtering out of UV-light. And finally, there is a cloth-like layer which redirects the light and spreads it evenly over the room. Altogether they form a grand construction, which is well-visible from the outside. And what a grand job it does. Meanwhile, the museum is becoming quite popular, we notice, as we are accompanied by many more visitors during our trip. The interest is so substantial that it is almost getting too crowded, yet it feels rather spacious. The large ceiling height helps in creating this illusion, but the main driving tool is the light coming in from the ceiling. The light is spread uniformly over the room, lighting up everything as if you
are standing under nothing but the sunny sky. A truly unique experience. The art might as well have been displayed in the meadow we spoke of earlier, the only difference is you can’t feel the wind on your skin, nor smell the cow pats. On a serious note, Museum Voorlinden makes excellent use of its environment. It highlights the beauty of Dutch nature, both the gardens and the special skylight construction show this. Voorlinden is therefore an absolute recommendation, even if you are not a modern art lover. There is plenty to experience besides the art, if it is not the special light, it is the magnificent gardens and wonderful dunes around. Therefore, besides the art, Voorlinden is mainly an homage to Dutch nature. 1
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Images: 1. View of open façade from the inside (photo: Bas Turk) 2. Roof construction as seen from interior (photo: Bas Turk) 3. Roof construction as seen from outside (photo: Bas Turk 4. View of Voorlinde estate (photo: Bas Turk)
Voorlinden Roof The roof construction was designed with the special intent of lighting up the interior of the museum with daylight. In combination with the exhibition of art however, this skylight construction was subject to many regulations. For instance, a maximum of 300 lux on the walls is allowed for the art. For the production of the structure VDL was assigned, after ARUP had optimized the concept of the tubes. This construction takes up 7000 m2 and is suspended 2 meters above the glass roof. To prevent having to implement extra columns, the layers below the outer layer are connected to this outer tubular construction at several points, creating a span length of 24 meters.
Sources: 1. Willem Wopereis. Interview bouwmanager Museum Voorlinden. September 13, 2016. Dearchitect.nl 2. Pieters Bouwtechniek. “Museum Voorlinden”. 2016. Pietersbouwtechniek.nl
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The Hague Central Station is the main public transport junction of the city, with the train tracks ending on the ground floor and the tram stopping one level above. The new glass ceiling brings a lot of light into the station and helps to give it a clear overview.
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Rail away As an avid commuter for the last six years, I’ve build up a love-hate relationship with the train. During those six years multiple stations in the Netherlands have been under construction. The State has spent over one billion euros on these stations with the main goal of increasing their capacity. Although these constructions led to some inconveniences, which did not always strengthen our relationship, in the end it will ensure a more pleasant travel experience. Now that several stations are finished, it is time for a trip to see how the Netherlands looks through its railway buildings. This photo series shows the finished stations of Den Haag Centraal, Delft, Breda, Rotterdam Centraal and Arnhem Centraal. If you travel through these stations, stop there some time and take a closer look to appreciate them. They are worth the delay. Text and photos: Ilke Broers
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Delft is only a small station, with just two platforms, but the ceiling of the hall makes a big impact. The curved panels form a historical map of the city from 1877.
For a long time, Breda had to go without a proper main entrance of its station. Since last September, the station is finally finished, making a grand gesture towards the city with its open structure made out of brick.
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Rotterdam was the first of the large Dutch cities to open its new station. The glass roof structure with wooden lamellae refers to architecture used in old stations. The pedestrian bridge that connects the sixteen platforms, gives an overview of the whole station.
The station of Arnhem has sparked much interest these past years. It was the first Central Station outside of the Randstad, costed 163 million euros and took over 18 years to complete.
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Happy Birthday To...
Almere
This year the Netherlands gets to celebrate the fortieth birthday of its youngest city: Almere. How did the city develop through its architecture? Text: Justin Agyin With the start of the construction of the first industrial area in 1974, the building rage in Almere commenced. This moment in time is however not considered as the ‘birth’ of the city, as its birth took place on November 30 of 1976. This day marks the handing over of the house key to Almere’s first residents: Henk and Lia de Clerk. On paper, the city already existed long before 1976, as it was meticulously planned to afterwards be built in large segments. This could somehow be considered as a VINEX-location avant la lettre as this systematic execution of housing construction began long before the VINEX-era. These segments can still be identified through the various suffixes as AlmereHaven, -Stad, -Buiten and so on. Each of these parts of the city have their own distinctive atmosphere and center, reflecting the polycentric set-up of Almere. However, this rather planned ‘birth’ and development of the city is quite in contrast with the more organic and extended births of other cities that grew out of favorable
trade locations for instance, such as Amsterdam, Almere’s older counterpart. Over time these cities also developed their distinctive characters, such as Alkmaar, Gouda or Edam as cheese cities, Zaandam with its windmills and Zaanse huisjes, and first Philips and later on technology and design in Eindhoven. So, what does Almere have? Does it even have an identity or character for that matter? This is of course not completely fair as the city is just
In certain respects the city has already matured. forty years old, but then still, what is typical for Almere? Its greenery? Its water? Even after having spent a substantial part of my life there I cannot exactly point it out. However, there is one thing I know the city does have to offer and that, of course, is architecture! I always like to describe Almere as a good place for the sole act of dwelling, and that it is a good place for enjoying architecture, but that is about it. New land, and a new city to be built from scratch, what a paradise it must
have been for the urbanists and (landscape) architects of the time. It is striking how Almere currently provides a cross-section of Dutch architecture featuring works by prominent Dutch and international architects, such as the City Hall by Cees Dam, a city center and movie theatre by OMA, office buildings by UNStudio, Benthem Crouwel, MVRDV, residential buildings by Claus and Kaan Architects, Architecten CIE and Liesbeth van der Pol, a library building by MVSA, cultural center by SANAA and senior center and school by Herman Hertzberger. Next to these more straightforward examples, the city also manifests itself as a breeding ground for experiment, which is an illustration of the importance of the image of the city. A number of architects have, for instance, experimented with housing types at the third BouwRai (Building Exhibition) in 1997 where an echo of Carel Weeber’s plea for ‘het Wilde Wonen’, was realized by architects such as Marlies Rohmer, UNStudio and Weeber himself. An even more extreme experiment has taken place in three small neighborhoods where architects could go nuts, as they could build without regulations. These two episodes in the architectural development perhaps did not immediately influence the construction of dwellings in Almere or elsewhere in the Netherlands, but this different way of thinking can be traced in the more recent developments of self-building and collective private commissions in Almere-Poort and Almere-Oosterwold. So, even though the city still is young and finding its way and identity, in certain respects it has already matured, and due to a lack of historic constraints can move forward more easily. The city has some great plans to develop further, such as the Floriade exposition in 2022 that has a key focus on sustainability and nature research. This might stimulate Almere to develop its own identity. Perhaps as the new kid on the block together with its experimental architectural past, Almere could lead the way forward for its burdened ancestors.
Images: 1. The skyline of Almere (photo: Maarten Feenstra)
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18 NOW
Adriaan Jurriëns Alumnus and former Chepos editor, who each edition shares his experiences as a self-employed architect.
The least romantic thing of being a self-employed architect
It is quite unusual to read in architectural textbooks or publications about how architects deal with business proposals. Which isn’t strange because we as architects (and engineers) rather like to think instead about spatial or technical solutions for the design problem presented to us by the potential client. But business proposals are still one of the most important things in running an architectural firm. Without such groundwork for a business deal, we have little certainty about the design process and, of course, about income. And without income it is hard to make the time needed for the beautiful design solutions that we, as engineers, would so dearly like to work on. For clients, reading tenders isn’t the most uplifting part of the design process either. But a good business proposal offers them some certainty and clarity as well. Nevertheless, it is somewhat contradictory: most people prefer to receive money than to spend it. As someone who is spending money, you want to have certainty that the initial investment pays off in a clear added value in the design. Describing this added value is an important goal of the business proposal. For a client, it is important to know what he will receive if he agrees to the business proposal. However, most clients prefer to talk about the design instead of money, descriptions of the design process and conditions. Writing and judging business proposals is a necessary evil on which both client and architect spend no more time then is strictly necessary. Still, the writing of business proposals takes a lot of time. Prior to the actual writing of the proposal is the process of acquiring new potential clients. Then there is at least one – but usually multiple - appointments to discuss the design problem and to see if there is enough trust to proceed with the collaboration. Then we can finally decide on the price and conditions. It is a delicate and time-consuming process. Anyone who thinks it can be standardized in some form is just fooling himself. Almost always, only dedicated and customized business proposals have a chance of being selected. No wonder almost all entrepreneurs spend a lot of time writing these proposals. For me, as a selfemployed architect, this is no different. No architect I know has the luxurious position of a constant flow of new commissions. For most bigger architectural firms, this is a full-time job.
Every week I spend a lot of time trying to acquire new commissions and, thus, writing business proposals. During the five years I have worked for myself, I have slowly progressed in this part of my job. But, like most progress, it hasn’t been without the usual trial and error. And although a lot of nonsense is spoken about entrepreneurship, reading some articles and books can be helpful. But it still takes a lot of time. Another lesson I had to learn is how to deal with disappointment. Think about the potential clients you thought would choose you and yet decided not to. Or the potential clients who want your work for free. Or those from whom you will never hear again after you send the business proposal. It is annoying, but if you have been through this a couple of times you will forget it more easily. Also, you will more easily recognize particular potential clients who want to trick you in some way or another. The most interesting perspective I once saw came from a book about Renaissance architecture in which the writer, an architectural historian, wrote about the economic motives behind certain changes in the architectural profession. And, although it remained abstract, it was interesting that this topic was approached from an economic perspective at all. Since then I have read more publications by architectural historians in which they also approached the architectural profession from the same perspective. As far as I know, this subject is largely undiscussed in architectural discourse. And although lots of students complain about the lack of practical knowledge, I do not think this is what they had in mind. No architect or engineer has started his education looking to learn about the economic aspects of the job. But in hindsight it wouldn’t have been a bad thing if necessary evils like writing business proposals were part of the education to become an engineer or architect. It will not make writing business proposals the most interesting or romantic thing for an architect to do, but without decent knowledge of how to approach and write business proposals it is hard to work on those beautiful design solutions we like to talk and read so much about. A decent business proposal is an important pillar on which a good design depends.
COLUMN 19
Forest Wool by Tamara Orjola – DAE Pine needles are usually considered waste material, and since we are chopping 600 million pine trees in Europe each year, there are quite some needles that do not have any purpose. Tamara Orjola has done intensive research on possible uses for pine needles which led to the invention of a new material. Forest Wool can be used in many different ways such as paper and fabric, but also as a composite material. Orjola has already designed a forest wool chair and rug. Both show the wide range of possibilities of the material.
DDW 2016 “The making of” was the theme of the Dutch Design Week (DDW) 2016 that took place from October 22nd until October 30th. After visiting several locations, herewith some designs we would like to see more in the future. Text & images: Renée Thierij
Mist Capturing Surface by Robyn Tayler Payne – Veemgebouw Namibia is one of the driest places in the world and thus its inhabitants often struggle with the consequences. These ceramics can help to improve the local ecosystem by capturing water from Namibia’s morning mist. The surface mimics the Lotus effect, which minimizes the droplet’s adhesion to the surface, and imitates the shield of the Namibian desert beetle to make sure the water is collected. The water can be utilized for irrigation purposes to provide more food for local people. A great example of how biomimicry can help us.
Disposition by Ulrike Jurklies – Skatepark AreaFiftyOne With plastic leftovers of Zweko Optics, Ulrike Jurklies built several playful objects. The objects were then combined with a bio based wallpaper made by Big Impact which Jurklies designed to match with the plastic objects. Together they form an installation at the entrance hall of the skate park, which was previously closed. The composition plays with perspectives and thereby creates dispositioning, in all forms of its meaning. Furthermore, it showcases the potential of leftover materials and the possibilities of wall covers, which can be designed to everyone’s wishes and can even be used in outdoor spaces.
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The New Pavilion by Jochum Zutt – DAE During the winter the Dutch coast transforms from a lively beach full of pavilions, to a beach marked with pile foundations. The seasonality characterizes these buildings, but the pile foundation that remains during winter is not used in an optimal form. Zutt designed a surf school which will leave a nice space during winter where one can have a rest and enjoy the view of the surroundings. Although it is designed as a surf school, Zutt mentions that there are already multiple other parties interested for his minimalistic and flexible design. The design is now up for review at the municipality and will hopefully be built soon.
Living Light by Ermi van Oers – Veemgebouw The living light produces energy through plants, thereby creating a lamp with a fairy tale-like atmosphere. Van Oers explained the goal that is to incorporate plants into our energy systems. At the moment the first prototype is ready and a finished product will hopefully be available in half a year. We asked Van Oers what she thinks will be next. “We are now discovering how the concept can be developed and which parties are interested. Perhaps it is possible to apply it on a larger scale to light parks with energy from plants.”
Re-settle by René van Zuuk Architekten – Klokgebouw One of the winning designs of the ‘A Home Away From Home’, a competition for refugee housing, is the foam design by René van Zuuk Architekten. The foam method they developed allows free form architecture without producing any waste materials. The EPS serves as structure and insulation of the houses and a PVC coating will help to make the structure water tight. Although the design was intended to help refugees, it can be applied for several purposes.
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Hospitals Unlike their predecessors, which were often isolated from the outside due to contamination risks, modern hospitals have become essential parts of major cities and the built environment as a whole. Medicine is no longer based upon providing the sick with needed rest, but rather it has evolved to large institutions that cater the diseased and injured. As specific branches of healthcare established, hospitals expanded to house the new facilities
which came with such new branches. This lead to hospitals being small cities of their own, facilitating not only the sick but also their visitors, doctors and their assistants, medical faculties and the research centers so often interrelated with modern hospitals. And with all the development in the various branches of medicine, modern hospitals keep evolving too, to become the hospitals of the future. Text: Jeroen Pospiech
From pavilions to peels Typology of the Dutch hospital through the last century The beginning of the 20th century also marked the beginning of change for the Dutch hospital. From a care institution for the poor, it developed into the most important part of our medical care. The change can be seen in the building types that were built. Although making an overview of these types is not so easy since there are only a few pure examples and mostly hybrids, the hospitals do show certain aspects that characterize them. The development of the Dutch hospital over the last century is portrayed in this article through its types. Text & images: Ilke Broers
Corridor and pavilion system The Netherlands have always been behind on developing hospitals, compared to other first-world countries. The corridor system, a long hallway with wards on both sides, was the preferred type up until the end of the 19th century, although it was already written off in England and France. The pavilion system came after the corridor, and consisted of a complex of pavilions. In the Netherlands, the pavilion system was often a hybrid between the pavilion and corridor system, where the pavilions were connected through long hallways. An early example of the pavilion hospital is the Municipal Hospital in Dordrecht from 1877. Initially, the design for the hospital had a corridor system. But after a negative verdict and the increasing popularity of the pavilion system abroad, architect J.A. van der Kloes changed the design. Originally, the pavilion system was meant to ventilate the wards. However, the increase of specializations led to the pavilions being used more and more to house the specializations in separate pavilions. In the end, these specializations led to the downfall of this type. As a result of the developments, it was necessary to build more and more pavilions. This led to constantly expanding complexes, and increasing walking distances for the nurses. Besides, every special-
< 1940 Pavillion
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ization needed its own laboratory, research and treatment facilities. In the US it was discovered that a time loss of three hours a day was not uncommon because of the walking distances.
It was discovered that a time loss of three hours a day was not uncommon because of the walking distances
building as well as their organization. The trichotomy consists of the nursing ward, the treatment facilities (operation rooms) and the policlinics (short visits and small procedures). It was commonly decided to place the treatment facilities perpendicular to the policlinics and the nursing ward, where the connecting point was used for the optimum connection horizontally as well as vertically. Up until the mid-sixties, most architects searched for possibilities to perfect the T- and H-form, as a lot of experience had been gained over the years in these types.
Breitfuß
Block types From that point on, high-rise seemed to be the future; compact towers could reduce the time loss as seen in the pavilions. The pre-war types did not seem fit anymore after the war, so time was spent on studies and research into developments in countries that were not affected by the war, such as Sweden and Switzerland. A first change was the farewell of the large wards; the post-war hospitals generally had rooms with four to six beds. In these years, the block types with the T-, Hand K-forms rose up. These forms introduced a trichotomy in the structure of the hospital
In the 1950s, there were fast developments in health care due to medical-technical innovations. This led to the increase of clinical specializations, which required new specific spaces. Next to that, the policlinics grew exponentially in the sixties. It was therefore necessary for this part to be able to expand easily. The result of this was a type originating in Germany, the Breitfuß which loosely translates the ‘wide foot’. This type consists of a flat podium of commonly two layers, with a slab on top for the nursing ward. The Breitfuß combines highand low-rise effectively, and was envisioned as a dynamic hospital that could endure the inevitable renovations and extensions. The Diaconessenhuis in Eindhoven, built between 1962 and 1966 and now known as the Maxima Medisch Centrum, was one of the first Breitfuß hospitals in the Netherlands.
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1960 Block types
Hospitals
Comb structure The sixties marked a time where criticism sparked on the hospital as an authoritarian medical bastion. ‘Hospital factories’ started to appear. In addition, the skyrocketing costs in health care services and the fast aging of existing hospitals led to major concerns. It was time to think about the human aspect again. A reoccurring wish was the reduction of walking distances, in which most block types actually suffice. However, these complexes were now seen as medical bastions. As an alternative, the low-rise emerged in the seventies, with the (double) comb structure as the first type. This type consisted of a long street, the main road or back bone, with pavilions adjacent to it. The idea behind this structure was that it can be integrated into the urban context, instead of an introvert complex. Furthermore, flexibility was an important factor, which the comb structure is very much qualified for. Each tooth of the comb can expand and adapt individually to the design demands. And the division in smaller building parts would result into a more human scale.
on optimizing the structures, instead of being able to focus on the design question itself. The focus was now on open-end structures, in which the ends are flexible for expansion and adaptations. These structures can be divided in three categories: the cross, the square and the linear structure. The comb structure from the seventies falls under this linear structure. In the cross structure, the cross branches off into multiple branches which also form crosses. The square structure consists of a square formed hallway around a courtyard. All structures have a main traffic system with departments attached to it, which can be extended to the outside separately. The structures gave the architect less and less freedom, but the increased attention for the hospital as a part of the urban context provided new possibilities. Squares, patios, atriums and covered streets were included in the hospitals, with adjoining facilities as a café, a shop and a barber. This ‘city in a city’ transformation was much suited in the open-end structures, and gave the architect freedom to make the hospital more humane.
Open-end structures
Peel model
Flexibility was the theme of the eighties, and had a huge influence on the working method of architects and appearance of the hospitals. Due to norms, guidelines and requirements, architects were forced to endlessly spend time
Around the turn of the millennium, a new possibility for a flexible scheme of the hospital arose; the ‘peel model’ or in Dutch the ‘schillenmodel’. This model is not a structure or typology as the previously shown. The method
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1970 Breitfuß
1980 Comb structure
divides the functions with similar demands of the built environment, with the goal to optimize the real estate. This is beneficial, as a building type can be designed specifically for the requirements of these functions. Another benefit of this, is when the profitability is in danger, it is possible to let these parts go. The four peels in the model are the ‘hot floor’ with the specific hospital functions (policlinics, treatment facilities, emergency room, etc.), the ‘hotel’ with the residential functions, the ‘office’ with office and consulting functions and the ‘factory’ with supporting functions such as laboratory, kitchen, etc. The peel model is applicable on a monolithic building but even more so as separate buildings with connections where needed. Hospitals change their appearance time and time again. Up until today, finding a good type, which is able to endure the inevitable adaptations and expansions without much hindrance and costs, is the biggest challenge. And this process is not likely to change soon, as the hospital world is still subject to many medical innovations.
Sources: 1. Mens, N. & Wagenaar, C. Architectuur voor de gezondheidszorg in Nederland. (Rotterdam: NAi Uitgevers, 2010) 2. Mens, N. “De metamorfose van het ziekenhuis” (Medisch Contact, 51/52 1998, 1636-1641) 3. College bouw zorginstellingen. “Gebouwdifferentiatie van een ziekenhuis - schillenmethode” (Utrecht, 2007)
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2000 Open-end structures
FILE 25
Less bricks, more bytes A renewed vision for the 21st century “Learning and innovation go hand in hand. The arrogance of success is to think that what you did yesterday will be sufficient for tomorrow.” This quote by William Pollard must have been the red thread in the innovation plans of the RadboudUMC. An outdated masterplan was overruled by a new one, called masterplan RadboudUMC 2020-2040. Text: Daan Kropman & Lars Hogenboom
bureau Bouwzaken at RadboudUMC states that one of the popular phrases used during the renovation on this issue is “save bricks, use bytes.” Themes like hygiene and logistics are no longer the core themes in healthcare. The concept healing environment, which is the positive effect on a person’s health when, for example, one has a chamber that looks out on greenery is closely intertwined with the masterplan.
of patients leads to certain choices, one would not make if the human scale is taken into account at a later point in the design process.” Iris Hobo, design manager of projectbureau Bouwzaken, has to assure the values belonging to this human scale are guarded through the design process. In addition to the fact that a hospital should be recognizable, it should also represent safety, reliance and well-being from both the inside and outside.
Human scale at Department of Psychiatry
The interior was designed by Suzanne Holtz and was based on hotels. In her opinion, patients are seen more and more as guests and should feel comfortable. This means basing the design more and more on the design principles seen in hotels. The key factor for success in this hospital is the cooperation of the architect,
Innovation and ambition The new plan anticipates on new standards in healthcare, such as a changing capacity rate of hospitals. The old plan was outdated due to changes in healthcare and politics. One could think of the impact of e-health, for example, communication with a consultant via your laptop. René Bleeker, manager of the Project-
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It is often seen that, when designing a building, one would talk about the experience at a later stage of the process. The RadboudUMC made the human scale the key factor of the design. Bleeker: “Designing this department by looking at the patients as being human instead
Hospitals
the interior architect and the landscaper. The concept of the architect designing a building and the interior architect just filling in the spaces is outdated. So EGM, the architecture firm, and Suzanne Holtz, the interior architect, had to work together at an early phase. EGM also acknowledges the importance of this new working method. Daniël van den Berg, architect at EGM, states: “For a patient, the way he is being treated is the key factor. Philips is investigating the way projections can change one’s mood. One’s sight is already an evidence-based designing principle. The least the architecture could do is offering a window one could look away and give space at thoughts.”
Gebouw S Gebouw S is the most important building block for the new RadboudUMC campus. It is ought to be the new main building of the terrain. This means that inside different types of healthcare should come together. The building has to house people who are in a hospital for the longer stay, this means that some aspects of the evidence-based design, as mentioned
earlier, would have a relatively larger impact on the patients. An important development for the patient in this new building is the fact that single rooms form a majority. To prevent loneliness, and the stress it causes, the patients have access to living rooms with a so-called homey atmosphere.
hospital could decrease due to more natural light. A clear example of the embracement of this concept are the large atria. They are to be seen as the connection between the patient and the green campus. In this way, the building would not become an entity on its own. It is in full cooperation with the entire campus.
Another important aspect in today’s designing world is the search for flexibility. Besides the changing healthcare, there is a constant pursuit of buildings which can be rearranged due to new standards. The building’s different functions have a large impact on the division of the plan. Besides this flexibility, the Projectbureau Bouwzaken strove for the implementation of flexible working places. Research has shown that after 2 in the afternoon the occupation grade of rooms drops drastically. This results in somewhat a waste of space. For example, the rooms for consultation could become more flexible workspaces.
In a nutshell, one can say that the standard hospital is constantly evolving due to new standards, political changes and other alterations, an aspect which has clearly been picked up by “Projectbureau Bouwzorg”. We should not react to certain changes, but anticipate on what might be the next game changer. The hospital of the future is a concept created by all involved parties.
Evidence-based design and a healing environment go hand in hand, also in this building. Research has shown that a patient’s stay in the
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Image: 1. Department of Psychiatry (source: Dearchitect.nl) 2. Render of Gebouw S (source: Overvastgoed.nl) 3. Demolition at location Gebouw S (photo: Daan Kropman)
Sources: 1. Masterplan RadboudUMC 2020-2040. January 15, 2015. Projectbureau Bouwzaken. 2. Tilman, H. “Menselijke schaal in zorgontwerp”. September, 2016. De Architect. 3. Correspondence with René Bleeker, projectbureau Bouwzaken, RadboudUMC. October, 2016.
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A new chapter for an old building An assessment of the architectural values of the AMC as the guiding principle for its future development Text: Noor Mens
Noor Mens is architecture historian at the department of Architectural Urban Design and Engineering of our faculty. She shines her light as an expert in hospital design on the renovation of the AMC Amsterdam.
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Hospitals In 2012, the educational hospital of the University of Amsterdam, known in the Netherlands as the Academic Medical Center of Amsterdam (AMC) decided to stay at the present site for the coming decades and adapt the existing building, which dates from 1985, to present and future needs. For hospitals, this is exceptional. The explicit choice for the complex to be used until 2050 is based on the judgement that the building is of such a high quality that this is very well possible. In order to function properly, however, it needs to be able to accommodate changes. In hospital architecture this is particularly important. No building type changes as fast as hospitals, a consequence of developments in medical science and the continuous improvement and expansion of high-grade medical equipment. This often requires architectural interventions, which can affect the appearance of the building. Moreover, the demands of the retail shops in the hospital’s public spaces also impact the architectural qualities of the building. Past interventions have already damaged the original architectonic concepts. In order to assess the architectonic values, the building’s esthetic qualities have been mapped and formulated in a set of rules and regulations. This led to a report that describes the qualitative characteristics of the building and guides future developments. These rules are now being implemented. In this article the original characteristics of the building will be discussed. These characteristics inspired the rules and guidelines, which will guide future developments. These are shortly explained and illustrated by means of recent examples of redevelopment.
Characteristics of the AMC The AMC was designed during the 1970s by the firm of Duintjer Istha Kramer Van Willegen, in association with ir. D. van Mourik, and completed in 1985. The project was part of a huge building program that envisaged the replacement of the old inner city hospitals in Amsterdam, Leiden and Utrecht. Commissioner was the Ministry of Education and Science, which saw this program as a first step to take the university buildings out of the city centers and bring them to a campus at the edge of the cities. The AMC moved to a location in the Bijlmer, a 1960s housing estate in the southeastern periphery of Amsterdam. The building can easily be reached by highways and the metro. The idea that the three academic hospitals were hardly different was reason to appoint J. Wester, advisor of the Ministry to draw up a joint program. The basic concept of the AMC has four parallel zones: the outpatient departments, the research and treatment units, the hospital staff and the non-clinical institutes. The medical specializations have been placed in parallel bands that run perpendicular
to these zones: internal medicine, surgery and neurology. The nursing wards are on top of the building. Characteristic for the main building of the AMC - the so-called monolith - is the way it manifests itself as an inner city, with streets, squares and a rich supply of facilities. The designers had a city in mind, with a public domain in which the medical facilities would be part of normal life. If the AMC is a city, designing it resembles urban planning. The design was imbued with the critical philosophy of the 1960s and 1970s. This is also the case for the explicit urban planning design principles of the building.
No building type changes as fast as hospitals. Although the scale of the building is immense, there was a strong emphasis on small scale, integration of functions, and multi-functionality. This reflects the renewed interest in the historical city as a phenomenon where form was not determined by function, but the result of the interplay between elements that were fixed, and others that were susceptible of change. The pattern of streets, squares and monuments were rather permanent, whereas individual buildings were regularly replaced. The public spaces belong to the permanent parts of the city, even though its character changes throughout the years. This is a consequence of the functional changes of the buildings that line streets and squares. Fascinated by this interplay of changes at different paces, architects developed methods that emulated these characteristics in large-scale buildings: the essence of Structuralism. Structuralist buildings combine a permanent constructive framework with elements attached to it that could be changed easily and quickly. The AMC building is characteristic for this approach. To prevent the complex from becoming too colossal and to ensure a pleasant environment, the main building is subdivided into a number of separate wings. Each part has its own character and functions. They are connected and at the same time separated by covered streets, squares and bridges. The streets and squares are more than just traffic arteries: they also invite people to stroll around, use the shops and restaurants, talk to relatives and friends. The concrete skeleton is the main constructive framework and the building’s most permanent element. The facades, dividing walls, ceilings, etc. have a shorter lifespan and can easily be replaced and modified.
Spatial and architectonic aspects The AMC wants to keep the existing building up-to-date and maintain its architectural qualities in the next decades. The flexibility that has been one of the AMC’s outstanding qualities from its inception makes this very well possible. Instead of a focus on conservation, the original concept of modification at different paces should be respected. Whereas the permanent and semi-permanent elements should be maintained, other elements may change. Rules and guidelines have been formulated to guide these changes.
Assessment of the AMC’s architectural qualities (‘Welstandsvisie’) Starting point for the ‘Welstandsvisie’ (2016) is the design philosophy of the building. This requires a clear distinction between permanent, semi-permanent and dynamic elements. The concrete skeleton, the floors, the columns and the way they are visually present are permanent. This framework is iconic and should always be respected. Changes on these permanent parts should be prevented. The infill package is semi-permanent; it is subordinate to the structure. It comprises windows, doors, street lighting, floor tiles and balcony railings. Changes may be made but require great consistency throughout the building, on the basis of its dimensions and rhythms. Strict rules in terms of dimensions, rhythms, materials and colors have been defined. Of more temporary nature are the dynamic and interchangeable elements. These can be replaced more quickly and there is a greater degree of freedom. Nevertheless, rules are desirable. The semi-permanent and permanent elements should not be affected, for instance. Changes made in the past show how easily things can go wrong here. The status of each part of the building had been identified, indicating how they should be handled in the future. For example the columns (permanent) must be kept visible and should not be painted; moreover, nothing should be added to them that obscures their characteristic qualities. Changing the doors of the shops (semi-permanent), for example, should respect the overall structure of the building and require great consistency throughout the building. Their original dimensions should not be tampered with. If dynamic elements such as counters need to be modified or replaced, this calls for clear rules and, preferably, standard design variants. 1 2
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Images: 1. J.G. Constant (red.), AMC gebouwd, Wormer 1984 2. “City” square with facilities (photo: Jan en Fridtjof Versnel) 3. Redevelopment according to Welstandsvisie (source: Onno Valk) 4. Redesigned restaurant according to Welstandsvisie (source: AMC)
Sources: 1. Mens, N. & Valk, O. Welstandsvisie AMC 2016. (Amsterdam: 2016)
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EGM is located near the Oude Maas river in Dordrecht, South-Holland. The endless stream of boats sailing by make up a beautiful scenery for the building. A pool table and dartboard in the canteen provide a relaxed atmosphere. The roof window above the atrium offers an intriguing view to the top of the railway bridge less than a hundred meters away. Merel Brabers, a TU Eindhoven graduate who just started working at the firm’s Research and Development department, introduces us to Arnold Sikkel, who has been designing hospitals since before we were born. Sikkel graduated as an architect at the TU Eindhoven in the nineteen eighties. His graduation teacher was Wout Eijkelenboom, the E in EGM. Sikkel started working at EGM in 1985.
Harmonica
Hospitals evolve at a killing pace A conversation with Arnold Sikkel The Erasmus Medical Center, the Jeroen Bosch Hospital, the University Medical Center Utrecht, the Radboud University Medical Center, the KSSHP Hospital in Finland. This is just a small sample from the impressive list of projects that EGM has worked on. We were given the opportunity to interview one of the partners of the architectural firm, Arnold Sikkel, who was chairman between 2004 and 2013 and is currently responsible for communication and acquisition. In an hour-long conversation he offered an insight into the baroque exercise that is designing a hospital or as Sikkel put it: “These buildings really encompass all scale levels: urbanism, landscape, building physics, interior design, supply management, the list goes on and on. Hospitals are fairly complex buildings.” Text: Bas Turk & Rik de Bondt
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Design briefs for hospital buildings are big, containing extensive descriptions of about four to six thousand rooms. Obviously, these rooms cannot be regarded as separate parts; they are integral components of the building in the same way organs are part of a body. The parts have to be structured as economically and technically efficient as possible, meanwhile facilitating a convenient place for doctors and nurses to work pleasantly and for patients to heal quickly. “Organization models of hospitals evolve at a killing pace; a newly delivered building is always based on an organization model from a couple of years ago, and hence, by the time of its opening, already is obsolete in multiple aspects,” Sikkel observes. He therefore lists three keywords that are essential in hospital design: flexibility, adaptability and expandability. Healthcare has become increasingly demanddriven, whereas before a doctor just had a limited amount of beds, now the different wards have to be able to adapt to fluctuations in demand. “In order to accommodate these fluctuations, a hospital has to be like a harmonica: expanding, shrinking and transforming without severe structural adjustments.” Much of this adaptability depends on the basic type of the building. Equipment, personnel and patients should be conveniently exchangeable throughout the building. A hospital is a big structure of networks. Sikkel prefers the comb structure as a basic type, which is also present in the Delft hospital which EGM designed. The comb structure allows for the organization of the departments along one axis, so as to avoid too much traffic in the wards. The comb structure is a horizontal type; exchanging goods and people horizontally can be done quicker
Hospitals
than vertically. Even though a horizontal hospital building takes up more land, and therefore is more expensive to build, a horizontal building can be more cost-effective than a vertical building, depending on personnel costs and land prices. EGM is also involved in a project in Indonesia. As land is more expensive there, EGM has to design a more vertical building type.
Logical whole Radiotherapy departments have rooms where the floors, ceilings and walls have to be made out of three meters of concrete, to block harmful radiation. Due to such technical requirements this department is positioned early in the design process. Sikkel sketches the struggle of arranging the departments: “The problem with designing hospitals is that its users seem to expect to get a Belgian bus; they all want to sit near the front window.” Clearly, some kind of order is necessary to make the building a logical whole. This order is established by an acute axis through which the intensive care, emergency room and operation rooms are connected. All the other components are placed around this axis. As an architect it is essential to empathize with clients and understand the problems they pose, Sikkel thinks. “I am not a doctor, but I do understand what those people do and I can talk about it with them. I have to discuss with doctors about how they are going to work and as an architect I am expected to suggest improvements in their working process. Sometimes doctors suggest improvements themselves and then we do feasibility studies.” The way in which patients are welcomed in the hospital and the way doctors and medical professionals work changes fast. This is caused by new technologies that appear in the hospital, large and small. A small technology, like text messaging on cellphones, has a big influence as it allows to discuss whether physical presence at the clinic is really necessary for each appointment with a doctor. Furthermore, big technological developments like big data may well change the whole process of diagnosing illnesses. When a new technology makes an entry, it has to be easy to implement it in the building. To increase flexibility, the nursing wards and polyclinics have, up to a certain extent, the same arrangement. EGM chose a standardized room, based on a standardized structural grid, and has investigated that a room of eighteen square meters is big enough to accommodate all different kinds of research, with the remarkable exception of the gynecol-
ogy polyclinic. A gynecologist traditionally works in a circle around which all the equipment is situated and therefore needs a larger area. The layout model EGM used in Curaçao, with service axes and double corridors, allows making a polyclinic on the same structural grid and with the same technical services as a ward.
The problem with designing hospitals is that its users expect to get a Belgian bus; they all want to sit near the front window. Evidence-based design Research shows that a well-designed environment can support and accelerate healing processes. EGM developed an evidence-based design tool to help architects and healthcare organizations with making more well-founded decisions during the design process. Traditionally, EGM’s architects and their clients make design choices intuitively, based on their experiences. Evidence-based design is a method that is aimed at basing design choices on scientifically underpinned effects of the spatial environment on the experience and well-being of patients and other users. However, this does not mean that architects and their clients are bound to research results as absolute truths, as these results will always have to be critically interpreted and assessed. Evidence-based design is founded mostly on the methods of evidence-based medicine. Much of the research in environmental psychology is carried out in the United States. EGM works together with multiple Dutch research institutions, among which Fontys,
research institute Nivel and Delft University of Technology to expand their knowledge. The tool EGM developed is basically an online archive in which research results are collected and ranked on their significance. The tool is used for designing organization, light, sound and climate properties of buildings. The tool is supportive in starting conversations between architects and medics. When patients are in a severely bad or unstable condition, they will be put under intensive care and monitored twenty-four hours a day. The intense activity and haste on these intensive care wards sometimes causes delirium with patients, which is bad for the patient’s healing process. “With acoustic materials, noise can be significantly reduced around the individual patients, offering them a more stable environment and thereby probably speeding up their healing process,” Sikkel states. Moreover, research has pointed out that supporting the patient’s natural biorhythm, even if he is sleeping most of the day, accelerates his recovery. Based on this kind of findings, strong arguments can be made for providing intensive care wards with windows, even if the investment would be more costly. EGM is actively building up databases with pre- and post-evaluations of their own projects to complement the scientific research that is collected in their evidence-based design tool. When a new design is made, first the old situation is carefully documented and measured in order to compare it to the newly designed situation. That way the designers can evaluate whether the project has yielded the desired effects.
International EGM is involved in multiple projects abroad. In cooperation with a local office, EGM is working on an academic hospital in Finland. “In this cooperation, it is not self-evident to the involved local parties to employ our knowledge and experience for this project. Often these local parties prefer to experiment
FILE 31
and do their own thing, and make their own mistakes reinventing the wheel.” Confronted with many foreign examples, Sikkel is able to regard Dutch hospitals within an international frame of reference. “The Dutch find daylight entry essential for good working places, while in America fully enclosed work spaces can still be encountered. The best part about working abroad is to implement a hospital into the local culture,” says Sikkel. “In collaboration with OeverZaaijerLyongo from Amsterdam, I have worked on a hospital Curaçao and later I have worked on the design for a hospital in Paramaribo. Here in the Netherlands, we sometimes think that those cultures are similar, but they are completely different. In Curaçao, for example, coldness is regarded as the biggest luxury one can have. When entering a building there, while the outside temperature varies between thirty and thirty-six degrees Celsius, I would sometimes need a coat to bridge the temperature difference.” So EGM gave Curaçao a completely air conditioned building. In Paramaribo on the other hand, EGM realized nursing wards with blind windows, allowing only wind to enter and naturally ventilate the building. “From a hygienic point of view, the solution in Suriname is much more appealing than the one in Curaçao. Nevertheless, both in Suriname and Curaçao the concerned parties think the chosen approach is self-evident,” Sikkel observes, amused. “Colleagues of mine work in the Middle East, where male and
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female wards have to be strictly separated. However, the medical equipment needs to be accessible for both zones. This results in different solutions for the structure of the hospital, which is what makes designing a lot of fun.”
An architect is no longer a jack-of-alltrades. A similarity between Suriname and Curaçao however, manifests itself in a problem not yet obviously present in the Netherlands, namely obesity. There are indeed cases of severe obesity in the Netherlands, but in these transatlantic countries a significant part of the population differs in weight between 250 and 600 kg per person. This has a serious impact on the architectural design, from elevators and toilets to the concentrated load on the floor caused by the weight of an obese patient on an operation table. Besides, obesity has effect on the people that work with these patients. Nursing or carrying such patients cannot be done alone. Since this is likely to be occurring more frequently in the Netherlands sooner or later, this problem already has to be anticipated on now.
Professions in transition Sikkel is witnessing the transition of the hospital from the doctor’s domain to a multidisciplinary health platform, partly thanks to developments in big data technology. Philips Healthcare, for example, has expanded from designing machines to getting involved in a wide range of software appliances for hospitals. Likewise, the discipline of architecture has changed a lot in the last decade, and should continue to change in the future, according to Sikkel. “It is important to share our knowledge with other disciplines. One who cannot share, cannot multiply. We can only make improvements if we exchange views with people from other disciplines, who can give us new insights from their field of expertise. An architect is no longer a jack-of-all-trades, which is why young architects and engineers should develop themselves in cooperating with other disciplines. Please take that as an advice.”
2 1
Images: 1. Atrium at the EGM office with view over railway bridge (photo: Rik de Bondt) 2. Arnold Sikkel (photo: Rik de Bondt) 3. Polyclinic and day treatment department in the Curaçao hospital (courtesy of EGM architecten)
3 Sources: 1. Interview with Merel Brabers and Arnold Sikkel at the EGM office on October 17, 2016
Hospitals
A building that fits a hospital
Traditional working environments are disappearing. Businesses are extending their horizons and looking for ways to innovate. This is of course not different in the healthcare sector. The current trend is to renew hospital design, focusing on flexibility. Text: Mats Rekswinkel Firstly it seems wise to deliver a short update on what the concept flexibility in architecture exactly is about. Roughly three subjects are distinguished; adaptability, transformability and convertibility. The first concept, adaptability, is characterized by the fact that only the moveable interior of the building is altered, and that no changes are permanent. One simple example of this could be rearranging furniture within a room to suit other functions. Transformability, on the other hand, is about changing under influence of outer stimulants. In this case we distinguish two types; moveable structures, in which case the structures undergo a change of position within their environment. The other case is responsiveness, which is a temporary reaction to outside conditions , such as a sudden change of weather. In this case, however, the change has more impact than with adaptability. And finally we have convertibility, which addresses a much broader scope of change than the previously mentioned concepts. This often involves changes being made to the construction and has a much longer lasting effect. Now that we have dealt with the technical
background, we will look at how flexibility plays a role in contemporary hospital architecture. The Martini Hospital in Groningen forms our first case. For the renovation of 2007, focus shifted to flexibility. Rather than a hospital, it has been characterized as a ‘building that fits a hospital’3. Installations run through one main shaft, which makes it easier for the indoor environment outside of this shaft to be changed. It is therefore easy to, for example, place new sockets and connect them to the installations. Furthermore, the usage of prefabricated elements, which are easily moved to create new partitions, played a vital role in the renovation. That way, implementation of new functions in a room is made much easier and less costly.
able systems, in which construction is not altered and changes are not permanent.
From this example we can ascertain that moveable transformability is important in creating more flexible environments in hospitals. We need to ask ourselves, however, whether this case correctly portrays current developments as this project was executed well over ten years ago. We should therefore also take a look at newer developments.
But we will not end on this sad note, because these measurements to improve flexibility can simultaneously improve user experience. All of these changes are meant to increase productivity and adaptability and should eventually lead to hospitals becoming nicer places. The hospital of the future, a place you won’t get sick of?
In recent years, measures to stimulate flexibility have become more user-centered. Prefabricated elements such as dismountable wall systems allow for quick and easy alterations to be made by staff members. Two recent renovation projects in Cincinnati, the Anderson Hospital and the Jewish Hospital, have implemented these measures in order to improve. It seems the trend has therefore shifted to adapt-
Before we end this article, it might be valuable to reconsider why flexibility has become more important and what the future beholds in this area. It seems in modern healthcare, patient well-being currently comes second to financial feasibility, which explains the need for flexibility. In order to be able to cope with unforeseen future changes, hospitals are designed to be as adaptable as possible. More flexibility allows for a more sustainable design, which in turn is economically more profitable in the long run. It seems unlikely this is going to change in the near future.
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Images: 1. Hospital room Chelsea and Westminster Hospital (source: Chelsea and Westminster Hospital)
Sources: 1. Barbara Horwitz-Bennett. How to design flexible healthcare spaces. October 29, 2014. Healthcaredesignmagazine. com 2. Amaya C. Labrador & Robert J. Farrow. “The road to flexibility: Adaptability, Transformability, and Convertibility.” July 12, 2012. Healthcaredesignmagazine.com 3. Martini Ziekenhuis Groningen. Bouwfolder Martiniziekenhuis Groningen. April 4, 2005. Slimbouwen.nl
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Jacob Voorthuis Jacob is a publicist, associate professor and lecturer, who professes enthusiastically about philosophy and architecture.
Getting to the right place
‘Good morning, how can I help you?’ The lady with a pink silk scarf and kindly wrinkled eyes stands behind a white lectern on axis with the generous, relentlessly revolving doors. No wait, let me start again, a little earlier: On walking towards the canopied entrance of the large, white, shapeless building, I was greeted by crumpled people wearing scruffy coats and pajamas , sitting on a low wall, smoking and holding their drips as if they were taking them out for a walk. Little was going their way; that much was clear. An elegantly dressed and beautifully postured lady, feeling strange and upset in her newly acquired wheelchair, waves at her daughter. Her daughter has just finished giving her a reassuring smile, and told her she would be back in a jiffy with the car and begins walking to the garage. The wind is blustery and cold, a kindly man with a portly belly and the air of a bus-driver, offers to move the lady to a slightly more sheltered spot, out of the draught. She thanks him graciously, he smiles and I walk through the revolving doors and scan the lobby. Lots of people, no confusion. Everybody getting on with their business as if it were the most normal thing in the world. There are about five or six choices open to me: the reception to the right, then four double swing doors leading to various corridors branching out in different directions. ‘Good morning, how can I help you?’ The lady, with a pink silk scarf and kindly wrinkled eyes, dressed not quite like a stewardess but getting close, is eager to help. ‘I have an appointment at Internal Medicine, please’. ‘That’ll be route 87 on the second floor. Just follow the red line.’ I do, it is easy. There is a yellow, a blue and ‘my’ red line along the floor on the right. I take the stairs instead of the elevator, because that is the kind of person I have become: a middle-aged man trying as best he can to counter the inevitable process of disassembly that his body has embarked on against
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his express wishes. I follow my way through the creamy yellow corridors, hung with pictures doing their best to make me feel better about what is happening inside of me, trying to instill in me a shaky sense of control. I glide over the smooth, clean, grey linoleum floor with its red, blue and yellow lines to the right of me. No windows, just perspectival depth and occluding edges as the corridor moves around a corner. And of course the creamy walls with white doors. The bright yellow line forks off to the right, I veer to the left, then the blue line forks off to the left, while I veer to the right. Doors open and shut and I keep on going, past one clinic after another, all of them along the red line: orthopedics, urology, heart and lung, ear, nose and throat, hematology, whatever: small clustered hubs centered around their own separate corridor, with various doors and people in white dress going in and out, a desk with nurses looking at computer screens and half empty waiting rooms, half visible behind an occluding wall, with anxious faces and huddled bodies, waiting for the release of their sentence. I love hospitals, together with airports and research laboratories, they are the most sophisticated machines in which everything, the building, the systems, the machines, the people, all work together for a single, clear explicit purpose. There is little doubt in any of these institutions and no doubt whatsoever as to the purpose of why people are there, what they have come to do and what and where they are to do it. Visitors have long since stopped experiencing any confusion, modernity is becoming comfortably familiar. We are learning how to get things right even at the scale of these monstrous institutions. Everything has been done to make the passage from a to b stress-less, commercially profitable, and psychologically upbeat. The first
Hospitals
and last of those improvements was necessary. Hospitals cannot really downscale, they have by necessity become complicated beasts: umpteen specialized departments, all of them fighting disease and trauma and all of them having to fight the enemy within: surfaces contaminated with lurking bacteria and unidentified flying viruses and our own tendency to lose focus and become too comfortable in our habits. Departments need to work together, specialization is only possible on that condition. The parts, although clearly distinguished, need to stay committed to the whole, no fragmentation, as Rem Koolhaas writes about big buildings. It has made hospitals into an archipelago of separate but interconnected clinics and wards all of them armed with endless arrays of strategic defense mechanisms: spatial dispositives forcing and preventing certain movements, control systems to ensure that nurses, doctors and patients stay focused on their purpose and duties, strategically placed sinks with special soap dispensers and elbow taps, shiny tiles and smooth floors, wide corridors and wide doors, surfaces that can be easily cleaned and endless varieties of prostheses for the wobbly, reaching out from the fabric of the building to help the ailing peripatetic on her journey to health or release: carefully dimensioned balustrades, railings in the toilets, freely accessible wheelchairs, corridors without any threshold, uplifting propaganda in the form of pictures and slogans at eye-level, you name it. An empty hospital bed is being rolled by two sturdy nurses towards a special elevator. An alien bio-pack-vehicle with the alien missing. As soon as the patient arrives, the system locks in on her and takes over all responsibility. A cocoon of care. Beds have become sophisticated cages of comfort, control and
caring convenience. They form the locus of the medical, moral and loving gaze. At the same time they are end-stations for all sorts of taps, pipes, valves, wires, tubes, monitoring gauges and screens, drawing and bleeping our bodily functions in real time, and often they are the end-station of life itself. Empty beds in hospitals therefore have a curious depth to their expression. But while the patient is alive there are conveniently mobile plateaus for feeding, fruit and flowers; braces for tying, levers for pulling and wheels for swiveling and moving, machines for folding, rolling and sitting up. The whole is surrounded by various entertainment portholes such as televisions and windows offering more or less healthy views onto green stuff, picturesquely composed and cultured. Hospitals are like heaven. I have followed the red line faithfully and have arrived effortlessly at the desk, exactly on time. Two nurses are planning the day, doctors speak quietly on their mobile phones in quiet, reassuring tones. One nurse looks up at me and smiles in a business-like way. ‘I have an appointment at 9.15 with Doctor Evergreen’, I say, donning an eager look. The Nurse looks at me with surprise and incomprehension, the other one looks up at me and then back at the screen. ‘Dr. Evergreen does not work here today.’ ‘Oh but I…’ ‘Could I have a look at the letter you were sent about your appointment?’ I take the letter out of my pocket and show her. ‘Ah yes,’ she says, with a business-like concern, ‘You are at the wrong location, you were expected at our hospital in Leidschendam.’ She looks at me… I look at her. ‘It happens often now that our hospitals have merged into one organization’, she says almost apologizing, while it is I who should have read the letter properly. ‘Don’t worry’ she says, ‘I shall call them for you and tell them you will be a little late.’
FILE 35
Visual Pollution
For the past few months, the Dutch news has been reporting on complaints about new ecofriendly wind turbines, which are built a few kilometers off the Dutch coast. Not only were these complaints out of a growing concern of unbearable noises the turbines would produce, the term ‘horizon pollution’ was heard in protests of locals. Can the matter of horizon pollution be found more often in the built environment? And is it a problem worth worrying about? Text: Sven van der Hulst Horizon pollution can be seen as a new form of ‘visual pollution’, which in a nutshell means: “making some negative changes in the natural environment and [...] turning the visual areas of healthy people into something that disturbs them”1. Although this may not be one of the most important forms of pollution and it only sounds like some vague new constraint in the built environment, there are enough examples that proof that architects, urban planners, but also real estate developers and other people with similar backgrounds should not take visual pollution lightly. Not only can it cause stress or create disgust, it can also ruin highlights of a city which then could have a negative effect on, for instance, tourism. One great example is Cathedral Plaza in Bucharest. This office building was placed exactly next to the St. Joseph Cathedral, ruining the clean view on the most important cathedral for Roman Catholics in
36 THAT’S WHY
how to ruin tourist destinations
Romania. The 75 meter high building does not even slightly acknowledge the importance of the beautiful cathedral. The approval of the building permit seems to lack supervision in the design process. While the Cathedral Plaza building still appears in the news, a group called “Save Bucharest!” started investigating building permits and their legitimacy all over Bucharest. They found out that an extra floor on top of the design was negotiable for a bribe of 10.000 to 30.000 euros, and permits to destroy antique Bucharest buildings were illegally given. A permit for demolition of this new Cathedral Plaza is now on the table to be approved, but until then, taking a holiday picture of the St. Joseph Cathedral without the office building behind it is almost a mission impossible. A shopping mall or supermarket on monumental ground next to some pyramids comes in handy, tourists might think nowadays. The Mexicans living in Teotihuacán however did not think so. Back in 2004 when Wal-Mart was building a medium-sized supermarket near the pyramids of Teotihuacán, inhabitants of the city found out that the zoning plan had changed a year before and that several bribes, in total more than 200.000 US dollars, paid by Walmart made that happen. Although, the already congested entrance to one of the touristic highlights of Mexico was designated
to not get more congested with big companies or factories back in 2003. Now this big boxlike building can be seen from the monumental ground, ruining the astonishing view for a lot of tourists. On Cozumel Island, tourism was the cause of the visual pollution. Some people might find cruise ships appealing to the eye. But when you are on holiday, trying to enjoy the beautiful beach and its unlimited view over the sea, giant sun blocking ships are not really adding to the experience. Let alone the noise these ships and their passengers produce. Tourists might not be aware of the fact they are polluting tourist destinations visually, but architects and municipalities should find a way to cope with on one hand the growing tourism business that is financially interesting, and on the other hand preserving the tourist location being famous for its views and sights, by not ruining these photogenic locations with unappealing buildings.
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Images: 1. Cathedral Plaza in Bucharest (photo: Michaelbirdjournalist.wordpress.com) 2. Walmart in the front, Teotihuacán temple in the back (photo: Nytimes.com) 3. Cozumel Beach (photo: Mybookinggenie.com) 4. Cozumel cruise terminal (photo: Carnival-news.com)
Sources: 1. Bodur & Kucur, 1994, p.56 2. “Can this mildmannered maths researcher save Bucharest?”. Michael Bird. Michaelbirdjournalist.wordpress.com 3. David Barstow. December 17, 2012. “The Bribery Aisle: How Wal-Mart Got Its Way in Mexico”. Nytimes.com 4. Isla Cozumel, Lonelyplanet.com
Replace or renovate the Pégé-houses? Recently, there has been renewed interest in the renovation of the socalled Pégé-houses. The houses, developed by Pieter Guelen, were built in the 1950’s in the proximity of Nijmegen. Municipalities, like Wijchen and Groesbeek, are examining their options whether to completely demolish or to renovate the houses. New demands in the fields of building physics and the comfort of living are causing this. Text: Lars Hogenboom
Pégé-houses became a success due to their easily set-up and inexpensive construction. In October 1972, minister Udink opened the ten-thousandth house. Approximately 12.000 houses were built. Most of them located in Beuningen, Wijchen and Groesbeek. Only fifteen percent of the Pégé-houses is categorized as such, the others are quietly included in the villagescapes of other municipalities. The system was made by keeping in mind that as little work as possible should be done on the working site. The outer walls are cavity walls with prefab timber elements built story high. The inner walls, the separating elements between the rooms, consist of simple wooden panels. Only when absolutely necessary, concrete piling methods were used. An example is the separating walls between the houses. The first floor consists of 49 m2 of living area. Even by today’s standards, this is good. In its time,
the postwar reconstruction, a time of prosperity and a great demand in the realisation of houses, the buildings were gladly accepted. Inventor Pieter Guelen thought, at the time of developing the houses, they would not stand for such a long time. At first, the houses had a lifetime of 50 to 60 years. The problems are the renewed standards for comfort of living and the closely intertwined renewed requirements in the field of building physics. The energetic quality performances of the houses are not sufficient for the current norm. After the first renovation period, in the 1980s and the 1990s, the houses would often still have an energy label of D. Apart from these problems, there are also complaints about the lack of differentiation between the façades. Following the fact that the houses could be well insulated by improving the façade. If the houses are not being
replaced, this would be the first aspect which would come to mind for improvement. At first, housing corporation Talis thought that demolishing and replacing the Pégé-houses would become the most economically beneficial solution. A survey of 419 houses in Kraaijenberg gave the exact opposite outcome. Renovation was still the best solution. Several houses of Talis have already been renovated since 2011 and more houses are being renovated at this very moment. The combination of complaints about the lack of differentiation and the fact that the façade is the best solution in renovating the buildings, leads to the participation of citizens in the design of these façades. By participating, tenants are able to give their houseblock a unique appearance. Although the houses were not meant to be used for such a long time, several researches on different locations have led to the conclusion that the Pégé-houses could easily be renovated and are still functioning well. Simple renovations are enough to make the houses acceptable for today’s standards. For the people living in the houses this comes as a relief, as they are not obligated to leave their houses. It even comes as an oppertunity to design their houseblocks with a personal twist. Image: 1. Render of renovation at Vogelbuurt, Ulft. (source: Vogelbuurtbiezenakker.nl) 1 Sources: 1. De Gelderlander. 2016. Pégé-woningen Wijchen tóch verbouwd en niet gesloopt. April 21, 2016. Gelderlander.nl 2. Liebregts, Martin. 2012. De pégé-systeemwoningen, onzichtbaar opgenomen in het dorpsbeeld. December 10, 2012. Bestaandewoningbouw.nl 3. Talis. 2015. Kwaliteitsverbetering voor zo’n 400 Wijchense Pégé-woningen. April 10, 2015. Talis.nl
THAT’S WHY 37
Farnsworth House jacked up!
Numerous times, the Farnsworth House in Plano, Illinois was flooded and its beautiful interior scarred. The Modernist landmark is situated in the flood plains of the Fox River, a stream that regularly bursts its banks during the post-winter melts. Luckily, the National Preservation Trust is working on a final solution, a plan to jack up the entire construction during floods. Text: Lennart Arpots There is no need for me to explain to you what the Farnsworth House is. But just as a formality, and maybe for the younger students among us, the Farnsworth House is arguably the most important design of Modernist architect Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, in which the relationship between individual, culture and nature is a central theme. The riverfront
38 THATâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;S WHY
property it is situated on was purchased by Dr. Edith Farnsworth who met Mies during a dinner party in 1945. Centering the design on the relationship with nature, Mies and Farnsworth decided the new house would be constructed in the flood plains of the Fox River, where the architect knew it would be in danger of flooding. The new construction was thusly designed that it was raised 1,6 meters above ground level, so floodwaters would simply pass underneath it. The house became a prime example of the new International Style. Unfortunately, despite its elevated ground level, the water entered the house on at least three occasions, leaving the interior devastated. The wardrobe that was designed by Mies was so badly damaged that it had to be completely reconstructed. This was such a costly activity that eventually it was decided not to put it back into the house, but to build a new shelter for the wardrobe near the visitor center. Students jokingly call the new shelter the â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;Barnsworth Houseâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;.
not also part of the Farnsworth House and worth preserving? Definitely not, decided the review panel.
Final plans
Three proposals The flooding problem was addressed by the Farnsworth House Flood Mitigation Project, a beautifully complex name for an equally complex issue. The National Preservation Trust convened a technical advisory review panel to examine nine different options to help preserve Farnsworth in the event of future flooding. Eventually, three options were deemed the most desirable. As described by the National Preservation Trust: “Option A elevates the house and re-grades the landscape such that the house will be in its original location but above the flood levels. The work will involve exposing the existing foundations, temporarily jacking the entire structure so that the foundations can be demolished, and temporarily relocating the house off of its current footprint so the site can be re-graded. Nine additional feet of fill would be added to the site [...] and the house would be placed on top of these new foundations.”
relocated to a portion of site already elevated above the hazardous flood levels. The major disadvantage of this option is that the house would need to be relocated to the far north edge of the site. Relocating the house to a portion of land at high ground completely disassociates the house from the Fox River.” “Option C integrates a hydraulic system into the building’s foundation so that in the event of a flood, the house can be mechanically lifted above the flood lines and lowered to its original elevation once the flood recedes.” After publishing these proposals on their website, admirers of the Farnsworth House added two ideas to the shortlist. One idea consisted of constructing a floating concrete foundation under the house, so in case of flooding the house would simply float atop the water. This way the building can still sit on its original location and the intervention would be less costly, construction-wise and in maintenance. The second idea was to leave the house as it is, and let nature have its way. The argument was that the architect was incapable of protecting the house and destruction by means of flooding was its only logical fate. Is its inevitable demise
Recently the final decision was made. Option C is the most viable and will preserve the characteristics most successfully. Final plans are made at the moment, and they will probably be released the coming winter. There have been some delays however and the National Preservation Trust is rather cryptic when it comes to the progress of the flood mitigation plans. Personally, I keep a positive attitude towards the initiative and I am quite certain we will be able to enjoy the wonders of the Farnsworth House for long times to come.
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Images: 1. Furniture stacked atop crates (source: Farnsworthproject.org) 2. Farnsworth House flooded (Vincemicheal.wordpress.com)
Sources: 1. Robert Silman Associated. “Flood Mitigation Options for the Farnsworth House”. April 18, 2014. Farnsworthproject.org 2. National Preservation Trust. “Farnsworth House - Flood Mitigation Project”. October 16, 2016. Farnsworthproject.org. 3. Illinois Institute of Technology. “Barnworth Exhibition Center”. October 16, 2016. Barnsworthstudio.org.
“Option B will involve exposing and removing the existing foundations and temporarily jacking and relocating the entire structure. The house will still need to be lifted and transported off its current spot, but it would be
THAT’S WHY 39
You still have much to learn. A plea for internships Text: Rick Abelen 08:00h. I am on my way to my internship at an architectural firm. 08:30h. Pen, sketch paper, AutoCAD, tea and motivation ready. This semester I am doing an internship at an architectural firm, so student life is over, just for a while. 11:00h. Flashback to the first question during the job interview: “What can you offer the office?” Answer: “200% motivation”. Second question: “How many days a week are you available?” Answer: “How many days is common?” – “Six days”. A joke. The stage is set; I am excited. Without initially expecting it, by doing an internship you start on a major addition to your curriculum. A period of ‘real’ projects and a peek at future life. After obtaining my Bachelors degree, I assumed that I had developed a nice base of knowledge and design techniques. To some extent this is true, but what is this knowledge really worth? At first not much, it seems. The first week consists of exploring, assessing my level of thinking and drawing techniques. What am I capable off? What may be expected of me? Actually nothing, but they still have certain expectations. After all, the firm is entirely responsible for my activities within its office. The weeks following were like a river that constantly accelerates. One project, two projects, three projects. Sketching, making models, looking for references, doing research and setting the table for lunch. After three weeks, I look back with a feeling of satisfaction at the work that I have carried out. The logbook transforms into a nice list of activities. Excellent. As the weeks progress, I gain more insight into the daily routine. Being part of an architectural firm is a treat and differs from doing projects at university. Collaboration within the university is reviewed with a socalled professional skill as insufficient, sufficient or good. But what does these marks mean? Almost nothing. One of the main differences between educational projects and real projects is in my opinion, based on my observations, related to the intensity of collaboration. Working together within an architectural firm means collaborating from 08:30-18:00h, five days a week, every week. However, there are more differences between education and practice. For example, the amount of time you are ‘really’ spending on designing. Education means to follow a
40 THAT’S WHY
combination of projects and course related lectures. A combination which does not seem to be in balance. The time we are designing is relatively short and the focus seems to be on theory. As a result of this, university students do not experience the dynamic of practice, unlike college students, who gain more practical experience within their curriculum. We as
Being part of an architectural firm is a treat. university students spend a lot of time behind a laptop, not necessarily really working together. After all, you can communicate digitally, they say. Back to the daily routine. Today, creating an urban model is on the schedule. Houses, houses and more houses. They seem to be the same, but are all slightly different. That’s too bad. As the day progresses, the white-foambottom-plate slowly fills itself with houses. Existing buildings are made with green foam, new buildings with blue foam. There is also a church within the project area. Does this church belong to the existing- or new buildings? Existing buildings, so green. Version 1 is not exact enough; version 2 seems to be fine. The church can be added to the landscape of green and blue foam cubes with caps. Wait. The church is actually also part of the design, so the church is supposed to be blue. Version 3; the model is finished, for now. Apart from participating in design projects within the office, I am working on a research project for the office. A research project which runs as a common thread through the semester. The combination of a research project and participating in ongoing projects is a nice given. Together they form a dynamic and variate entirety. Week 8. The semester is halfway over, a good time to take stock. The suspicion that I had during the last few years, regarding the profession, seems partially accurate. Practice is different from education. Education is a utopia, where all your creativity can be unleashed
unlimitedly. Practice, however, is not a utopia. For me this is neither good nor bad, but practice still holds consistency and passion. On the one hand, design is both structured and pragmatic. On the other hand, design is dynamic and partially unpredictable, which gives me energy, every single day. Beforehand, you can never predict how the week is going to evolve. It remains exciting, for days, weeks, months. 150 green houses and still going. Not blue. Adjustments. The design is presented to the client and enthusiastically received: “Yes!”. But, there is always a but, adjustments are necessary. During the weeks that come after the presentation, the design has been partially adapted to the wishes of the client. The model, of course, cannot stay behind. New houses are born, old houses disappear. The church has not been left untouched. Version 4 is a fact. The design has grown, the design has improved. At least, that is my opinion.
Practice is not a utopia. The design is again presented to the client. Practice is money, a building code, a review committee. It is a client and your colleagues. Practice is 24 hours for a task. Practice is carrying through. Practice is consistency and dedication. An internship is not mandatory within the architecture program, nor is it part of the curriculum. Students do not always choose to do an internship which is regrettable, since it is an excellent opportunity to gain practical experience. An internship will let you think about, and look to, practice in a different way. 08:00h. I am on my way to my internship. 08:30h. Pen, sketch paper, AutoCAD, tea and motivation ready. Student life will soon commence again. By then I will have done an internship at an architectural firm. It was a treat.
Images: 1. Workplace (photo: Rick Abelen) 1
THATâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;S WHY 41
In every Chepos an article is published from the Pantheon// and vice versa. Pantheon// is the magazine of Stylos, Study Association of the Built Environment, Delft. This article discusses light in architecture.
Let there be light Architecture has the capacity to lift, captivate or even depress you. Have you ever entered a room and, in a fraction of a second, wondered why you had this certain feeling? We perceive atmospheres through our emotional sensibilities and light and shadow can affect our mood, behaviour and wellbeing in incredible ways. The human eye perceives form, texture, materials, colour and rhythm through the reflection and incidence of light and in that way acquires information about the ambiance in a given place. Visual impressions are interpreted in our brains and put in context to create emotions, move us to take particular actions and stimulate our senses. Text: Inés Hemmings The art of lighting in architecture came into existence many thousands of years ago and has always served one purpose: to lift the human being and to enlighten him. Light design was always about how architecture would make someone feel. Light meant life, which is the reason for its many spiritual associations today. Louis Kahn described light as a giver of all presences, because everything we see, the mountains, all materials in nature, air – and we – are made of light, which has been spent. His archetypal forms go back to Greek architecture which taught him ‘that the column is where the light is not, and the space between
42 STYLOS
is where the light is. It is a matter of no-light, light, no-light, light. A plan of a building should be read like a harmony of spaces in light. Even a space intended to be dark should have just enough light from some mysterious opening to tell us how dark it really is.’ He encouraged young architects to read a plan as a pattern of light that is intertwined with the ‘DNA’ of the building. In today’s architecture, light is often an afterthought, and sometimes even considered as an isolated aspect of the actual design. In my past five years of architectural education and countless tutoring, the focus was always on space allocation plans, functions and technical details, finalised within a neat PowePoint presentation or poster. I do not recall a single moment when I was encouraged to design with light and shadow. Just like a piece of music, I think that architecture should still strive to move us and trigger a certain feeling. Atmosphere – an embodied experience in which all senses are simultaneously at work. It may take years of work experience and expertise to develop this sensibility for atmosphere – though we can start today by training our compassion towards others, becoming conscious of ourselves and on the way, perhaps, even entering the path of enlightenment.
3x1 TEXT: EVA PABON
Light Festivals Amsterdam Light Festival If you cannot get enough of light festivals, you do not have to be concerned. GLOW has just ended and another one is just around the corner. Amsterdam’s light festival has a route along the canals that lasts from the start of December to the end of January and for one month there will also be a route through the city. The theme for the water route ‘Water Colors’ is ‘A view on Amsterdam’, the city route ‘Illuminade’ is themed ‘Biomimicry’. An international jury chose the contributions for this year, as well as a children’s jury. source: Amsterdamlightfestival.com | photo: Janus van den Eijnden
Fête des Lumières Since 1852 the people of Lyon have had the tradition to light their homes on the 8th of December, in honor of the Virgin Mary. From 1889 onwards, this Catholic procession became a real festival that was celebrated yearly. Over these years, the candles have been replaced by dynamic works of art. Usually, nearly four million people visit the city during these days. However, because of the attacks in Paris, the festival is smaller this year, and more secured. The festival can also be enjoyed by boat. source: Fetedeslumieres.lyon.fr | photo: Toutpourlesfemmes.com
Lux Helsinki At the end of your European Light Festival tour, you can visit Lux in Finland. Between the fifth and ninth of January, the city will display Finnish artwork. Last year, nearly half a million people visited the festival, even though part of the festival was held in temperatures of less than 25 degrees below freezing. According to last year’s artistic director Ilkka Paloniemi “people badly need light during the polar night”. Perhaps the cold weather helped the festival’s success. The festival is supported by a program of workshops, discussions and seminars. source: Luxhelsinki.fi | photo: 123rf.com
TOOLS 43
Let’s play! Although it is important to concentrate and work efficiently, as shown in the tools of Chepos 54, it is also essential to unwind after a day of hard work. Shut down your computer, get together with some friends and relax. These games are perfect for students of the built environment! Text: Renée Thierij
Build Me (2-4 players, 30-40 minutes) Cinqpoints is a French company that manufactures several architectural games, mainly in sleek black and white designs. Build Me will challenge you to construct your own building with only sixteen pieces. The kind of building you want to construct is up to you! Of course you all want to finish first and be the best architect, but remember: the construction phase is key. The game does not require any architectural know-how and can therefore be played with your built environment friends as well as with other friends or family.
Modern Architecture Game (2-6 players, 60 minutes) Developed by Next Architects, this trivia board game will test your architectural knowledge and that’s why it can be played best with your architecture friends. The game pins are famous buildings and when wearing Le Corbusier’s glasses, you are the game master! By giving the right answer to questions in different categories (visuals, architect, project, style, influence and quote) you will reach the heart of the board and can call yourself the best architect of the game!
Cards Against Urbanity (4-30 players, 30 minutes) This one is tailor-made for the urbanists among us. The game works the same as Cards Against Humanity, but instead is designed to make people more familiar with urban planning. The game deck consists of question and answer cards, the player with the most appealing answer wins. It’s just like how real urban planning happens! Cards Against Urbanity can be downloaded for free at Greaterplaces.com
1 2
Images: 1. Cinqpoints - Build Me (source: Cinqpoints.com) 2. Modern Architecture game (source: Shopmies.com) 3. Cards Against Urbanity (source: Arlnow.com)
3 Sources: 1. “Build Me”. Cinqpoints.com 2. “Modern Architecture Game”. Nextarchitects.com 3. “Cards Against Urbanity: the card game for horrible place”. Kickstarter.com
TOOLS 45
Dec 09
Feb 10 - Feb 11
Het Vastgoedsymposium is a partnership between real estate associations FRESH, BOSS and Service. 200 students will gather to discuss an actual problem in the world of real estate. This year the theme will be ethics in the world of real estate. Rapid succession of innovations in the built environment will be discussed from the ethical point of view. Hetvastgoedsymposium.nl | Zuidas, Amsterdam
The 24UP is a 24 hours lasting design contest of which the location and the assignment are a secret. It is a very eventful and dynamic design process in which one is able to fully use their own skills in their group process. It is a contest open for every student of the faculty of the Built Environment. 24up.nl | Secret!
Dec 12
Oct 08 - Feb 19
Do you want to party like a true Egyptian on the 31st dies natalis of CHEOPS? Come to the faculty party called Divina Dies. The party committee will do everything to make you go Egyptian-style crazy. Do you have what it takes to party like an Egyptian? Cheops.cc | Cafe Thomas, Stratum
Rotterdam was an important place for the avant-garde of architecture. In Huis Sonneveld, the film Wie wohnen wir gesund und wirtschaftlich? is shown. This is a film about the poor living conditions in big cities and the ideas of Modernism on this matter. Huissonneveld.nl | Huis Sonneveld, Rotterdam
Jan 17 - 20
Feb 20
This event is recommended for the structural engineer with an interest in the civil engineering sector. With 20.000 visitors, the event is one of the most important about infrastructure in the Netherlands. InfraTech is gathering every aspect of this dynamic sector under one roof. This was also the inspiration for their theme clever connecting. Infratech.nl | Ahoy, Rotterdam
The central theme of the upcoming CHEOPSx is SMART. Subjects such as façades that adapt to its users will be discussed. Also smart cities and the ethics of privacy will be evaluated. The location will be revealed soon. Cheops.cc/Cheopsx | Klokgebouw, Strijp-s
Feb 06 - Feb 10
Sep 10 - Feb 26
The BouwBeurs is an event for every sector in the built environment. With themes like Building tomorrow and Biobased building the BouwBeurs emphasizes this. Approximately 550 companies with an interest in the built environment are present at this event, again proving the wide variety in the sector. Bouwbeurs.nl | Jaarbeurs, Utrecht
Who does not know any Gispen design? The Boijmans van Beuningen Museum has over fifty products designed by Willem Hendrik Gispen. As stated by The Boijmans museum: “The specials show the quality and flexibility of the company that made Dutch design world famous.” Boijmans.nl | Boijmans van Beuningen Museum, Rotterdam
Het Vastgoedsymposium 2016
Faculty party/CHEOPS dies
InfraTech 2017
BouwBeurs
24UP
Simultanitat der Moderne
CHEOPSx
Gispen Specials - De klant is koning
Agenda CHEOPS & Built Environment 46 AGENDA
The Makoko Floating School at the Venice Biennale of 2016. Photo by Frederike Zielman. The photo theme for next issue is winter. Submit a photo for Chepos 56 before February 21st, 2017.
Colophon CHEOPS, Study Association of the Built Environment: Eindhoven University of Technology • Groene loper 6 Vertigo 1.15 • Mailbox 513 • 5600 MB Eindhoven • T: 040-2473140 • info@cheops.cc • www.cheops.cc Chepos editorial board: Rick Abelen, Justin Agyin (editor in chief), Lennart Arpots (final editor), Rik de Bondt, Ilke Broers, Miguel Gallego, Lars Hogenboom, Sven van der Hulst, Daan Kropman, Eva Pabon (chairman), Jeroen Pospiech, Renée Thierij, Bas Turk, Mats Rekswinkel, Tafara Simon Chepos is a publication of CHEOPS, Study Association of the Built Environment. Content may
be used for research and study purposes, if credited properly. Exeptions include copyrighted imagery; these may not be reproduced or published without specific consent by the original author. Collaborations: Study Associations Stylos, Adriaan Jurriëns, Wouter Loomans, Noor Mens, Jacob Voorthuis Acknowledgements: René Bleeker, Merel Brabers, Arnold Sikkel Images: Cover illustration: Hospital Chaos (artwork: Lennart Arpots) • Editorial page 1: Erasmus MC (photo: Lennart Arpots) • Index page 2-3: Erasmus MC (photo: Lennart Arpots), Voorlinden (photo:
Bas Turk), DDW (photo: Renée Thierij), Farnsworth house (photo: Lennart Arpots), Biennale di Venezia (photo: Justin Agyin), The Hague Central (photo: Ilke Broers) • Editours page 8-9: Silodam (source: www.archdaily.com) • Column Adriaan Jurriëns page 17 (photo: Daan Kropman) • Spread image page 20-21 (source: www.skanska.co.uk) • Column Jacob Voorthuis page 32-33 (photo: Tori Shepherd) • Agenda page 44 (sources: www.tim-tom.nl & www.huissonneveld.nl) • All other images are by the authors unless noted otherwise. Offset: Drukkerij Snep BV, Eindhoven, circulation: 1200
Chepos, built environment magazine: ISSN: 1873-183X • chepos@cheops.cc www.chepos.nl • www.fb.com/CheposPage • www. issuu.com/chepos_cheops Advertisements & exploitation: Daan Kropman: pr@cheops.cc Co-Main Sponsor Chepos: Saint-Gobain Want to be an editor? Want to share your opinion? Submit your photo for the next colophon? Contact the editorial board via chepos@cheops.cc
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