At the eastern end of the Schipholweg, along the River Spaarne, Haarlem is revitalising its primary entrance, turning it from a motorway into a boulevard. This transformation also aims to establish a vibrant hub for public transport and, in so doing, enhance the residential proximity to the city centre. The current condition of the site does not yet have any of these qualities. Instead, it embodies the characteristics of CIAM development, being lifted from the ground plane with a semi-submerged parking garage giving it an introverted nature.

Our design challenge involves the creation of over 600 affordable homes in this area. To do this well, it is imperative to enhance the quality of the challenging urban site, simultaneously establishing a gateway for the city of Haarlem. Furthermore, we must find innovative solutions to ensure a good standard of living within a limited amount of space.

Our approach started with the development of a well-thought-out housing plan, ensuring that each resident has their private outdoor space, regardless of the unit’s size. Subsequently, we curated a wide range of communal facilities to enhance the sense of community within the large complex.

In addition, we consider it vital for residents in every income group to take pride in the look of their building. As a result, the aesthetic appeal is a key element of our design, featuring aspects that residents can connect with and identify.

Lastly, our design does not stand on its own, but also contributes to the fabric of the city. It serves together with its neighbours as an urban gateway, while also strengthening its connection to the surrounding area. The public spaces around the building have a wide range of features to encourage interaction and engagement with the neighbourhood.

The 74-hectare campus in southern Lübeck has a disorganised appearance and lacks cohesion. It accommodates diverse entities such as the university, a hospital, and various teaching and research facilities, all situated in close proximity to each other but with minimal interaction. Urban planning has been absent throughout the past century, resulting in a lack of structure. There are practically no vacant building sites on the campus, while demand is growing. Despite its current state, the campus possesses significant potential and sees considerable activity. Approximately 17,000 individuals commute to the campus daily for academic, research and professional purposes. In addition, many local residents travel through the partially park-like campus or use it for leisurely strolls and relaxation.

We took it as our challenge to overlap the worlds of the different institutes and individuals, to create an urban synergy on this fragmented campus where ultimately the whole is greater than the sum of its parts.

Our answer is to introduce public space, providing opportunities for recreation and relaxation, as well as ecological connectivity. This encourages people to step out of their buildings and engage with the campus, and enhances the quality of their experience here as a result.

In our masterplan, this public space is designed as a ‘green boomerang’ connecting the east and west sides of the campus. This lush landscape features bioswales, canals and ponds designed to manage rainwater effectively. The green boomerang serves as a unifying element, bringing a new level of quality to the campus environment.

The design brief requested a pavilion within a picturesque, historic park in Zurich. Our goal was to harmoniously blend the pavilion with the park, encouraging its use throughout most of the year. To achieve this, we aimed to employ simple, low-tech design solutions.

The answer is a design concept that recreates the unique natural characteristics of clouds, in terms of both physical and aesthetic qualities. In a similar way to clouds, our aim is to achieve sound reduction and light filtration. Just as clouds provide temperature regulation, our pavilion should offer warmth in winter and cooling in summer. Ultimately, the overarching aesthetic design goal is to create a tranquil and serene ambiance.

The pavilion’s climate-control system operates autonomously, relying solely on solar energy and ambient warmth. During the summer, it harnesses solar and warm-air energy, storing it in Phase Change Materials (PCMs) within the pavilion’s floor. In the winter, these PCMs release stored energy, ensuring a comfortable indoor environment and pleasantly warm flooring on the terrace.

The aesthetic qualities of the design include the intricate layering of clouds, ranging from nearly transparent to thick and substantial, creating a visually dynamic experience. The resulting image resembles a white cloud seemingly hovering within the park, seamlessly blending with its surroundings and adding an artistic touch to the monumental park landscape. It is a definition of space, more than just a building. It allows architecture and nature, land and air to play together.

During our work on various campus projects, we have noticed that many knowledge-based institutions have a pressing need for immediate space. This led to the conception of Cubix, a circular and modular timber building system which emerged from our astonishment at the lack of quality of temporary design solutions seen in campus environments.

We challenged ourselves to prioritise aesthetics in temporary structures, while also aiming for smart, effective and efficient solutions, and ensuring a healthy environment for users.

Our solution is Cubix, a 45m2 modular workspace consisting of 36 components. These elements are flat-packed for shipping, much like IKEA furniture, and can be easily assembled on-site by a small team without the need for heavy tools. Due to the use of lightweight and circular materials, no foundation is necessary.

Cubix is endlessly modular; its intelligent design allows for the construction of extensive campus layouts on a smart grid. From a single module, it is possible to develop a larger complex of up to 3,000m2, offering considerable flexibility in shape, location and function. The modules are straightforward to assemble and disassemble. These beautiful, light-footed and flexible spaces can be reconfigured and moved around. Time and again, whenever needed.

In a corner of the Utrecht Science Park stood a decommissioned two-storey particle-accelerator building, no longer active. Dispersed across the cluster were five distinct research groups, each with a unique way of working, ranging from sand and shovels to microscopic particle analysis. Yet all driven by the common goal of understanding and exploring the earth.

Our task was to integrate these five different research groups within the existing building. We successfully captured the collective passion of the institutes in one design element: a distinctive façade panel for the new building.

The façade features a delta-like carving in a concrete panel, a visual effect which is enhanced by stainless steel inlays. The interplay of light over these steel elements, as one moves around the building, creates an illusion of flowing water within the delta. The resulting façade not only symbolises the new institute but also visually represents the array of research themes executed within its walls.

Inside, the transformation of the former accelerator into an efficient research building was realised through volumetric additions in its spacious high areas and strategically placed openings in the thick walls. These openings help to establish a logical internal routing guided by natural light. It also offers surprising vistas of the surroundings and generates workspaces filled with natural light. The design strengthens the link to nature, revitalising the previously inward-looking complex and generating a welcoming workspace for all the researchers.

The Maritime District is transforming from a monofunctional office area into a diverse mixed-use neighbourhood. The KCAP masterplan facilitates this change by permitting residential towers to be placed set back and on top of a 25-metre-high plinth volume, known as the ‘Rotterdam layer’.

We took on the challenge of designing a high-rise residential tower within this masterplan. Our goal was to design a dynamic, outward-facing tower structure that actively engages with the waterfront and activates the public realm.

In our design for The Muse, we reconfigured the traditional tower-on-top-of-plinth typology through a dynamic geometry that connects both elements. The signature white balconies of the characterful silhouette further intensify this architectural gesture, as they visually and functionally extend the resident activities all the way down to street level. Both these bold design choices enrich the street’s character and allow the building to immerse itself in the vibrant city life.