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VALLEY SKYSCRAPER, AMSTERDAM MVRDV
The “geology-inspired, plant-covered” Valley, designed by MVRDV for developer Edge, is located in Amsterdam’s Zuidas neighbourhood. Comprising three towers of 67, 81, and 100 metres high, and cantilevered apartments, it was named the ‘best new skyscraper in the world’ in the 2021 Emporis Skyscraper Awards. The design combines offices, shops, catering, cultural facilities, and apartments in one building, with the green valley that winds between the towers on the fourth and fifth floors accessible to everyone via two external stone staircases. “Valley is an attempt to bring a green and human dimension back to the inhospitable office environment of Amsterdam Zuidas,” said the architects. On the outer edges of the building is a shell of smooth mirrored glass. Inside, the building has a more natural appearance, “as if the glass block has crumbled away to reveal craggy rock faces inside replete with natural stone and greenery,” commented MVRDV. Sitting over the three-storey underground car park, offices occupy the lower seven floors, with apartments beginning on the eighth floor. Much of the building is open to the public: from the publicly accessible footpath that zig-zags up to the central valley from the street level, to the Grotto, an atrium that forms a covered street on the first floor. This space is connected to the outside by two large skylights that double as shallow water pools in the ‘valley level’ above; its natural stone flooring, walls, and ceilings is the same stone used on the surfaces of the valley and towers. The cantilevers of the towers include eleven ‘special’ steel sections bolted to the concrete building “that take the overall appearance to the next level.”
© Ossip van Duivenbode
MVRDV created digital tools to ensure every apartment had “adequate light and views,” and facilitate the apparently random pattern of over 40,000 stone tiles of varying sizes that feature on the building’s facades. Landscape architect Piet Oudolf created a “biodiverse” design that used more than 271 young trees and shrubs and approximately 13,500 smaller plants. The building’s energy performance is 30% better than local regulations require, it has received BREEAM-NL Excellent certification for the commercial spaces, and the residential area scored an 8 out of 10 on the GPR Building Scale, a Dutch measurement tool that scores buildings across five themes of energy, environment, health, quality of use, and future value.
GUOSHEN MUSEUM, SHENZHEN, CHINA ROCCO DESIGN ARCHITECTS (RDA)
Rocco Design Architects (RDA) was one of three finalists selected from 12 international practices in a design competition for the Guoshen Museum, part of an “ongoing campaign to build new landmark cultural projects for Shenzhen.” The client, Shenzhen Qianhai Development Corporation, set three goals, said RDA: “The design should express the essence of traditional Chinese culture, reflect the character of traditional Chinese architecture, and embrace the spirit of Shenzhen as a cosmopolitan city.” RDA’s proposed design houses galleries in three interlinked, tube-like volumes, which reach across six stories. Suspended above the lobby and finished with ‘scalloped’ walls, the galleries create a “dynamic sculptural presence,” said the architects. “They draw visitors up through the building in a sequence alternating between enclosed display areas and open gathering spaces.” Between each floor, the galleries lead out onto planted, open atria that overlook the lobby and give varying vistas of Qianhai Bay and the Shenzhen skyline.
The scheme “called for a facade that responds to the climate,” and the architects used a “semi-transparent metal scrim that defines the edges of the building and blurs the inside.” The facade was designed to maximise natural light and ventilation, and make the museum appear from across the bay as an “elegant, rectilinear volume that glows from within.” By treating the galleries as a “building- within-the-building,” the design “makes possible the multi-storey, glass-lined lobby spaces while maintaining the light and environmental conditions required in the galleries.” The atria that link the galleries are open 24-hours a day and double as venues for events and installations.
ADF OCTOBER 2022
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