Chepos 56

CHEPOS built environment magazine

PLASTICS

VIRTUE | UTRECHT CU2030 | THE BUNKER | ARCHITECTURE WEBSITES

56

MAR. 2017

Rethinking

living place Saint-Gobain designs, manufactures and distributes materials and solutions which are key ingredients in the wellbeing of each of us and the future of all.

Yeo Guo Hao / Getty EyeEm

They can be found everywhere in our living places and our daily life: in buildings, transportation, infrastructure and in many industrial applications.

They provide comfort, performance and safety while addressing the challenges of sustainable construction, resource efficiency and climate change.

CHEPOS built environment magazine

“Life in plastic, it’s fantastic.”

No matter how enthusiastically Aqua sang about it in their 90s guilty-pleasure hit ‘Barbie Girl’, not everybody shares this opinion. Plastic has a negative image, but it is debatable if this is correct. Next to the mental image of the ‘plastic soup’, the growing plastic waste patch in the Pacific Ocean, people also think of plastic as hard, cold and even cheap. As you will see in this issue of the Chepos, plastic is much more than this. It has some great qualities, some of which common materials do not have.

Plastic is first and foremost the perfect material for every shape and form one could imagine.

The name refers to its plasticity during manufacturing, which allows them to be made into a variety of shapes. Although most people know the versatility of plastic, it is not very common as a building material. We see it being used in things such as window frames, but the architectural appearance of most buildings is generally determined by materials such as brick, wood, glass and steel. Not plastics.

Fortunately, some architects have already tried their hand at this new way of designing buildings. And they have made some great examples which showcase the possibilities of plastic. One of them is the Sedus Stoll AG research center in Dogern, Germany, by ludloff + ludloff Architekten. The textile skin on this white monolith is a major design feature. The glass fiber textile is translucent, which gives it a different look during the day and night. The varying degrees of transparency ensure the building has an appearance ranging from solid to dissolving.

In this Chepos, we take a look at what plastics can mean for the built environment. We looked at what plastics are, why we should choose them and how they are already utilized.

We also took the human aspect into account, which can be seen in the article ‘People & Plastic?!’. Jacob Voorthuis also sheds his light

on what we as people have in common with plastic: “If anything, plastic is ample proof that man is part of the natural world.”

Besides the input from our editorial board, we also asked for input about plastics from professionals. ‘Building with sugar and starch’ showcases an even different approach to plastics; how bio-based materials can replace our now common plastic made from oil.

We also asked for input from you, our readers, through a contest about what you think the future would look like if plastic is the building material. Wouter Loomans shares his idea about this subject in ‘Prosperity of the plastic city’.

The File about Plastics is surrounded by many other interesting articles. Some of these articles are close to home, such as ‘Team VIRTUe’ about their journey to the Solar Decathlon Middle East, ‘Improving Maaskant’ about the Bunker and ‘Hidden treasures of the faculty’ about unknown spots in our own Vertigo.

This issue of the Chepos is my first outing as Editor-in-Chief. On behalf of the editorial board, I hope you will enjoy it as much as we did making it. Have a good read!

Ilke Broers Editor-in-Chief

EDITORIAL 1

16 NOW NL NEWS CHEPOST IMPROVING MAASKANT

looking for monumentality in the Bunker TEAM VIRTUE CONNECTED: CU 2030

Utrecht’s plan to reshape its core 3X1 ARCHITECTURE PHOTOGRAPHY

2 INDEX

FILE: PLASTICS 4 6 7 10 12 15

WHY PLASTICS? PLASTICS FOR DUMMIES ESTHETICS OF IMPERMANENCE BUILDING WITH SUGAR AND STARCH

an introduction into bio-based plastics PROSPERITY OF THE PLASTIC CITY PEOPLE & PLASTIC?!

COLUMN ADRIAAN JURRIËNS COLUMN JACOB VOORTHUIS

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36 THAT’S WHY CLIMBING THE ALPS INDOORS NET OP ZEE PUBLIC SKYLINE WHAT IS THE DEAL WITH ARCHITECTURE WEBSITES?!

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TOOLS 32 34 36 38

STYLOS DELFT 40 BRING YOUR DESIGN TO LIFE 41

moving imagery in presentations HIDDEN TREASURES OF THE FACULTY 42 AGENDA 44

INDEX 3

Energy neutral highway The starting signal for the realization of the first energy neutral highway was given by minister Schultz van Haegen. The A6, between Almere Havendreef and Almere Buiten-Oost, will widened to four lanes over a length of thirteen kilometers. Minister Schultz: “The highway in Almere is the first, but will not be the last energy neutral civil project. In 2030, all the roads, bridges and tunnels need to be self sufficient when it comes to energy.” Parkway6 for example, contractor of the project, creates between 4000 and 10.000 solar panels.

Text: Lars Hogenboom and Bas Turk

Presentation masterplan Sluisbuurt The Zeeburgereiland came to existance during the 20th century when it was reclaimed from the IJ with sediments from the river and the harbor of Amsterdam. The skyrocketing housing prices in the capital’s city center and the favorable location of the island formed the incentive for large housing projects. From Zeeburgereiland, it is only a 15 minute ride to the Damrak in the heart of the city, if you ignore traffic jams and the headaches caused by the high parking costs.

The masterplan for the Sluisbuurt, one of the new neighborhoods on the island which will accommodate 3500 to 5500 new houses, will likely be presented this month by the municipality. The plan for the Sluisbuurt transforms the north side of the island from barren nothingness to a Manhattan-like skyline, with six high-rise buildings ranging between 80 and 143 meters. The tall towers allow space for green parks, plazas and playgrounds, while still meeting the demanded housing density. The use of space is further optimized by placing parking spaces for residents underground, and by prioritizing public transport and cycling over motorist traffic. Furthermore, the towers won’t cause visual pollution since they won’t be visible from the city center.

The construction of the first houses is scheduled for next year and the development of the whole neighborhood will take up 10 years.

Up:town Rotterdam Up:town Rotterdam is being realized at this moment. After the development of the design halted due to the financial cricis, it started again in 2015. At last, developer Stebru started the construction on the February 15th this year. The tower will become 107 meters tall and houses 175 apartments. Almost all of the apartments are bought by Bouwinvest to be rented, and only 24 apartments are for sale individually. Besides apartments, the tower will also have several floors with commercial space and parking facilities.

The building is located on the Wijnhaveneiland, at the Jufferstraat.

Since the 1980s, Rotterdam is trying to give the Wijhaveneiland an upgrade. The orgininal factories and companies located on the island are moved out of the city center and the municipality tries to make the place more attractive as a residential area. They have done so with similar towers in the past, like the Harbour Village (2003), Waterstadtoren (2004), the Scheepmakerstoren (2008), the Red Apple (2009) and 100Hoog (2013).

All the apartments, except for one, are already sold out. The penthouse is still for sale. For the interested readers among you, it is for sale at the price of 2,3 million euro. A steal if you look at its size of 412 square meters.

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Art depot Boijmans van Beuningen This month, the construction of the new art depot for the Boijmans van Beuningen museum starts in Museumpark, Rotterdam. The building will be open to the public, which makes the collection of 70.000 art pieces the first in the world that is entirely accessible.

At the moment, this is only 8% of the collection. Visitors can also experience live restorations and packaging of pieces for transportation.

Architects companies ABT and MVRDV have examined the optimal technical form for the 15.000 m2 depot which resulted in a 39 meter high building with a circular floor plan. The façade will be cladded with a reflective material, which largely contradicts the masonry in the design of the museum itself by architect Ad van der Steur.

Due to the façade, the building becomes one with its surroundings and literally reflects upon it. The design also encountered criticism from residents, one of which was the Erasmus MC, who are afraid that the reflective façade will cause light trespass. To mediate, the architects agreed to make parts of the façade non-reflective.

The completion of the building is scheduled for 2018. The museum expects to welcome the first visitors in the depot a year later.

Mall of the Netherlands The title ‘Mall of the Netherlands’ perfectly symbolizes the high ambitions for the renovation and expansion of shopping mall Leidsenhage in Leidschendam (ZH). The project, which will be completed in 2019, transforms the current mall into the largest and most innovative mall in the country. The 116.000 m2 large commercial center is designed by Roberto Meyer from MVSA Architects and will, among other things, house a cinema with 10 screens, two layers of underground parking space and 20 restaurants. Meyer’s design, inspired by a scarf that elegantly wraps around your neck, gathers all these different functions.

MVSA also designed the new football stadium for Feyenoord, called superKuip, and the central station in Rotterdam.

One of the largest problems that has yet to be tackled is the temporary accommodation of the current shops in the mall during the renovation.

Nevertheless, it is not the first time that Unibail Rodamco, the owner of the mall, has ventured itself to such a project. The French-Dutch retail company owns 71 shopping centers throughout Europe, out of which 56 receive more than 6 million visits per year, also with catchy names such as the mall of Scandinavia (Stockholm). The investors make 470 million euro available for the transformation and hope that it will lead to an increase of 5 million customers to 12 to 14 million a year.

Boerenweteringgarage Amsterdam At the end of this year, the construction of a parking garage close to the Museumplein in Amsterdam will be finished. You might wonder: where are they placing it? There is almost no space next to the square. However, the municipality came up with a smart solution to put the garage underneath the canal in the Ruysdaelkade. The success of the process will depend on the smooth cooperation of all parties involved, from subconstractors with expertise in infrastructure and steel foundations to diving company DCN Diving. The garage will accommodate parking space for 600 cars and 60 bikes.

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Images: 1. Sceme for energy neutral A6 (source: AutoRAI.nl) 2. Rendering of de Sluisbuurt (source: Parool.nl) 3. Rendering of Up:town Rotterdam (source: Overhd.nl) 4. rendering of art depot Boijmans van Beuningen (source: Collectiegebouw.boijmans.nl) 5. rendering Mall of the Netherlands (source: Retailwatching.nl) 6. rendering Boerenweteringgarage (source: Amsterdam.nl)

Sources: 1. Energy neutral highway. ‘‘A6 Almere: een energieneutrale snelweg’’. Rijkswaterstaat.nl 2. Presentation masterplan Sluisbuurt. ‘‘Sluisbuurt op Zeeburgereiland: 5.500 nieuwe woningen’’.

Amsterdam.nl 3. Up:town Rotterdam. ‘‘Uptown Rotterdam bouw gestart’’. Nieuws.top010.nl 4. Art depot Boijmans van Beuningen. ‘‘Het Collectiegebouw: de schatkamer van Rotterdam’’. Collectiegebouw.boijmans.nl 5. Mall of the Netherlands. Mallofthenetherlands. com 6. Mall of the Netherlands. ‘‘wat kunnen we verwachten?’’. retailwatching.nl 7. Boerenweteringgarage Amsterdam. ‘‘Boerenweteringgarage: minder parkeeroverlast, meer ruimte’’. amsterdam. nl 8. Boerenweteringgarage Amsterdam. ABT.eu

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ChePOST JOOST KATOEN 2ND YEAR MASTER STUDENT ARCHITECTURE 23 YEARS OLD

Tenders For half a year, I worked as a fulltime intern at diederendirrix architecture and urbanism, the office of Paul Diederen en Bert Dirrix. As a member of the diederendirrix design team I experienced the importance of tenders for the office: I spent more than half of my time at the office on designing for tenders. I started wondering myself: ‘Why do offices spend so much time and creativities as well as money, into designing something, that in most of the cases will never become anything more than a render image or a conceptual sketch?’

In the Netherlands we know various types of tenders. In the field of architecture, we see three main types of tenders: 1. Public tenders, a design competition that are open for any party to participate; 2. Restricted tenders, these are open for any party to register, a selection (of at least 5) of the registered parties will then be invited to participate; 3. Private tenders, which are only accessible for pre-selected participants.

Tenders offer architectural offices the great opportunity to have shot at obtaining large projects, which in some cases would normally lie beyond their reach, to extend their portfolio. In most of the restricted and private tenders, the participating parties often receive a fee to cover their costs. Now you might think that participating in tenders is very interesting for architectural offices: getting paid while having the chance to be awarded with gaining the assignment for a large design project.

For years now there is a debate going on about the tender system for public projects.

According to many architects the fees are low and the design requirements too high, which results into a system in which architects, both participants and competition winners, make financial losses. Architects and their employees need to work under high pressure and often work overtime in order to deliver cheap but ambitious designs. Moreover, the tender system often requires that participating offices need to have a recent portfolio of relevant recent projects, so offices are forced to keep participating in order to keep obtaining and completing new projects, and new offices have no chance at all to register for tenders.

But, I am not only writing this story to continue this debate about the righteousness of this system; I would also like to address something else. Architects and designers put significant amounts of their time and creativity into their submissions for tenders and competitions, but as there can only be one winner, or a few winners in larger competitions, most of the submissions will never make it any further then being a render or conceptual sketch. Why do we make the architectural industry waste so much of its creativity and productivity?

The tender system is based upon the idea of a free market, in which supply and demand allow the demanding parties to get the best design offer for the lowest price. But is architecture an industry which is suited for such a system? Of course, we all do the same job, creating a building or designing a new part of our cities, but nevertheless architects will never offer the same product. The majority of the architectural assignments are unique, with its

own scale, function, users, and context. So, we are not just demanding the architects to provide us with a generic product having the best value for money, but we ask them to develop a unique product for a unique situation, over and over again. For each tender multiple design teams from different offices work on a solution for the same assignment, but the problem is: the assignment has unlimited amounts of solutions. The architect’s creativity and ingenuity is under great pressure, and large amount of nearly finished designs are discarded.

Another result of the tender system is that product is becoming increasingly more important than process. The architect is not the one who is deciding about the final design anymore, this decision is made by investors, developers and governments. This could result into a process in which the architect might not only envision the needs and requirements of the end user, but also needs to take the expectations and requirements of the decision makers into account.

I question whether, in this system, the architect is still creating the best design, or is creating what he thinks will get the closest to the ideas of the decision makers. Is the architect still the one that is responsible for the architecture of our cities, or is this responsibility shifting towards the new decision makers? Is this system the most efficient way to deal with architectural assignments? And is it sustainable to deal with architectural designs in this way?

I question: “Is the current tender system the right way to shape our built environment?”

Have something you need to share? Send an email to chepos@cheops.cc and your article might get published!

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The Bunker is turning fifty this year. Many consider it to be a hideous monster, but does it have the potential of becoming a new focal point for Eindhoven? Text: Lennart Arpots Throughout his career, Hugh Maaskant (1907-1977) became increasingly interested in the issue of monumentality. As he wrote in a 1956 review about the Dr. Neher Laboratory

by Samuel van Embden: “Every era has its monuments. Medieval times had castles, Gothic architecture had cathedrals and the Renaissance had palaces. These are buildings that show the spirit of the age the strongest.

Sometimes I wonder in what buildings coming generations will recognize us. What will our monuments be: our garden cities, our factories, our schools and retirement homes?” Maaskant has always designed buildings that have a strong monumental presence. That is what he was famed for; in the same year the Bunker opened, Maaskant was awarded second place in a competition for ‘best designer in the country’, right after fellow modernist Jaap Bakema.

His reputation shifted in the early 1970s, when Structuralism became popular. It was the time when Hertzberger could rise to fame and Van Eyck was popular. They were both architects involved with designing woonerven and such.

Maaskant, of course, was not interested in woonerven. He did not like the architecture of Structuralism that was so popular in the 1970s, but he did like the architecture that distinguished itself from it.

Improving Maaskant

Looking for monumentality in the Bunker

Maaskant developed an outspoken design language. His buildings were interpreted by foreigners as typical for Dutch Modernism, while they may seem un-Dutch to us. Not because of the Brutalist architecture, but because they are buildings with a strong, autonomous ego. We do not have that kind of buildings in our country, historically speaking, with our main contributions to architecture history firmly rooted in housing. Architects from the Modernist period who did not conform to this Dutch tradition, like Oud and Maaskant, have always remained peripheral. They were substantial, but peripheral. Together with his tall stature and down-to-earth way of communicating, this gave Maaskant the reputation of a blowhard. Some of his designs, for example the Provinciehuis, were even described as fascist because of their masculine character.

When the task of designing a new university campus in Eindhoven fell upon Van Embden and Choisy, they had complete freedom to exercise their Modernist ideas from concept all the way to detail. Nevertheless, they excluded two important buildings from their design.

The sporting facilities, which were moved to the periphery of the lot, and the student meeting center, which is not even located on the campus. Apparently the choice was made to not consider them as integral parts of the campus, but as separate entities. This makes sense, regarding the fact that they are not part

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of the primary process of education. The consequence was that funding was left unfilled.

This made the position of the real estate quite different from that of the primary university buildings that were financed by the Ministry of Education. It also involved a different choice of architect. The tasks were given to architects that fitted the Modernist framework of the new campus. The sports center was given to Rietveld and the student meeting center was given to an architect that already showed he had the capacity of making something monumental. Evidently this was Hugh Maaskant.

There are not many architects who dared to make a building that emerges like a boulder rather than an elegant structure of columns and glass. The Bunker has a clear sculptural presence, which is typical for Maaskant. But despite the Bunker’s massive, Brutalist and wayward shape, clearly this building has willynilly become an isolated object. It could have become an intermezzo between the university campus and the city, but it has not. It has become increasingly secluded, sitting on its little island, cut off by important infrastructure, flanked by indifferent architecture. That way the Bunker could not engage any meaningful relation to its surroundings, rendering it an odd body in the environment, a stand-alone object.

Nobody is bothered by it, but it isn’t prominent either. It is just a building, and one can only view it as a building. A building on its own.

This situation does not nearly do justice to the monumental potential that it could have.

A building that emerges like a boulder The Van Abbe Foundation, which is interested in protecting Eindhoven’s cultural heritage, was very constructive in the discussions about the Bunker even though they had every right to be suspicious. This is underlined by their letter to the mayor in 2014, when it became clear that the tenants were ordered to leave the building by 2015, while there was no plan for the building yet. “There are no plans for the building and a potential selling of the Bunker is not likely to happen, which poses demolition as a real threat. Demolition would again cause irreparable harm to the reconstruction heritage of our city.” The ‘again’ in this case could possibly refer to the then recent decisions to demolish the Rabobank by Leo de Bever, as well as the Post Office by Gijsbert Friedhoff.

Professor Bernard Colenbrander, who researched the Bunker’s cultural and historical significance and is involved in the process of transformation, was also suspicious at first, but when he realized that the building could be improved, he learned to inspect the building as an architectural exercise rather than as a piece of heritage.

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Colenbrander does not consider it to be one of Maaskant’s best works. “At first I thought: ‘how strange that it wasn’t mentioned in Maaskant’s monography’ and ‘how strange that it’s not a listed monument’. But when you compare it to the Provinciehuis or to JohnsonWax, then the Bunker is a design containing a certain unfinishedness. It’s a flat cake. The design is just too flat to be a sculpture if you ask me. It’s not quite finished yet. And when I accepted the fact that I don’t quite consider it to be a true part of Maaskant’s oeuvre, which is usually homogenous and complete, I realized that this directly poses the design challenge we are facing. To improve Maaskant. Not necessarily to keep Maaskant intact at whatever cost, something I would seriously consider had it been the Provinciehuis, but to improve him.

This building is currently lost in its context, and it does not do justice to the design. That is why I wasn’t reluctant to embellish it to something much grander.”

It’s a flat cake; it is not quite finished yet This is the position that the architect of the transformation, Powerhouse Company, took as a starting position. Powerhouse Company builds upon the work that Maaskant has already done; the addition will be a continuation of the existing building. And it is quite an addition. A tower will rise from Maaskant’s Bunker to a height of 100 meters. Colenbrander: “I’m not quite certain that we will make it until the very end. The building should actually be taller than the municipality allows. 70 Meters is allowed, but when you look at that violent repertoire of Maaskant, just let the building be the way it should be. That building should be 100 meters tall. An articulated pinnacle in the image of the city. Only then will it hopefully start to relate to the other tall towers that are dotted around Eindhoven, and it may finally leave its little island. That has to happen esthetically, but also through the presence of the building in the skyline.”

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Images: 1. Concrete chimney on the North side of the Bunker. 2. Concrete-cast staircase with matching railing. 2. Diagonals are very much present in the Bunker’s design. 4. The Bunker emerges like a boulder, rather than an elegant structure of columns and glass.

5. Plastic, bulging porthole windows, as well as concrete articulation in perpendicular directions.

Sources: 1. Interview with Prof. Dr. Bernard Colenbrander on February 16th, 2017. 2. “Architectuur in Zuidoost Brabant”. 1989.

G.A. Bekaert, H.H.L.M. Dirrix, G.A.C. van Zeijl. 3. “Hugh Maaskant : Architect van de vooruitgang”. 2003. M. Provoost. 4. “Aan het College van Burgemeesters en Wethouders”. December 8, 2014.

P.M.J. van den Baar, R.J.L. van de Leur, Henri van Abbestichting. Eindhoven.notudoc.nl. 5. “Cultuurhistorische Verkenning : Studentencentrum de Bunker”. March 2012. Prof. Dr. Bernard Colenbrander, K. Hombrink.

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Team VIRTUe started off as an extra-curricular program besides the bachelor at the faculty of Built Environment of the Eindhoven University of Technology. At first, it was an honors program, initiated by a few. Nowadays it has outgrown the label of being just a Built Environment honors program, since more students from other faculties are now involved. Even their nationalities are diverse, with Dutch, Polish and Turkish students and even a person who has lived in Dubai. They decided to participate in the Solar Decathlon Middle East challenge, a challenge far from home.

Bauke Poelsma, chairman of Team VIRTUe, took some time to speak to the editorial board of Chepos to tell about their goals, their progress and their expectations. Text: Lars Hogenboom

First of all, why is the team participating in the Solar Decathlon Middle East?

“For the majority of us, it is due to the so-called field experience. This is slightly neglected in the normal program of the Built Environment bachelor. Besides this gained experience, it is just an enormous adventure for us students. For example, we went to Dubai for a first time to get in contact with everyone involved in the contest. Normally, a student would not miss a normal college week just to visit Dubai. Another reason to participate is durability. We try to achieve durability on a much higher level than a standard design. Last but not least, companies. There are several

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companies who are really looking forward to cooperate with us. This brings another dimension to designing something, namely entrepreneurship.”

How is the team adapting to Dubai? What actions are taken to get in touch with their culture?

“We visited Dubai twice. Besides just enjoying our stay, we met lots of people. We visited neighborhoods and interviewed expats. The people that organized the contest were very friendly, we were always welcome. There is a gigantic international focus in Dubai, approximately 85% of the population consists of

By focussing on the problems in Dubai with a Dutch view, we are trying to differ from our fellow contestants. expats. In 30 years, Dubai grew enormously and despite this vastly increasing population, the culture and hospitality remained more or less intact. Dubai is investing in becoming a knowledge economy and pulling companies towards their country.”

In which phase of the project is the team currently?

“As you know, one of the demands to participate was handing in a concept design. We did this, but we thought the vision needed to

be improved. So we improved our vision and made new concepts. Currently we are in the phase during which we produce sketches and discuss them with our team. We are really in the process of making our concepts visual, one could even say tangible.”

What are the key points of the design? What are you trying to achieve?

“We are not trying to achieve an autonomous house, which is deplorable everywhere in the world, since the organization of the contest told us to focus on the specific climate of Dubai. The focus lies on problems in Dubai, for example social cohesion. There are a lot of expats who work in Dubai, earn money, and go home to their families. Another problem is the climate, due to temperatures of 40 degrees Celsius in the summer, thus one could state that there is an enormous cooling demand.

The vision is to tackle these problems the Dutch way. We are pioneers in certain fields of innovation and the people from Dubai already know some of the Dutch works. They are familiar with for example the company Van Oord, who were deeply involved in the creation of the Palm Islands. Another typically Dutch thing is gezelligheid, there is no country with a correct translation and a similar meaning for this word. So by focusing on the problems in Dubai with a Dutch view, we are trying to differ from our fellow contestants.”

What is Dutch design and in which way are you trying to incorporate this in your design?

“Dutch design is a broad concept. We all know the Rietveld Schröderhuis and we all know some of Rem Koolhaas’ buildings. One could call these different designs both examples of Dutch Design. However, we are focusing on tackling the problems with a Dutch view.

Our strategy for the contest is a recognizable and clear message. We, the visitors and the companies should all be able to identify with our message. So with this Dutch design, we are not necessarily focusing on the typical Dutch façade or the typical Dutch roof. We are

focusing on the values of our Dutch society, combining the Arab hospitality with our Dutch gezelligheid.”

Could this be a prototype for more countries, and with this, different climates?

“Our contest is to design a building for the specific climate of Dubai, as mentioned earlier.

That is our goal. This alone causes a lot of design problems caused by the environment, for example sandstorms. The concept however could be applied in other countries. If other countries have the same issues as the ones we are trying to address in Dubai, they could be able to apply our concept in their country.”

This project brings another dimension to designing something, namely entrepeneurship.

Where is Team VIRTUe standing in March 2018? Could we find this house somewhere in 2022, for example at the campus?

“In March 2018 the design is finished and we have enough partners to actually build our design. In March 2018 we will start with our test case. By that time we should be able to place the first beam of our foundation on a prominent place at our campus! And for 2022, the university is enthusiastic. We are a different student team in comparison to other teams who are participating in international contests.

Many student teams are doing things with for example robots or mobility, we are a team in an international contest that is focusing on durability. As said before, the university is really enthusiastic. If everything is going as planned, the house could perhaps be visited at our very own campus!”

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Images: 1. Logo Team VIRTUe (source: Team VIRTUe) 2. Bauke Poelsma, participants and officials (photo: Team VIRTUe) 3. Team VIRTUe in Dubai (photo: Team VIRTUe)

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CU2030

An account of Utrecht’s plan to reshape its inner core.

On December 7th of the previous year the moment was finally there. After years of reconstruction work, the Utrecht OV terminal had its official opening to the public. A flexuous roof, spanning the entire length of the hall, now encapsulated the station hall. It is a suiting metaphor, as Utrecht has been for many years the throbbing heart of the Dutch railway system, where flows of travelers from all over the country come together. Text: Mats Rekswinkel Currently 88 million people per year pass through this rail relay but, upon designing, the previous hall was only suited to capacitate 35 million travelers. Evidently, the demand for new space was great. And in space it has increased. If not for the additional squared meters of floor area, it is the large ceiling height that makes for a welcome change to the cramped inside of a train cabin. Moreover the large curtain façades allow in waves and waves of light, plenty enough to wake you up in the morning. It is an impressive building to say the least. Although, to be fair, the results of the renewal had already taken in by the eye of many travelers, but the opening was more than that, it was a pinnacle of a gigantic plan to reshape the heart of Utrecht.

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This plan goes by the name of CU2030, a project that has its roots in the early 2000s. Under the slogan ‘doing nothing is not an option’ the vision to connect the old center to the station area was created. The plan can be seen as a reaction to the expansion of the city in the west, which led to the demand for the city center to be more connected to the western part of the town. In the words of Bart Budel, city guide at the municipality office, “Utrecht is a city that struggles with growing pains.” Utrecht is even the largest growing municipality of the Netherlands. The city is expected to grow from its current 310.000 inhabitants to 400.000 in 2028 and this rapid expansion makes for the need to resize, update and broaden the city center.

At its core the plan revolves around three principles: to recover, to connect and to give meaning. These values were part of one of two conceptual strategies that were voted on by the population of Utrecht in 2002, Plan 1 and Plan A. The latter one turned out the winner and formed the basis of the current masterplan. The reason it had led to a referendum, was mainly because of the giant implications the plan brought about, due to its large scale.

Many stakeholders were involved and the municipality was holder of only a little land, which led many collaborations on the subject to eventually be on the rocks. As a result the residents of the city were given a say on the whole matter, which made the project bloom again.

Utrecht is a city that struggles with growing pains These two initial plans were named as such to emphasize the equivalence of the two.

However, some key differences in the end made for Plan A to be favorable to Plan 1 in the end. One difference was that Plan 1 revolved around one main central connection from the west to the old center, while Plan A also incorporated, besides this same connecting axis, a second connection route, designed for the implementation of cultural and public services. Moreover, both plans included the reinstatement of the Catherijnesingel as it was before the 1970s, a city canal rather than a cramped up concrete highway, which was received with high appraisal. In Plan A the new canal had a green outlook while in 1 it had a more city-like appeal. So, overall, A was awarded with the community’s preference and was chosen to be continued with. Utrecht had chosen a strategy that would turn the heart of the city into something much greener and wider, but also a strategy that would be more costly, strenuous and time-consuming.

Masterplan But Utrecht has abided by it and now, in 2017, several projects have been finished already.

Nevertheless, the future has a lot more to promise and in order to see what this might look like we must go back to the initial principles of the vision: to recover, to connect and to give meaning.

First of all, a large part of the plan hinges on recovery. This relates to the recuperation of the city canal that used to envelop the old center, the Catherijnesingel. For this a little bit of history is required. The canal was namely filled up in the 1970s to make way for an eleven-lane wide motor highway that would circle the inner city. “The world’s shortest highway”, as Budel called it. However, this was met by heavy resistance and, largely thanks to Marga Klompé, Holland’s first female minister, the motorway was restricted to a small part of the entire route, leaving most of the canal intact.

Now this small piece of ring road is opened up again to reinstate the canal and is set to finish in 2019, to the relief of the citizens.

that the route that lead one through these two places melded seamlessly and a passing traveler would not see the sunlight. This way has now been cut open, so to speak, separating the shopping center from the station hall and allowing people to enter the station from more sides. But besides this being liberating and rejuvenating as it is, it also attaches significance to the OV-terminal and its surroundings, marking its place on the map of Utrecht.

Moreover, Utrecht has largely expanded to the west due to the Kringenwet of 1853, which, as a result, disallowed expansion of the city to the east. Today this has led to a need for the reconnection of the western neighborhoods of the city, which have relocated so far away that the relation to the center has been lost. Districts such as Leidsche Rijn and, closer, Lombok will lie along the new connecting axis, which is to host mostly commuter traffic. But also the Jaarbeurs area is to be linked to the central area again, mainly to be used for pedestrians. In making these connections special emphasis is laid on cycling traffic. In order to promote Utrecht as a city of cyclists, facilities such as the Moreelsebrug are made.

Moreover, pedestrians play an important role, but, as opposed to the current situation, the pedestrian flows will be split up into two routes along the boulevard. All this can be seen in the map on the next page, highlighting the route pedestrians take from the station hall to Hoog Catherijne.

To round up, the final theme of the three principles was to give meaning to the city center, which for many years has felt unfinished as whole. Of course the old center is a renowned part of Utrecht’s heritage and a major share of the city’s pride, but the station area has had its share of negligence over the past decades.

A main part of CU2030 therefore is about attaching significance to this part of town again which will serve as an extension of the center to the west. One part of this is the implementation of a station square in between Hoog Catherijne and the OV-terminal. It used to be

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3 1

6

5 2

8

7 1 - Stadskantoor 2 - OV-terminal 3 - Station square 4 - TivoliVredenburg 5 - Het Poortgebouw 6 - Hoog Catharijne 7 - Moreelsebrug 8 - Catharijnesingel

Projects Now, since the start of the redevelopment many projects have been finished already and in 2020 phase 2 of the plan will be initiated. The first main project that was finished was shopping- and apartment building De Vredenburg. It is situated at the square of the same name, which was the site of the first constructional works regarding CU2030.

In 2014 music center TivoliVredenburg was opened at the same square. It incorporates three musical platforms, which were first scattered over the city, into one building and has proven itself a valuable acquisition to Utrecht’s cultural agenda. Now that the water has been brought back into the Catherijnesingel, which runs along TivoliVredenburg, adding to the atmosphere of the place. Moreover, the building is located to the far west of the inner city center and thereby also lies central related to the neighborhoods in the western part of the city, again connecting the city to its outskirts.

Another project situated on the Vredenburg is the shopping center Hoog Catherijne, which used to also function as the entrance to the train station. As mentioned before this connection will be cut open, so to say, thereby physically separating the shopping mall from the train station. In this way Hoog Catherijne has finally taken up its own space in the city and commuters that used to travel through the mall, can now take another route, thereby separating the travelers from the shoppers.

14 NOW

Inside users are distributed over two walking axes and led over the Catherijnesingel, over which the traverse will be spanned. In the middle of this, alongside the canal, a strange, organically-shaped building is planned, known as Het Poortgebouw. This building symbolizes a city gate and will house multiple functions. Parts of the project are already finished such as the city gate and the whole will be finished in 2019.

To the west the OV-terminal is also connected to a public square and so it has been for years.

Currently, however, this space is also under construction and set to cope with the expected flow of travelers in the future. Alongside this, another already finished product of CU2030 is situated, the municipal office, the Stadskantoor. Having opened in October 2014, it has since been a place where citizens and officers from the municipality meet. After the installment of the station hall, the OV-terminal and the Stadskantoor have become inherently intertwined and a traveler can seamlessly walk from the station right into the office. It is a matter of connection, but what it does more is that it directly relates the inhabitants of the city to the municipality. An exhibition on the topic of CU2030 was even opened on the ground floor of the building, where guides are more than happy to explain to you the mechanisms behind this masterplan. It is absolutely worth the visit.

In the coming years we will see more buildings arise in the center of Utrecht and in 2030

the city will have adopted a completely new look. Nevertheless it is impossible to forecast the eventuality of the plan exactly. With such large projects only the outlines can be set out and only time can tell how they will be filled in. When dealing with future prospects one can simply not look past the uncertainty of the whole. And so it remains unknowable what 2030 will behold for the city, but as we’ve seen so far, the station area, Utrecht’s beating heart, is slowly improving. And for that reason, the next time you find yourself riding the train, passing through Utrecht, get off and take the time to look around, even if it is only the station hall. Because there the future is taking shape right before your eyes.

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Images: 1. Top view station area Utrecht (source: Prorail, 2014) 2. Construction of Catharijnesingel (source: Bouwput Utrecht, 2014) 3. Catharijnebaan (source: Straatkaart. nl) 4. Model of Utrecht station area (photo: Mats Rekswinkel)

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Sources: 1. CU2030. 2017. CU2030.nl 2. Projectorganisatie Stationsgebied. “Eindrapportage Planontwikkeling Stationsgebied”.

2002.

3x1

TEXT: LAURA VAN HUIGENBOSCH

Architecture Photography Martin Stavars To create a coherent body of work, Martin Stavars always takes his pictures in similar weather conditions and similar light. The sky is usually heavily clouded and he uses the same filters, GND and ND (graduated neutral-density filter). Before going to a city to take photos, he first analyses the weather conditions of the past few years to choose the best moment to visit the city. With people as a missing element and therefore missing emotions, he tries to capture the feeling of the city, of an empty street. This makes photography more than just a simple document. source: Monovisions.com | photo: Martinstavars.com

Paul Eis Photographer Paul Eis initially wanted to focus more on the buildings instead of focusing on the most spectacular way to picture them. Nevertheless, the buildings are commonly white and grey and missing color. So he started giving his pictures a uniformly blue background. In this way the focus is on the building itself which creates a contrast between the added colors and the white areas that he kept. While coloring the buildings, he focuses on the characteristic elements. His project is not a critique on modern architecture, but on the rise of boring housing estates. source: Dezeen.com | photo: Instagram.com/the_architecture_photographer

Randy Scott Slavin Slavin started as a commercial and music video director in New York and he had never used a still camera until 2009. For his series Alternative Perspectives he used different scenes from the USA, turned them into a panorama and digitally transformed them in stereographic projections. In contradiction to Martin Stavars, Randy Scott Slavin uses extreme weather conditions for his photos. Sometimes his pictures consist of more than a hundred photos placed on top of each other. Slavin tries to turn the real into the unreal and changes the traditional perspectives. source: Dezeen.com, Adcglobal.org | photo: Randyscottslavin.com

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file:

Plastics

This time Chepos enters the world of plastics.

A material both loved and hated, used in multitudinous products that define our everyday environment. Derived from the Greek word ‘plastikos’ meaning ‘able to be molded’, plastic seems to have an unending number of possibilities. Molded as a structure, a façade or both at the same time, the potential of plastics amazes us every day. One of the many

possibilities of plastic is to use it as fiber; this image page shows the ICD/ITKE Research Pavilion 2014-2015. The robot inside the EFTE bubble reinforces the formwork gradually with carbon fibers. The file will continue to explore various spectrums of plastic applications, the future of plastic and its connection with people. Text: Renée Thierij

Why plastics?

Plastic bottles, plastic bags, food packaging, we use plastics multiple times a day. Though it is not always visible, plastics are also used in the building industry. Due to new technology and features of plastics, it is not only usable for pipes or window frames, but even for building blocks. Now that there are new possibilities, why should we choose plastics for buildings and what is the difference with the traditional building materials?

Text & diagrams: Laura van Huigenbosch

49 million tons plastics demand in Europe (2015) 70% is concentrated in six countries 1. Germany

2. Italy

14,3%

24,6%

3. France 9,6% 4. Spain

7,7%

5. UK

7,5%

6. Poland

6,5%

...

8. Netherlands

49 million tons divided in

4,1%

6 sectors

3 plastics used most in the building sector 19,7% Building & Construction

39,9% Packaging

8,9% Automotive

22,4% Others

5,8% Electrical & Electronic 3,3% Agriculture

pipes, window frames, swimming-pools, cable sheathing

pipes, insulation cables, other hard wearing products

PE

used in a variety of ways, from insulation foams to kitchen units

PS

Did you know...

1000 years to degrade in a landfill

... that plastic takes up to

... that for the fiberfill of one ski jacket, you only need

5 recycled two-litter bottles ?

6 hours by recycling a single bottle?

... that a 60-watt light bulb can light for

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PVC

Plastics Facts about plastic as a building material greenhouse gases .

Compared to alternative materials used in building insulation, plastics save up to 9% of

2400 million tons of greenhouse gases, is the savings of plastic insulation foams in their lifetime.

233 times more energy during their lifetime than the energy from its manufacturing.

The lifespan of plastic cables, pipes and window profiles is over 50 years .

The need of 5 power stations could be eliminated, if we install plastic window frames all over Europe tomorrow.

Plastic insulation saves

22 billion euros .

Producing plastic building blocks emits 95% less CO2 than traditional building blocks.

Use of plastic pipes in water mains provides a saving of

Plastic use in the building industry Artificial lighting consumption can be reduced up to 50 percent by using polycarbonate or acrylic skylight glazing, which captures natural daylight.

Plastic can reduce material decay

Energy can be saved up to 50 percent by using continuous rigid or spray foam insulation.

and structural damage, by being an air and vapor retarder.

The infiltration of outside air can be reduced by 10 to 50 percent, using plastic house wrap and sealants.

Aluminium window frames require three times more energy to manufacture than vinyl window frames.

Energy can be saved by using plastic pipes, which helps to maintain water temperature.

The weight and flexural strength in concrete can be reduced and improved by using polystyrene bead in concrete.

Sources: 1. American Chemistry Council. “Building with the power of plastics”. Greenbuildingsolutions.org 2. British Plastics Federation.

“Plastic Saves”. Bpf.co.uk 3. Chemical Industries Association. “The chemical industry: Delivering a low carbon future 24 hours a day”.

4. Hartston, W. “Top 10 facts about plastic”. February 5, 2015.

Express.co.uk 5. PlasticEurope. 2012. “Plastics, architects of modern and sustainable buildings”. 6. PlasticEurope. 2016. “Plastics - the facts 2016”. 7. Reedy Chemical Foam & Specialty Additives. “Factoids”. Reedychemicalfoam.com

Plastic pipes are more flexible than other pipe materials. Due to this, the need for multiple t-fittings and elbow-connectors can be reduced and the pipes can easily be placed.

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Plastics for Dummies A look into plastics as building material

Plastics are gradually taking up a larger part of the building industry. But how can the same stuff that makes up your sandwich bag be used to carry the massive loads in a building? The call for sustainability, however, creates the need for materials with better performance and longer life cycles, such as plastics. So, plastics are the future, but how? If you want to enrich your knowledge on this particular subject, you have come to the right place.

Text: Mats Rekswinkel

Polymers To begin with, the name plastic can be derived from one of its main features, the plasticity during heating. This is thanks to the creation of molecular chains that give plastics their properties. The formation of these chains is called polymerization, wherefore the chemical collective term for plastics is polymers. Plastics, however, come in a vast variety of molecular forms with differing chemical properties.

Namely, during polymerization, monomers are linked together, forming the chains. With plastic, these monomers consist of molecules that are composed of carbon- and hydrogen atoms.

However, elements such as oxygen, nitrogen, chlorine and sulfur can also be added. All these atoms are linked to a carbon atom, which can connect to four other atoms each, creating molecules as shown in the figure on the right.

But what does this mean for the properties of these polymers?

To answer that we have to take a step further, we can namely distinguish three main groups in polymers: thermoplastics, thermosets and elastomers. The difference between these three arises during the polymerization phase, which takes place through a process of heating. In this process, monomers are connected to form large chains, creating polymers. It is, however, possible that connections in between parts of these chains will be made, a process which is called crystallization. That way the groups are distinguished. In the case of thermoplastics the structure remains entirely amorphous, as no connections in between the chains are made.

In elastomers and thermosets, however, this process of crystallization does occur, albeit more intense in the case of thermosets. In the

Thermoplastics

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A carbon atom connecting to four hydrogen atoms, creatin methane. figures below this can be seen: as a result of this, elastomers have a high elasticity, while thermosets are rigid.

Furthermore, some polymers have the ability to remain unaffected when exposed to chemicals.

Due to the strong internal bonds, plastics are not very chemically reactive materials. It is also due to the stability of these chemical bonds that plastics are relatively strong while remaining lightweight materials. Moreover, plastics can have high thermal, but also electrical insulation values. Of course, due to their versatility, plastics can be processed in order to obtain almost any material property that is desired.

Building physical properties So how does this relate to the built environment? In what ways do plastics have beneficial mechanical properties, compared to traditional materials? Besides being lightweight and rigid materials, plastics also have other mechanical properties that make them highly applicable

Elastomers

Polymerization of three methane-molecules.

in the building industry. Take for example, Friedberg, Germany, which houses world’s first plastic bridge. This construction did not only reduce production time and traffic congestion as it was prefabricated and made without the use of bolts or screws, but it can also function properly without maintenance for 50 years.

The bridge itself was primarily constructed of so called FBD 600 profiles. These are deck systems that allow for great loads to be carried, such as traffic. These plastic profiles are, however, composites, which is required to achieve suchlike strength and stiffness. This means that they consist of additionally added fibers, which, generally considered, is the only way of strengthening plastics. In the case of the Friedberg bridge, fiberglass was used as reinforcement. This group of composites is therefore often referred to as GRPs (Glass Reinforced Plastics).

One of the most used plastics composites consists of fiberglass and polyester, often referred

Thermosets

Plastics

to plainly as fiberglass. Plastic composites, such as this, are on the way of replacing metals and regular plastics in the built environment. As indicated before, plastics allow manufacturers to prefabricate more and more, and composites allow for a greater freedom regarding choosing material properties. When playing around with the composition of the material one can change its characteristics radically. In the case of the bridge not only the strength of the material was adjusted, also its insulating properties were enhanced.

Yet, there are also downsides to the implementation of plastics as a building material. One of the first things that comes to mind is the lower yield strength when exposed to high temperatures. For example, stainless steel reaches a state of rapid deformation at around 1400 oC, while even for so called heat-resistant plastics this temperature lies around 230 oC. This does not impose problems in case of bridges, but in indoor application it forms serious fire hazards.

Moreover, again concerning health issues, plastics may cause problems regarding toxicity and flammability. In case of extreme heating, bonds in the polymer will break causing failure in the material as discussed prior to this. Additionally, particles will be released in the atmosphere, in particular carbon particles, causing smoke to be generated. This is a major downside to the normally positively regarded versatility of plastics. Elements such as nitrogen, chlorine and fluorine can be released and react with the surrounding oxygen in the atmosphere, combining into potential dangerous gases. It seems that particularly during fires, plastics form

risks. This again raises questions as to whether plastics are to be used for future implementation in buildings.

PVC The plastic bridge in Friedberg highlights how plastics can function as high-strength materials that can simplify manufacturing and reduce construction time. But plastics have been part of the building industry for far longer.

For example the Olympic stadium in Munich, designed by Otto Frei. It has become an architectural classic as it introduced a new kind of approach to design which was heavily inspired by organic forms. The famous roofing system consisted of a cable-suspended membrane, made of plastics.

For this membrane, a PVC coated polyester fabric was used. This is a high-strength material that is capable of spanning large distances, while additionally being tear-resistant, which enables it to be used in membrane form.

Moreover, little maintenance is required for this type of material, making it financially attractive in the long run.

The future?

So what can we expect from the future? Will we see more plastic buildings emerge? Of course plastics have been an inherent part of the building industry, mostly in the form of insulation, casings, roof covers, etc. Whether plastics will take up their position as structural material as well will depend on future developments in the sector. The answer to structural drawbacks that plastics may have,

can be compensated by using composites.

Fibre-reinforced plastics are suchlike composites, which will massively improve mechanical strength and elasticity of the material, as we saw in the Friedberg bridge case. Still, simply by using steel as a structural material, considerable strength can be added. How can this fundamental problem be overcome?

Fortunately, new research in this department is coming up with new insights into the enhanced application of plastics in the building industry. For example, recently MIT has developed a new plastic material of potential ‘super strength’. However, in this case the geometry of the material is the main driving factor behind its beneficial structural characteristics. The shape was obtained by means of 3D-printing, allowing for the creation of such complex forms. The outcomes are phenomenal, as the density is only five percent of that of steel, while it has ten times the strength. Promising for the future.

For more information on this last research project, watch: “One of the strongest lightweight materials known” - Youtube.com 1 2

Images: 1. Roof Munich Olympic stadium (source: Fabric architecture/Fabric structures, 2016) 2. Friedberg composite bridge (source: Fiberline Composites)

Sources: 1. American Chemistry Council. “How Plastics Are Made”. Plastics.americanchemistry.com 2. Ensinger. “Plastics Classification”. Ensinger-online.com 3. PlasticsEurope. “Europe’s first plastic bridge is open”. 2008. Plasticseurope.org 4. DuPont. “Heat Resistant Plastics”. Dupont.com 5. NASA. “Gaseous emissions and toxic hazards associated with plastics in fire situations”. 6. Hightex.

“PVC coated polyester fabric”. Hightex-membrane.de 7. PN. “Gyroid shapes offer potential for future structural plastics”. 2017.

Plasticsnews.com

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Esthetics of “Plastic is not so much a substance as the notion of infinite remodeling. It is, like its ordinary name indicates, the omnipresence that has been rendered visible. And that is exactly why it is a truly miraculous substance – the miracle being a sudden conversion of nature every time. And plastic is infused with this astonishment: it is not so much an item as the trace of a movement.” Text: Rik de Bondt

Plastic The name of this commonplace material directly relates to its formability, as if it has no other properties. Typical plastic objects are created by heating granulate, and pressing it into a mold – a negative of the final object. There are no stages in between this process, no semifinished products. Granulate, mediated by a mold, directly forms into an artifact.

In an essay from 1957, Roland Barthes wrote: “Plastic is not so much a substance as the notion of infinite remodeling. It is, like its ordinary name indicates, the omnipresence that has been rendered visible. And that is exactly why it is a truly miraculous substance – the miracle being a sudden conversion of nature every time. And plastic is infused with this astonishment: it is not so much an item as the trace of a movement.” Plastic can be turned into anything at any moment.

With 3D-printing, the mold – a costly investment that had to be made for each artifact taken into production – becomes redundant.

3D printing offers the possibility of a high level of detail and variation without a rise in labor and production costs. 3D printing has the

22 FILE

potential to yield more personalized and customized designs, it is more democratic.

Within a few years, we will be able to behold the true potential of plastic: infinitely formable, unrestrained by the production costs of molds. DUS Architects is a Dutch office that is exploring this new potential

“It is not so much an item as the trace of a movement.” of plastic. DUS Architects is investigating the possibilities of 3D printing for architecture. They can print objects up to several meters high. Part of their work is a pavilion for the Dutch EU presidency. The forms of the objects they print have this expression of movement and uncertainty,

both technically and expressively products of this digital age. Up close the visible and tangible 3D printed layers make the whole thing a bit hazy, as if the artifact moves by the camera at high speed.

DUS are attempting to print a full scale Amsterdam canal house with a container-sized 3D printer, baptized the Kamermaker, which they developed themselves. DUS regards the 3D printed canal house as a learning-by-doing project. Although the architects currently work with plastic, as they are most familiar with using this material for 3D printing, they expect that in the long term the project will grow and more materials will be used. Already they have experimented with printing wood fibers.

Apparently, plastic has influenced the way the architects look at other materials; they now expect the same plasticity from wood and concrete as from polymers. On the other hand, traditional materials like wood and concrete offer a tactile experience that plastic has not been able to bring about. Plastic is associated with cheapness, fakeness, hollowness. In the aforementioned essay, Barthes is critical about the tactile qualities of plastic: “Regardless of its particular state [plastic] keeps its flaky appear-

Plastics ance, something vague, something creamy and solidified – an inability to attain the triumphant smoothness of nature.” Certainly, plastic is not like stone or wood or steel, but it has its own tectonic and tactile qualities. In one lifetime it will be a canal house but who knows what it will be in its succeeding life, adding to its impermanence.

and maintain a slick appearance.

Bureau ALS and Overtreders W designed a pavilion at the Noorderpark in Amsterdam, which will be constructed completely out of recycled plastic litter. They developed a production line to turn plastic waste into roof

The friendly alien that Peter Cook designed for Graz wants to be alive as well. It looks like a living entity, like some kind of fungus with octopoidal suction cups, sticking itself to neighboring buildings. Its blubbery, mucous appearance was made possible by a synthetic sandwich shell: it can be bent into any form

In multiple ways, plastic has its own esthetic.

Peter Cook’s alien and Christo’s wrapped Reichstag show that its high formability makes it possible to shape something that looks alive, organic and transforming.

The experiments of DUS Architects show that 3D printed plastic is never in its final state; it could be shredded and reincarnated in another form again and again. Its fluidity is its state.

The very forms they print seem to express this property: the objects show a variety of forms with a grainy, distorted surface. Plastic is alive, it can take all forms and it can assume new forms, thanks to good recyclability. It was not made to last an eternity like stone and metal.

Its flexibility and ambivalence are its qualities.

Its esthetic is that of impermanence.

Tactility In 1995, American artist couple Christo and Jeanne-Claude wrapped the Reichstag in a skin of polypropylene fabric and rope – transforming a grand monument of Democracy into a soft and vulnerable lump of tissue, like a cocoon. For two weeks, something eternal turned into something ephemeral. Technically, this was no more than a tactile trick – achieved by the formability and enormous unit size of the plastic fabric: the wrapping consisted out of seventy panels of fabric totaling one hundred thousand square meters.

Impermanence

“Something eternal turned into something ephemeral.” and façade shingles. An empty Coca-Cola bottle once drifting about the park’s paths is now transformed unrecognizably into façade cladding. The façades look like a reptile’s skin, once again yielding an esthetic of something alive but mortal, something on the move, something transforming.

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3

2

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Images: 1. 3D printed façade elements (source: Philips Nederland, Youtube.com) 2. 3D print canal house (source: DUS Architects, 2017) 3.

Christo & Jeanne-Claude, Wrapped Reichstag, 1995 (source: Christojeanneclaude.net) 4.

3D print canal house (source: DUS Architects, 2017)

Sources: 1. Barthes, R. “Plastic”. 1957. Virtually-anything.org. 2.

Bureau SLA. “Noorderpark Plastic Paviljoen”. 2017. Bureausla.nl. 3.

Christo & Jeanne-Claude “Wrapped Reichstag”. 1995. Christojeanneclaude.net. 4. Deplazes, A. “Constructing architecture” (Basel: Birkhäuser, 1995). 5. DUS Architects “3D print canal house”. 2017.

3dprintcanalhouse.com. 6.Overtreders W. “Pretty Plastic Plant”.

2017. Overtreders-w.nl.

impermanence

FILE 23

Building with sugar and starch An introduction into bio-based plastics As we have seen in the previous articles, plastic is an interesting choice for architectural and structural elements. Unfortunately, plastic does have some disadvantages. It is made from crude oil, which will become more and more scarce, but it is also creating a growing pile of waste all over the world. How to fix this problem? Introducing: bio-based plastics. Text: Ilke Broers

Bio-based plastics are all plastics that come from natural and renewable resources.

Technically, crude oil is also both of those things, but it only renews over the course of millions of years. Bio-based aims at sources which are renewable in a short period of time. As said in the title, sugar and starch are resources for bio-based plastics. This entails sugar from corn or sugar cane and starch from potatoes and corn. Also by-products from, for instance, cashew or rapeseed oil from the biofuel industry can be used to make bio-based plastics.

Just as with common plastics, bio-based plastics are divided into the three main groups; thermoplastics, thermosets and elastomers.

Most bio-based plastics that are already generally known, are thermoplastics. Poly Lactic Acid (PLA) is an example of bio-based thermoplastics. This sugar based plastic is already used as packaging material for food and as disposable cutlery. PLA has the functional and appealing feature of being bio-degradable. This is a great characteristic for disposable artefacts, but not so much for a long-lived application in architectural and structural elements.

Composites are an interesting but hard part of the plastic industry.

Although not all thermoplastics are biodegradable, all of them are generally used for smaller, indoor products. Thermosets on the other hand, are fluids which are useful for large elements such as windmills, facades and bridges. These thermosets, also called bioresins, harden and form a three-dimensional net. This means the plastic cannot be reshaped when being heated again, in contrast to thermoplastics. Bio-resins are used as the polymer matrix to make bio-based composites. These composites also contain natural fibers, such as flax and hemp. By adding fibers, the plastic gets extra beneficial features. As a result, you need less plastic, the plastic becomes stronger

24 FILE

and because the fibers carry moist, it is also more fire retardant.

To get more inside information on bio-based composites, contact was made with Willem Böttger. He works at both the Center of Expertise Biobased Economy (CoE BbE), as lector for Bio-based Building, and at NPSP composieten. As representative for both these institutions, he helped with the construction of the bio-based bridge here at the TU/e.

As it says in the name, NPSP focusses on composites, that is only bio-based composites. “Composites are an interesting but hard part of the plastic industry. For two or three years now, we only use bio-based materials at NPSP. We used to have our own factory, but now we outsource the production. One part is produced at Poly Products in Werkendam, and one part at a German partner. This way, we have more techniques available. In Germany we make smaller products in large series, here we make use of a press. At Poly Products we use vacuum infusion, which makes it possible to make large, expensive products with a limited series. Poly Products generally uses fiberglass reinforced composites, but for our products they use bio-based materials.”

NPSP is one of the frontrunners in the Netherlands when it comes to using large products of bio-based composites, especially in the built environment. Some examples can be seen on the pictures on the right, which are all made with Nabasco (Nature Based Composites). The last picture shows the gas receiving station in Dinteloord from Studio Marco Vermeulen. This building has the first bio-based façade in the world. The picture above it, on the right, shows a part of its manufacturing process. It shows how the mold for the panels is being covered with hennep fibers. Afterwards, the mold is pumped vacuum and injected with bio-based resin.

Realizing this building is quite an accomplishment, since the use of bio-based plastics and composites is still in its infancy. It is however not completely bio-based, but only as much as possible. Willem Böttger explains: “It is all based on the economy of scale. The market for resin is still very small, and a lot of companies

do not join due to the low demand. We are on a turning point right now, but the demand is just too low for large-scale operations.”

Because of the low demand, there is also a low supply, which makes it hard to make large objects completely from bio-based resin. This was the same issue when manufacturing the bio-based bridge. “We had a good search, and finally got a decent biological resin in France which was 56% biological. The other 44% is still based on crude oil.” In combination with the natural hemp fibers, the bridge eventually got to a percentage of 85% bio-based materials. “That’s a worldwide record.”

People like to show they are involved with being environmentally friendly.

Another aspect why the plastics are not completely bio-based is the use of additives.

“Not one piece of plastic is made out of one single type, they are always blends. You want something flexible, so you put in some plasticizers. And then there are also pigments or fire retardants. All these additives which make the plastic more functionally optimal, are not made of bio-based materials because of the small amounts needed. Making this bio-based is the next step in the process.”

“You do have to watch out to not push the boundaries too hard, and not want too much from the material and its producers. The building industry is tricky. The crisis is just over, but now it is so busy that we do not have time to think about innovation; there is money to be earned. The universities in combination with the business life can prescribe to get innovation grants, to start the process. The knowledge obtained by them can be developed and businesses will take over when it is time.”

The examples in the pictures show how different the composites can look. At the University of Technology Delft, a research into the looks

Plastics

of bio-based plastics showed that people have certain preferences about this. The preference lies with non-glossy, uneven structures and the visibility of the fibers. Although bio-plastics give the same opportunities as common plastics, people want to see that it is made from bio-materials. Böttger agrees with this: “People like to show they are involved with being environmentally friendly, so use those visual features bio-based materials can give.

This is a part of marketing. You do not have to replace a standard panel with the same standard panel only made of bio-based plastics, you can make beautiful things.”

“Bio-based materials have the quality to endorse health. They have a higher antibacterial function than other non-biological materials, ensure a better indoor climate, have good

Plastics have a bit of a negative image.

New materials can help with that. acoustical qualities and are very light. I think there is a lot going to happen on the area of bio-based materials these upcoming years.

How we are going to call them, plastics or composites, I do not know. Plastics have a bit of a negative image. New materials can help with that.”

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Images: 1. Bio-based chairs (source: Willem Böttger, NPSP) 2. Pantry InHolland Delft (source: Willem Böttger, NPSP) 3. Resting spot in Drenthe (source: Willem Böttger, NPSP) 4.

Sign bike route ANWB (source: Willem Böttger, NPSP) 5. Covering of mold with natural fibers (source: Studio Marco Vermeulen) 6. Gas receiving station Dinteloord (source: Willem Böttger, NPSP)

Sources: 1. Interview with Willem Böttger (Utrecht: February 10th 2017) 2. NPSP Composieten. “Bouw Oplossingen”. Npsp.nl 3. I. Oskam, M. de Jong, M. Lepelaar & R. ten Kate. “Ontwerpen met biobased plastics”. (Amsterdam: Hogeschool van Amsterdam, Kenniscentrum Techniek, 2015) 4. D.F. van der Linden. “The Application of Bio-Based Composites in Load-Bearing Structures”. (2017)

FILE 25

Prosperity of the plastic city

As editors of the Chepos, we wanted to know what fellow students thought about this edition’s file theme, Plastics. We asked them the question what our future cities would look like, if plastics are the building material. Here is the response of Wouter Loomans, second year master student in Urban Systems and Real Estate.

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Plastics If plastics were to become the only building material, a lot of the problems society is currently facing could be solved. These solutions could reach further than the cities, namely to the built environment as a whole. Aided by 3D-printers we could create plastics buildings in one day. And on top of that, with the use of advanced recycle methods, we could not only demolish them in one day, but we will be able to recycle them as well.

Imagine the possibilities: all the vacant offices that are currently troubling us, could be recycled. The materials could be used for a better purpose, for example social housing or just completely other products; new trains, mobile phones, health equipment or whatever is requested by the public at that specific moment.

Furthermore, because material costs form a significant part of the building costs, building prices would drop massively, resulting in buildings being available for almost everyone; just rent a 3D-printer for a day at the nearest builder’s merchant, download a design from the internet and build a new garage, dormer window, or a complete building. And if you are not satisfied, just recycle the plastic and print a new one the next day.

We could even take it a step further: at the moment, approximately 100.000.000.000 kg of plastics is floating in our oceans. Nowadays, it is extremely unfeasible to remove it due to the high costs and the low revenues. But what if this ‘garbage’ becomes the number one most used material? Then it would be fruitful to fish it out of the oceans, increasing the quality of our environment tremendously. And on top of that, by recycling the current supply of plastics, we will finally become independent of the diminishing amount of cruel oil that we have left.

And not only will supply and demand be in balance in a region or a country, but all around the world, decreasing the inequality in the world tremendously.

Of course, I am aware that we are not yet able to completely recycle plastics or to 3D-print entire plastic buildings, but the first steps have been taken. And hey, a man is allowed to dream right?

Another benefit forms the possibility to offer help far more efficient to people in third world countries or victims of (natural) disasters. By offering them a few 3D printers, recyclable plastics, and some functional designs, it will be possible to create products that can fulfill their basic needs in a short period of time, improving their lives enormously.

Canal house Although this article describes a far future, the first steps have been taken in the art of 3D printing plastics. As you can read on page 22-23, DUS Architects is developing a canal house in Amsterdam with the use of a 3D printer. It is not made purely out of plastics, but the 3D printed plastics are used as a cast and filled up with concrete.

The company from Amsterdam uses plastics that are made for 80% out of plant oil.

Furthermore, the printing speed of their 3D printer has already been increased by 300% in a very short period. Little, but indispensable steps towards the future as described in this article.

In conclusion, with plastic buildings, we can create opportunities all around the world.

Plastics are such a customizable material that demand and supply will finally be in balance.

And the most beautiful part is that this equilibrium will reach further than the built environment, but will be found in all plastic products.

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Images: 1. 3D printed model of Manhattan (source: 3dprint.com) 2. 3d printed house (source: Architectenweb.nl) 3. The world’s first mobile 3D printer (source: Planet.vectorworks. net) 4. 3d print canal house logo (source: Bouwwereld.nl)

FILE 27

People & Plastic?!

Psychophysical sense of touch

We all associate materials such as steel, concrete and wood with ‘cold’, ‘hard’, ‘hot’ and so on. But what are your thoughts on plastics?

Does it get you warm or cold, or just leave you numb? Maybe the last. It seems that most people do not want to live in a house of plastics. Why not? After all, the properties of plastics are not inferior to conventional materials. Is it just the idea? Text: Rick Abelen If recycled plastics are used for packaging and waste containers, everyone is fine. “But my house is not built from that material.” The low appreciation for plastics seems to arise from the identity of the material. Or better: the status of plastics.

The experience and perception of plastics is also known as the psycho-physical relationship between the (‘hard’) material properties and (‘softer’) tactile perceptions. Material perceptions arise as a result of material properties such as hardness, elasticity and shear strength.

Let’s analyze an example. With its deep soft seat and coarse rib you come into a complete state of relaxation. Which material and object do you imagine upon reading this description?

You probably do not directly think of expanded polystyrene (Styrofoam), but rather to a cloth rib chair. But why is that?

Sense of touch ensures recognition of certain materials. A feeling that is created by temperature and surface texture of a material. It is striking that little research has been done regarding aesthetic and emotional aspects of plastics. Little psycho-physical data is available.

Important reasons for this are high research costs and large time investments.

It seems reasonable to assume that psychophysical aspects are caused by a combination of physical properties and tactile perception of materials. If we find out which aspects have the most influence, we may be able to influence the experience of plastics. After all, plastics can take any form and texture wanted.

In addition, it is good to note that material perception is a relative term. The experiences of elderly people, young people and visually impaired are very different. Some experiences can be observed, some experiences cannot. In addition, it should be noted that the perception of plastics is dependent on whether or not we can see or touch the material. Research shows that prejudices and expectations of materials are from significant impact on perceptual

28 FILE

experiences of these materials. This fact is also applicable to plastics.

While plastics as a building application is not very appreciated in general, there are many innovative applications in the past. For example, the plastic house built by the Firm Fokker in 1964, here seen with model Nelliette Mooij posing in it. This house was progressive for its time and shows that people can live in a normal way in a plastic house.

Sense of touch ensures recognition of certain materials There are more recent examples, for instance the following from 2015. Chemical concern Bayer has unveiled a dwelling in Malaysia, which is made entirely out of plastics.

According to Bayer Material Science, who developed the affordable polyurethane housing, the dwelling is much better insulated than a conventional house. The inside temperature would be, in the humid climate of Malaysia, eight to ten degrees lower than in similar dwellings. In practice, this results in a 25-30 percent saving of electricity consumption.

It took only five weeks to build a prototype in the capital Kuala Lumpur. The costs of a basic design are approximately €19.000. The government is going to build more than one million dwellings. Malaysia has a different climate and prosperity than Western European countries like the Netherlands, but the example shows that large-scale plastic dwelling applications are realistic.

An important physical material property has not been mentioned so far, namely fire risk.

It is well known that plastics have a low flammability, but are relatively easy to melt.

This quality is inadmissible for plastic load bearing constructions. However, there are several options to make plastics fire-resistant or fire retardant. These include fire retardant impregnation, coatings, lacquers and it is even possible to change the chemical composition of plastics.

In addition to the previously mentioned physical influences regarding the experience of plastics, there are more factors of influence.

Let’s ask ourselves a question. Red or rough, what makes a material warmer? Red? Rough?

For your feeling? The warmth of materials is related to thermal behavior, but also to color and surface roughness of the material. The color is of greater influence than the surface roughness according to research.

A curious phenomenon can be observed when considering the architect’s future user experience for a given material. As described, there is a shortcoming of common vocabulary and definitions in order to describe the experience caused by materials. However, the choice for a material by an architect is often based on

Red or rough, what makes a material ‘warmer’? personal taste and prior experience with a particular material. The application of different finishing techniques, and their impact on changes in color and roughness, increase or decrease the experience of ‘warmth’. It is possible to adapt plastics on the aforementioned properties, which could change the perception of the material.

A glimpse into the future; an anticipation maybe. We all associate plastics with warm, strong, stable and elastic. Plastics are applied as construction elements in the built environment.

It seems like everyone wants to live in houses that are made of plastics. Why? The properties of plastics are similar to those of conventional materials. “My house is built out of plastics.”

The high appreciation for plastics seems to come from the identity of the material. Or better: the status of plastics.

Special thanks to ir. Bert van Schaijk (assistant professor Building Physics and Services TU Eindhoven), who assisted in writing this article.

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Images: 1. Model Nelliette Mooij poses in a Fokker-instant-home nearby Schiphol (plastic house), built by the firm Fokker (photo: Henk Hilterman, 1964)

Sources: 1. Touch perception of materials. 2014. Wongsriruksa et al. 2. Warmth perception of materials. 2011. Wastiels et al. 3.

Polyurethane housing Malaysia. 2015. Bayer Material Science.

Duurzaambedrijfsleven.nl.

Plastics

FILE 29

Adriaan Jurriëns Alumnus and former Chepos editor, who each edition shares his experiences as a self-employed architect.

What is wrong with plastics?

Three times a year the chairman of Chepos reminds me that I have to write a column. Within this reminder always a quick note of what the next Chepos is about. This time it was about plastics, she wrote. Directly after this announcement she pointed out there would be an article about the psychological aspects of using it. Not a typical explanation when talking about a new theme, but in the case of plastics I fully understand it.

The material itself immediately gives me a sense of discomfort.

I don’t like it. By recognizing my own position on this subject I also find it interesting too find out the reasons why I feel so much aversion for plastics. Maybe it is some kind of bias I have that might disappear after I gain more knowledge about it.

Before we further discuss plastics I would like to make a distinction. The pragmatic use of plastics such as (sewage) pipes and spacers (dutch: afstandhouders) is not controversial at all from a design point of view. The use of plastics here is simply a pragmatic choice in which we make the best trade-off depending on the context. Sewage pipes made out of plastic are simply superior to sewage pipes made out of cast iron. The controversial part mainly concerns the materials we see, feel and experience in the use and design of the building. One of the first things that comes to my mind is the use of oversized plastic windowframes or plastic cladding which is supposed to look as wood.

And of course the special and strange applications you see at exhibitions.

Back in the early 2000s, while I was growing up as an adolescent and young adult, I remember a lot of people where enthusiastic about the use of plastics in favour of wood. Back then I didn’t know why, but the results of the use of plastics in renovations of buildings never really convinced me. While writing this column I came across another article with the excitatory title: ‘Plastic window-frames will rot your soul’, which described more or less the way I felt about this material back in the day (and in many ways still feel). But I couldn’t put my finger on why I felt so strongly about it. Working as an architect gave me some insights into why I think I do not like it.

The first insight mainly concerns the plastic window-frames, in which the use of plastics is very common. These frames are thicker and less refined then aluminium, steel or wooden frames. Plastic window-frames tend to have much more emphasis on the frames than others for example. For me one of the reasons to avoid the use of it in search for more subtle details. Some would say this quest for subtle detailing is just

30 COLUMN

a matter of taste, but I do not agree with that analysis. At the core, designing a building is also a question of how to deal with the contradictions of the human mind. One of the key questions is the conflict between freedom and security. This can be seen in the tensions between the façade and its openings. For the architect, the emphasis naturally lies more on the extremes (façade, openings) and window frames play a minor role in this question. As an architect you want to keep the final design as consistent as possible with the concept and oversized plastic window-frames are mostly unnecessary extractions.

The second insight is the fact that plastic seems to miss some kind of rawness, purity or vivacity. It feels and looks rather sterile. This can be best seen in the aging process of building materials and the connections between those materials. Other materials such as bricks, concrete, steel or wood can age pretty well. A façade of clay bricks for example can even become more beautiful after decades of aging and thereby blend in to its surroundings. Plastics are however sterile at best or a neglected piece of industrial product at worse, but in neither case it seems to attach to its surroundings. The way how plastics age is also the reason why enthusiasm has tempered over the years.

Is there a possibility I would change my mind on the usage of plastics? I doubt it. If I examine my attitude towards other innovations – such as glazing – I find myself much more enthusiastic. So one could not make the case it is the uneasiness that comes with innovations. Paradoxically I like the use of plastics in other cases such as interior parts, industrial products and moving objects such as cars and boats. But I think some architects and building engineers ignore the fact that our expectations of buildings are slightly different then moving or moveable objects. In contrast of industrial products, cars and boats, buildings must have the potential to blend in with its surroundings and thereby age in a durable way. And the usage of plastics in the design of buildings does not fit well the expectations we have of them.

Jacob Voorthuis Jacob is a publicist, associate professor and lecturer, who professes enthusiastically about philosophy and architecture.

My Plastic Future

Plastic is one of the world’s great metaphors. It stands for artificiality itself. Man, or so he continues to think, is different to the natural world, he belongs to an artificial one: he is the master of artifice. And if proof were needed, plastic would furnish it: tons of it, not only in terms of tonnage clogging up the oceans but in song, art and literature with references to plastic dolls, Plastic Bertrand, the plastic Yoko Ono band and so on. All of them put human beings in a bubble of their own creation and that bubble is made of plastic. Nature may be God’s creation but man’s is culture.

But that is all wrong. If anything, plastic is ample proof that man is part of the natural world. How shall I argue that? First by analogy and second by the sheer force of logic. First the analogy: oil, the main ingredient of plastic, is a natural product created by a process of many years as plants and trees die and rot, the layers of rot are sealed off and a constant process of hubble and bubble eventually creates oil. There was an immense amount of it; most of it has been burnt off to feed our cars. Now let me describe plastic. Plastic is a product of human being. Humans produce plastic from oil, among many other things, they carry their shopping in it for an average time of 30 minutes and then discard it. As a result the ‘waste’ is either burnt or finds its way into the landscape and into to the ocean where huge deposits of natural plastics may be found. That was the analogy. Did you get it? The clue is that trees do not think about making oil of themselves and we do not think when we discard our plastic. In our production of waste we are as thoughtless and careless, as intimately ‘natural’ as trees and vegetables. The only way we will stop doing being thoughtless, is when we do what comes natural to us and use our creativity to think of some solution to use the discarded plastic and make it valuable to us. In short, we just do what we do, just as trees and plants do what they do, it’s natural. That was the analogical argument. Now the logical one.

In fact I have already given it. Man is a product of nature. The logic of that is incontrovertible. We obey the laws of nature, even when our ingenuity discovers ways to use those laws cleverly for our own purposes, but we never break them. And if man is part of nature, his products are natural too. Again, it would be very silly to try to argue against that point. Soon you’ll be forced to argue that spider webs aren’t natural, and then you will have to argue that protein making isn’t natural and before you know it, you’ll be saying very strange things about quantum physics. You will lose that argument. In any

case man is not the first life-form to produce poisons and problems for others on the planet. When plants first began producing oxygen it was a poison, species died, some adapted, and here we are. The thoughtless way man abandons his waste products until he sees their value is reasonably harmless on a small scale. It is only very recently, with the increase of our numbers, that we have begun to notice our impact on the environment. And we are doing something about it. Not enough probably, and some people don’t exactly help, so we’ll just have to see where it all leads and do our best. But whatever you do, don’t worry about ‘nature’; nature will take care of itself. Worry about what you can do to make our environment livable for you and yours.

To take a small example, we often look at the litter around us and feel depressed. Litter is a word that describes our idea of ourselves as creatures of artifice. Plastic discarded in nature is ‘unnatural’ and as such we find it ugly and unacceptable. As if litter is not enough we point to the baby albatross being fed pieces of plastic by her mother and feel guilty; we look at the poor little turtle who grew through the plastic hoop of a sixpack ring, and feel guilty, we see all the suffering we cause with our plastic and feel guilty. And with reason. We can do something about all that, it’s just that many choose not to. Human beings are capable of occasional brilliance, much kindness and stupidity and extraordinary misguided horribleness. Nothing much has changed there. The problem is that our occasional flashes of brilliance tend to become a problem because they are abused by selfish people and misused by the thoughtless multitude who wallow in their naturally thoughtless state. That too will not change. But there is another way of looking at this that is quite forceful. Of all our waste products, plastic is not the most poisonous; It is however very persistent, it does not break down. Were we to see it as our natural waste product we might even learn to appreciate the bright colours of coca cola bottles littering the landscape like flowers in the field (although I have to confess I would need some pretty intensive training for that).

More hopeful is the promise that plastic may well turn out to have the potential of becoming truly circular and properly recyclable and thus… sustainable! In that case plastics will be our happy future. I do not feel depressed about the future, or at least not more depressed than I am about the past, which shows man for the careless, weak and silly creature that he is.

We’ll just muddle on, trying to get things right, and if it means living in a plastic bubble with all mod cons, I shall just judge it on its merits.

COLUMN 31

CLIMBING THE ALPS INDOORS

The School Bouldering and Climbing Center in Bruneck is probably the first climbing center in the world to be designed specifically as a school sport facility. Throughout the day, school groups will come here for physical education; the center is big enough to be used by several groups at the same time.

Climbing was popular in the Alps for a long time before it caught on at indoor climbing facilities in the cities of Europe and the world.

It was thus more or less a logical step when the South Tyrolean town of Bruneck decided to give the trend sport a fixed place in local school curricula. According to the architects Stifter + Bachmann, the new climbing center on the outskirts of the town is the first in the world to be designed as a school sports facility.

Alongside operating as a “normal� climbing center from morning to night, it is thus used by several school classes on weekdays.

32 ADVERTORIAL

Given the heterogeneous surroundings of the new climbing center in immediate vicinity to two large car parks, the challenge was to develop a vigorous design of great symbolic expressiveness. This was achieved by combining an enclosed courtyard with an amphitheatre and a broad green strip separating the building from the car park.

The design envisages an uninterrupted spatial sequence whose different sections vary in terms of height and breadth, arranged around the courtyard and the outdoor climbing area, which they define as premium exterior spaces.

While the outside façade of the building forms a solid wall, the internal divides and the façade towards the courtyard are all made of glass.

From the courtyard, visitors enter the climbing center via the lobby situated prominently between the lead climbing area and the training area, from which it is separated by internal glass divides. The lobby houses the cash desk, refreshments counter, rental desk, and an office space. On its one side, a staircase provides a link to the other levels, while on the other a gallery forming part of the refreshment area offers fascinating views onto the climbing walls. As access to all of the main areas is situated on the lower floor at Level -1, it was possible to arrange the circulation area, changing rooms, and ancillary rooms in space created underneath the courtyard, giving them a central location and clear layout. An additional light well provides the utility rooms on the lower level with ample natural light. The courtyard, the lobby, and the visitors’ galleries provide spectators with numerous opportunities for watching the climbing, as do the glass walls on the lower floor.

Although the design is highly distinctive, clear topographic references mean that the building integrates well with the surrounding landscape.

A limited palette of details and materials was used: the solid shell of the building is made of bush-hammered seamless poured-in-place concrete made with a natural aggregate of local limestone. The roof is interpreted as a fifth façade.

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ADVERTORIAL 33

The world is slowly preparing to fully replace its finite energy sources with green and sustainable alternatives. The 2015 climate agreement meant an enormous step forward in the discussions surrounding the subject and now all participating countries, including the Netherlands, are setting plans in motion to reach their goals. The Dutch government had already agreed on creating more space for wind power in the national energy mix and has allocated areas in the North sea as destinations for new windmill parks. For the realization of this plan, called ‘net op zee’, TenneT, a multinational grid operator, was assigned. So how does a project of this enormous magnitude find its way?

Text: Mats Rekswinkel

Net op Zee TenneT First of all, an introduction to the company TenneT is sufficed. Not everybody might be familiar with the work of the company but it actually is the major power grid operator in the Netherlands. Additionally large parts of Germany are also supplied by TenneT’s electricity grid, making the firm one of the five largest electricity transporters in Europe with a total of around 41 million users. The map on the left shows that TenneT is strongly involved in the internationalization of energy grids and is currently developing a Northwest European electricity network, to further integrate national grids into an international collaborative system.

Furthermore their transportation grids are not only

34 THAT’S WHY

limited to land-based areas, also off-shore nets are part of TenneT’s huge network.

It is in this area that TenneT can administer their experience in the upcoming project ‘Net op Zee’, in which a completely new network of electricity cables must connect the off-shore windmill parks to the Dutch households. TenneT’s job in this project is to provide a safe linking electricity network from the windmill park to a land-based station where it will be connected to the main power grid. It is a challenging undertaking as a lot of construction work will have to be performed on sea and, besides needing to be safe, the system also needs to provide a stable power flow.

In doing so, the company has searched for help from other companies with different expertise. Collaboration is vital on suchlike projects as they ask for a multidisciplinary approach. In 2023 the project is set to be finished and until then the design and building must be carried out. TenneT’s aim is to optimize this production process and thereby reduce the strain on both the company and society in terms of costs. If all goes according to plan, the Dutch national energy mix will consist of 16% of sustainable energy sources in 2023, just as determined in the Dutch national energy agreement of 2013.

Execution The new prospective windmill parks along the Dutch shore will be separated into three different areas, Hollandse Kust Noord, Hollandse Kust Zuid and the Borssele. These parks will be situated 22 kilometers outside of the coast, meaning the depth can extend to twenty meters. Despite this being relatively shallow when compared to other parts of the sea, it brings with it significant complications. So called submarine power cables need to be installed in order to cope with the water pressure. Another off-shore project that TenneT has been involved in is called COBRAcable.

The project that is set to finish in 2019, consists of a network connecting the Danish and Dutch power grids that is largely underwater. The 325 kilometer stretching cable will be buried 1,5 meters below the seabed. The cable consists of wound copper threads at the core, which will be insulated by layers of plastics. As a result the network will be able to transport 700 megaWatts of power and is designed to spent a lifetime underwater.

TenneT has undertaken more similar endeavors in the recent past, such as Britned and Norned and has therefore built up much knowledge to secure safe and stable power transmission even at subsea level. But every geographical location can bring with it its own obstacles and thereby influencing the lay out of the transmission system. In the case of ‘Net op Zee’, which will be located alongside the Dutch coast, navigational routes by cargo ships play an important role and even the location of military zones needs to be taken into account.

So what does such a network of undersea electricity cables look like? In the image above can be seen that a series of individual cables connect the windmills to a collector station.

These cables are still not under the jurisdiction of TenneT, which comes into play after the windmills have been connected to the substation, where the power is converted from 66 kV to 220 kV. The output power is then transported through a submarine electricity cable on to land. When arrived on land, the power goes through another substation after which it is inserted into the main land-based electricity grid, ready to be connected to your every day’s wall socket.

To round up, Paris saw a new global vision taking shape, a world in which sustainable energy sources would take the upper hand and finite resources would be a thing of the past. The Netherlands is slowly taking up its role in this play as well, and in that game, it has assigned TenneT as a key player. Net op Zee will be the next step towards a more sustainable future and TenneT provides the outlines to take this leap. In their vision, TenneT has expressed the wish to take the lead in the development of a sustainable European electricity network and keeps innovating themselves throughout. In 2021 the first results will start to appear as Net op Zee will be finished and the new windmill parks will be put into action, bringing the Netherlands one step closer to a sustainable future.

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Images: 1. Windmill park along coast (source: Snappygoat.com) 2. Tennet system diagram (image: Mats Rekswinkel)

Sources: 1. TenneT Net op Zee 2017. Tennet.eu 2. TenneT COBRAcable 2017. Tennet.eu

THAT’S WHY 35

Public Skyline For centuries, the roof has mostly functioned as a separation between the inside and the outside; the outer shell was often just defending the building against the forces of nature. However since land, especially within the city, has become increasingly sparse, the rooftops of today have gained possible additional functions. Of course many have been covered in solar panels or green roofs to improve the environmental qualities of a building, however this has little influence on the rest of the city – the building is still, just a building. But some roofs have been adapted to function as a part of public space as well. In some cases the rooftops supply the inhabitants of the building with an additional function, such as the rooftop swimming pools which can be seen on top of many hotels in the inner city. But rooftops can even become a part of public space encompassing not just the building it lays on, but the surrounding neighborhood as well. Text: Jeroen Pospiech

The roof as a park In 1998, the inhabitants of Bospolder and Nieuw-Mathenesse neighborhoods of Rotterdam were quite opposed to the plans of the Port of Rotterdam to house business space on the former shunting yard bordering the city docks. Instead, they wished for more public space in the neighborhoods, specifically a park.

A solution was reached through collaboration between the stakeholders: a shopping mall with a public park on its roof, the Dakpark.

Dura Vermeer developed the mall, while the municipality oversaw the development of the park. The successful collaboration between the stakeholders led to the realization of the park in 2014 and the following nomination for the Architecture Prize Rotterdam. The biggest challenge for creating the park was to design a fluent transition between street level and the top of the mall, which is two stories high. This is taken care of through a sloped ascent on one side of the building with stairs going up diagonally. This gives the impression of a hillside rather than the top of a building. Furthermore, several facilities, such as a restaurant, a

36 THAT’S WHY

neighborhood garden and a playground were realized. This new piece of public space offers new perspectives for both the neighborhood as well as the park.

The roof as a sports facility As the municipality started allowing students to live on the Utrecht University in the late 1990s, the need arose for a social meeting point on the campus. The entire campus was renewed on the supervision of OMA during those years. NL Architects, who were originally only contracted by OMA to renovate the book store, came up with a clever solution to this problem through combining a grand café with the book store, and added a basketball court on the roof, the BasketBar. Originally, the book store was designed with a roof height of only 2,6 meters; far from enough to create the atmosphere of a grand café. Instead of raising the roof, the floor was lowered, but not the entrance. As a result, guests literally enter by walking over the bar. The roof was not raised for a simple reason, in this way the basketball court which lies on top of the restaurant does not lose contact with the street level. To increase the relation between the court and below, the middle circle of the court is made out of glass, allowing a view from inside of the restaurant below. Finally, the court is on the same level as the surroundings with the elevated walkway system which connects the university’s buildings, to increase the connection even more.

The roof as garden

The roof as transition

The roof as...

Since the Anton and Gerard buildings on Strijp-S are monumental buildings, no exterior space could be realized for the new inhabitants of the buildings; balconies were not allowed.

Therefore gardens have been realized on top of the buildings to replace this lack of exterior space for the inhabitants. These gardens function as a social meeting place as well as a garden on top of the 34 meter tall buildings. Purposely, birch trees have been planted to match the white plastered exterior of the buildings. Furthermore, as far as programming is concerned, higher trees have been planned at the center of the roof gardens, and smaller trees and bushes at the sides. This way, visitors can view the surrounding Strijp-S and the city of Eindhoven. These trees, bushes and plants are picked from species which are native to the area. They have been planted within an organic pattern through which a pathway flows from one side of the building towards the other. Though designed from the same principles, the gardens of Anton and Gerard differ slightly from each other. Yearly, an event is organized for the inhabitants of the buildings where they can voice their thoughts on how the gardens should be developed further.

From each of these examples it can be seen that the roofs of buildings offer many opportunities for future development. In the intensifying cities of the Netherlands as well as abroad, it appears imminent the use of space is maximized, as can be concluded from the increase of high-rise buildings in just about every major developed city in the world. This includes the roofs of buildings as they offer a unique platform for exterior space. In each of these examples, special attention has been given to the relationship between the space on the roof and the space surrounding it.

In case of the Dakpark this means a subtle transition between the surroundings and the park. For the BasketBar, this means indicating what is happening on top to the ground level. As for the gardens on Anton and Gerard, there is little relationship with the ground floor directly because the rooftops are too far from the ground. Instead, the gardens relate to what can be seen from there, the surrounding buildings of Strijp-S. The roofs of the future will no longer simply be the partition between the interior and exterior, only meant to block nature’s forces to come inside. Instead, they will become an extension of what is inside.

They can facilitate the occupants of a building with additional exterior space or become the transition of the exterior into the building, depending on who these occupants are and how they relate to their surroundings. Either way, they form a connection with both the interior and exterior, and can play a role in how these connect.

In order to focus more on this unused space, the municipality of Rotterdam has organized the Rotterdamse Dakendagen since 2015.

During this festival, which is open to the inhabitants of Rotterdam as well as everyone else, many examples of ways to use the roof pop up all over the (inner) city of Rotterdam. Last year’s edition brought 40 rooftops to open up to the public. The locations included meeting spaces, pop-up restaurants, a roof park, sports facilities, a cinema, spaces for workshops as well as stages for artists to perform various arts, and much more.

This year’s edition will allow the public once more to rise to the roofs of Rotterdam. This year it will take place from the 9th until the 11th of June. On www.rotterdamsedakendagen. nl the locations for the coming edition will be announced and any further information can be found.

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Images: 1. Dakpark (source: Rotterdam Architectuurprijs, 2014) 2. BasketBar (source: NL Architects, 2003) 3. Roofgarden Gerard (source: Bureau Lubbers, 2013) 4. DÂK Rotterdam (source: Esquire)

Sources: 1. Rotterdam Architectuurprijs. 2014. Rotterdamarcitectuurprijs.nl 2. Stadshavens Rotterdam. 2017. Stadshavensrotterdam. nl 3. NL Architects. 2003. NLarchitects.nl 4. Architectenweb. 2003.

Architectenweb.nl 5. De Architect. 2017. Dearchitect.nl 6. Biotope City. 2017. Biotope-city.net 7. Buro Lubbers. 2013. Burolubbers.nl 8. Rotterdamse Dakendagen. 2017. Rotterdamsedakendagen.nl 9.

Top010.nl. 2015. Nieuws.top010.nl

THAT’S WHY 37

http://WWWhat is the DEAL with architecture websites?!

An opening image. You push the button and enter. Ominous music starts to play. Images flash before your eyes: a church, a ray of light, a dark corner. You look around, but find nowhere to go... Text & diagrams: Eva Pabon Unfortunately, this is not the start of a blackand-white horror movie, but a poetic description of trying to use some of many horrible architecture websites that have caused the writing of this article. The title tells: there was a lot of frustration. Architecture firms seem to have a common knack for creating websites that are difficult to use or just blatantly incomprehensible. To find the reasons for this phenomenon, architectural websites were put to the test of web usability.

An important aspect of web usability is visual design. Expert Steve Krug defines four rules on how to make web pages visually understandable that could be used to find the problem:

1. Noise Krug’s statement is simple: reduce noise.

Remove unnecessary elements and background noise to keep a web page visually understandable. Compare the web pages of Sanaa and Archi-Tectonics: one is overwhelming, completely filled with projects and images as is so often seen with architecture websites.

It even shows the current time at your location accurate to the second. The last shows only two things: who they are and how to reach them. There is nothing else on the page to click on. An extreme reduction of information, however in line with their minimalist identity.

2. Click!

According to web design conventions it should be clear on a page what is clickable and what is not. Most web designers solve this problem by making everything that could be a link clickable. However, two types of architecture websites were found that caused some user problems. The first is the website where everything that is clickable is underlined or has click me written next to it. Although this is extremely understandable for the user, it usually also looks bad and outdated. Although, in the case of the New Territories website this seems almost intentionally done. The second is the type of website where many things can be clicked on, but it is unclear what will happen afterwards or where it will take you. A great example is the website of LAB Architecture that has moving objects that can be clicked on to open unexpected parts of the website at random. But only if you can catch them with your mouse. Additionally it has a menu that hovers which makes clicking the thing you want quite challenging.

3. Hierarchy Architecture websites are famously non-hierarchical. All projects are shown as equally important and sometimes even all elements of the website are as s. Jones Partners is one example where all elements that are of similar type are put next to each other without hierarchy.

Either in a list or like tiles in a wall (clicking the logo will toggle between the two options) they are shown. Unhierarchical web pages are, according to Krug, not user-friendly: they take a lot more effort to understand because the user

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38 THAT’S WHY

Other important web design rules are to keep things logical, self-explanatory, intuitive and of course to make it look good. It all comes down to making users think as little as possible. Is this what fails with so many architecture sites?

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The four ideas on web usability mainly focus on visual communication, however, there are more things that keep the usability level of a website high. One of these things is navigation: this again has to be conventional, logical and within the expectation of user.

Additionally, being able to return to an earlier page with one click has to be simple. Opening everything (Herzog de Meuron) or every picture (NL Architects) in a new window annoys and confuses users, especially on mobile.

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Website users like predictability. A predictable website speeds up the browsing process significantly. However, many architects seem to dislike conventions. They are designers that want to show their identity and innovations. Even more: they love concepts. In the case of websites concepts and conventions often do not work well together (see labarchitecture.com).

After all, concepts take time to understand and make users think, whereas they often will go through a website as fast as possible.

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needs to spend more time scanning the page to find useful information. Although many architecture websites are non-hierarchical, some, such as Zaha Hadid’s, take it as far as making all of the elements on the website movable.

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Follow the Breadcrumbs

Conventions and Inventions

If there ever is anything that architecture websites have in common it is the non-hierarchical lay-out where every element is listed equally to another. Look for example at the web page of 6a architects with news and projects all in a never-ending row. Look at the archive page of Zaha Hadid, where employees and projects are mixed together, the text-only project list of De Vylder Vinck Taillieu and the page of Jones Partners. A person that does not know the company would not know what to click.

Perhaps this phenomenon is caused by a sense of modesty where no project is deemed more important than another, perhaps it is the minimalism of their architecture or it is meant to give users a sense of control: they can decide what they find more important. However, unlike a building, a website has no sense of context. It has no location, direction or scale to the user, which means that they have difficulty focusing and choosing when scanning a nonhierarchical page.

Although it can be good to lay out a path for the user to follow on a website, architecture websites become problematic when this path becomes a concept. In some cases the websites are designed to give a full user experience.

Users are confronted with conceptual or experimental interfaces and menus (Lab architecture, Zaha Hadid, Herzog de Meuron), with moving elements and images (New Territories, Lab Architecture), with music and sound effects (Lab Architecture) and minimalist web design that shows little information (SANAA). In many cases the website was made to make users consciously experience their website much like they would experience their architecture. This takes time, users have to think and understand the new logic of this unconventional website. In this case a choice is made for user experience over usability. A choice that many architects make in their buildings as well.

honorable mentions: dsrny.com For their hovering pictures and having the option to ‘alphabetically’ sort images.

hetnieuweinstituut.nl Where everything moves and no-one knows why.

innovative-c.com For making you stare at the same picture of a woman every time a part of the website is loading.

architectonicsstudio.com For not being better than archi-tectonics.com.

garazdarch.com.ua For their music.

Difficult to use or just blatantly incomprehensible According to web designers a user must be given a sense of direction and hierarchy to guide them in a logical way through the website, even if they are not particularly looking for something. A great example is the website of Foster and Partners, which centers one project or article on their home page that says: “this is who we are and what we do”. This way uses do not have to scroll through the large list of projects to find out.

Sources: 1. S. Krug. “Don’t Make Me Think - A Common Sense Approach to Web Usability” (Pearson Education, 2005).

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THAT’S WHY 39

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Bring your design to life Moving imagery in presentations Some people may find them easy, others may struggle with them, but we all encounter one thing repeatedly throughout our studies: presentations.

Most of the time this entails a slideshow and/or posters and, for many of us, also a model. But don’t you sometimes feel like you miss a factor that these stationary media cannot convey? Maybe one of the following techniques with moving imagery can help. Text: Ilke Broers Using moving imagery in your presentation gives opportunities that are not so easy to convey through stationary media. It is an excellent way to show development and progress in a project. When used correctly, it can highlight the fundamental features of the project.

Some examples where motion can be an added value are for instance concept, detail, construction and structure, building steps, program, situation or sequence. Using moving imagery can be done in multiple ways. This article lists three techniques that are on hand for students.

Flip book This technique has been used for centuries, but is still a great and simple way to show movement. A flip book is simply the use of stationary images that, when flipped through at the right speed, form a moving image. The key to making a flip book is to not have too large changes in between the images.

This ensures rigid movements, which makes it not seem as one moving image but as separate images. A great example are the flip books from Olivier Gautier about the Eiffel Tower and the Notre Dame. These books show the construction of the buildings in great detail. They are enriched with explanatory text and extra moving objects such as elevators, boats, aircrafts, cranes, fireworks and even the face of Eiffel.

GIF GIFs are taking over the internet at the moment, but they are also really useful for enhancing your project. They are comprehensible with less steps than the flip book, and the possible use of a GIF is abundant. An example is shown on the right with some stills of the GIF. This example, used in a Master project by Rob Abeling, shows the decay of a bio-based plastic pavilion.

Some great examples can also be found on the internet, such as the Concept GIF for the Totihue Chapel of Gonzalo Mardones Viviani. GIFs are very easy to make on several websites. A recommendation is gifmaker.me. This site allows you to change the image size, speed and repetition, as well as the use of background music. It also has a feature for making an mp4 instead of a GIF. This is useful when working in InDesign, since this does not support GIFs. GIFs however are supported in PowerPoint.

VR Although it may still seem far-fetched, VR is definitely a possibility to use in your presentation. It does not have the broad possibilities of a GIF, but it brings an entirely new dimension to your demonstration. The products of IrisVR make it possible to bring the 3D world from your screen to the public. Prospect, one of the two programs, shows your 3D model in true VR experience with the Oculus Rift or the HTC Vive. However, these do cost quite some money. A cheaper version is the program Scope, which entails you to show 360° panoramas with your smartphone (Android or iOS) and a Gear VR or Google Cardboard.

Both programs have a free Basic version and both support several modelling programs such as Revit, SketchUp, Rhino, Lumion and Autodesk 360.

TOOLS 41

Our faculty building is very well equiped, but there are many spaces and facilities that have yet to be discovered by many students. Did you ever take a seat in the faculty’s very own Barcelona chair? Text: Lennart Arpots

Go to the seventh floor, Northeast side, to contemplate your thoughts while sitting in Mies’ Barcelona Chair and gazing across our Modernist campus.

42 TOOLS

Did you know there is a third stairwell in our building? Check it out in the back of the materials laboratory.

For the best photos of your model, be sure to make use of the faculty’s daylight room, located on the corridor behind the reception on the first floor.

On the sixth floor in the North stairwell, there is a relaxation room for stressed employees.

Visit Leo Gielen in the Documentation Center on the Southeast side of the second floor for a healthy dose of construction knowledge.

All the way in the top of the North stairwell, you can view the campus from an original Friso Kramer REVOLT chair!

You can use one of the showers located just in front of the entrance to the materials laboratory.

TOOLS 43

January 27 - June 25

April 26

Architecture of Appropriation

Real Estate Career Day 2017

In a period of renewed interest in a programmatic approach to the city, Het Nieuwe Instituut conducts research into squatting as an architecture of appropriation. The research focuses on the radical improvisation techniques used to appropriate spaces in the city. Zones Urbaines Sensibles (ZUS) designed a spatial installation in which the research is presented.

Museumpark, Rotterdam

On the 26th of April, Boss organizes the 23rd edition of the Real Estate Career Day at the TU Delft. With over 30 companies participating, the Real Estate Career Day is the biggest career day for students interested in Real Estate. Among the participating companies, different fields within the Real Estate are adressed, offering internships and vacancies.

Recd.nl | TU Delft

January 28 - December 31

May 1

This year it is exactly one century ago that the muncipality of Amsterdam decided to implement Plan Zuid, resulting in what is refered to as one of the most beautiful neighborhoods in Amsterdam.

This exhibition shows some of the many architects who worked together at Plan Zuid with many different designs and creative solutions.

De Dageraad, Amsterdam

The next CHEOPSx theme is The Student Hotel. The debate evening will take place at the hotel and different speakers will adress the concept of the hotel and the architecture as well as the construction and other aspects.

Cheops.cc/cheopsx | The Student Hotel, Eindhoven

March 24

May 5 - 7

Wonen in Iconen - Architecten Plan Zuid

Isover Excursion

CHEOPSx

Multiday Excursion

The company visit on the 24 will go to the Isover factory. During this visit, in collaboration with the first year course Building Physics and Materials, students will learn all about the manufacturing processes and practical implementation for the built environment of the largest insulation materials manufacturer in the world.

Isover, Vianen

On the 5th of May, CHEOPS will take the participants of the Multiday Excursion to London. In three days time, all the fields of the Built Environment will be addressed during city walks, company visits and other activities. On Sunday the 7th of May, the group will return to Eindhoven.

London

April 20

May 11

TU/e Dies Natalis

Plugged! Festival

On the 20th of April, the Eindhoven University of Technology turns 61.

Everyone is welcome, registration is not necessary. The theme of the day is ‘Will our univeristy reach 2040? A number of different speakers will adress the topic from their own point of view and expertise.

Tue.nl | Paterskerk, Eindhoven

On Thursday the 11th of May, the fifth edition of the Plugged Festival takes place. This combination of good and mostly local music, the sun, tasty food and cheap drinks will result in a great ambiance. With an estimated 2000 visitors and no entrance fee, it will definitely be a success.

KOE-veld, TU/e

th

Agenda CHEOPS & Built Environment 44 AGENDA

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@chepos_magazine

Bunker 599. Photo by Tamar Henquet.

The photo theme for next issue is anonymity. Submit a photo for Chepos 57 before May 15th, 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, Lennart Arpots (final editor), Rik de Bondt, Ilke Broers (editorin-chief), Lars Hogenboom, Laura van Huigenbosch, Daan Kropman, Eva Pabon (chairman), Jeroen Pospiech, Renée Thierij, Bas Turk, Mats Rekswinkel, Tafara Simon (interim-chairman) Chepos is a publication of CHEOPS, Study Association of the Built Environment. Content may

be used for research and study purposes, if credited properly. Exceptions 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, Jacob Voorthuis Acknowledgements: Rob Abeling, Bart Budel, Willem Böttger, Bernard Colenbrander, Bert van Schaijk, Geerte van der Steen Images: Cover illustration: Plastic environment (photo: Lennart Arpots) • Editorial page 1: (photo: Jan Bitter) • Index page 2-3: Carbon fiber reinforcement (source: University of Stuttgart), model of Utre-

cht station (photo: Mats Rekswinkel), sign on the Bunker (photo: Lennart Arpots), Thornico Building (source: rotterdamsedakendagen.nl), Mies’ Barcelona Chair (photo: Lennart Arpots) • Spread image page 20-21: ICD/ITKE Research Pavilion 2014-15 (source: moritzdoestelmann.com) • Bring your design to life page 41: Decay biobased plastic pavilion (photo: Rob Abeling) • Agenda page 44: Ubica houses in Utrecht (source: nl.squat.net • All other images are by the authors unless noted otherwise.

Chepos, built environment magazine: ISSN: 1873-183X • chepos@cheops.cc www.chepos.nl • www.fb.com/CheposPage • www.

issuu.com/chepos_cheops • www.instagram.com/ chepos_magazine Offset: Drukkerij Snep BV, Eindhoven, circulation: 1200 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

CHEPOS