ArchitectsCommunity » davidchipperfield

Ernsting Service Centre Coesfeld-Lette, Germany/ David Chipperfield

admin — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 11:18:24 +0000

The building, located in the small town of Coesfeld-Lette, just west of Munster in Germany’s North-Rhine Westphalia region, is the new headquarters for the German clothing retailer Ernsting. Designed on a greenfield site, the structure stands alongside two existing distribution centres, one of which was designed by Santiago Calatrava in the 1980s and the other by Schilling Architects in the late 1990s. This third building completes the Ernsting compound and provides office space for business and retail managers together with a research and evelopment department.

The concept for its design was to break up the form of the two storey building landscape and to provide a more open than usual relationship between inside and outside. This notion of fragmenting the internal mass of the structure was also influenced by the demands of the client who sought to define each of Ernsting’s various business holding within a singular building envelope. These conditions allowed for the opportunity to design internal courtyards, which provide a hub from which all of the programmatic elements of the building could radiate, and which simultaneously afforded all of the office areas light and open space.

The sense of openness is further emphasised by a colonnade and balconies around the periphery of the monolithic precast structure, and by two atrium spaces, the larger of which acts as the main lobby and entry point for the building, and accommodates the principal area where people inside the building can meet. Inside, the office space is open-plan, with very few of the more conventional cellular office compartments dividing up the space, providing views into the courtyards and across to the surrounding countryside from both sides of the interior of the building. Complementing this strong sense of lightness and horizontal detachment, the building is raised slightly off the ground plane, appearing to float, looking to maintain a lightness of touch within the weight of architectural presence.

Client: Ernsting’s Bau & Grund GmbH & Co Kg
Gross Floor Area: 14,000 m2
Design Architect: David Chipperfield

Teruel Urban Development Teruel, Spain/ David Chipperfield

admin — Sat, 31 Oct 2009 18:31:55 +0000

The project reforms the access from the railway station to the Paseo del Ovalo, an historic promenade built on the site of the city walls. This promenade is one of many sensitive monuments in this world heritage city.

The immediate environment leading to the promenade has been improved with the addition of planting, street furniture and upgrading the quality of finishes and providing additional lighting.

Passenger choosing not to climb the ornate neo-Mudejar style stairway leading to the Paseo proceed along a defined pathway through a hard landscape, to a tall new cavity inserted into the city wall. This constricts to a tighter opening within the depth of the walls and leads to the elevator lobby, which is top-lit via the glazed elevator shaft which pierces through to the upper level.

Client: Diputacion General de Aragon
Gross Floor Area: 7,870 m2
Design Architect: David Chipperfield Architects

Gormley Studio London, UK/ David Chipperfield

admin — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 07:41:16 +0000

This studio for the English artist Antony Gormley is located amid the industrial buildings, warehouses and rail yards just north of London’s Kings Cross station. Attempting to create light and open spaces for the diverse and specific ways in which the artist works, the building provides studio space for drawing, painting, sculpting, welding, casting, and photography.

A former Turner prize winner, and an artist whose work has been exhibited in museums and as installations all over the world, Antony Gormley has created some of the most ambitious and recognisable sculptural works of the past two decades, including Field, The Angel of the North, and Quantum Cloud on the river Thames in Greenwich. With the increasing interest in his work, Antony Gormley required a space that would be large enough to construct his often huge installations, yet at the same time would also be somewhere intimate and personal enough in which he could conceive his next artistic projects.

Looking to satisfy both of these requirements, the design of the studio references and abstracts the large scale industrial architectural vernacular of the surrounding buildings. The building is distinguished by the silhouette of its pitched roofs and its bright but even interior light. Located to the rear of its site, the studio building itself is approached across a large yard, left open for the assembing of bigger pieces. A pair of galvanised steel staircases connects this yard to the domestic-scale studio and office areas on the upper floor.

Operating as both a workshop and as a pared down, white-walled studio space, the building is the focus for all of Gormley’s artistic production, and sensitively yet pragmatically edifies a collaborative effort between artist and architect.

Client: Antony Gormley
Gross Floor Area: 1,000 m2
Design Architect: David Chipperfield Architects

Parkside Apartments Berlin, Germany/ David Chipperfield

admin — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 07:07:41 +0000

Parkside Apartments are so named due to their exclusive location directly on the Tiergarten park in the centre of Berlin. The ten-storey apartment building forms the northern border of a new hotel, office and residential development – Beisheim Center on Potsdamer Platz.

The building accommodates 36 apartments, ranging from 150 sqm to 300 sqm. The high degree of flexibility in the design of the floor plans – spanning traditional to flowing room concepts – forms the basis for all apartments, as does the constant presence of the surrounding green space.

All apartments have balconettes and generous loggias. The 9th floor apartments are maisonettes, the upper floors of which provide access to the roof terrace with its far-reaching views over the Tiergarten park and the city of Berlin.

Public facilities such as cafes, restaurants and shops are located on the ground floor. The main entrance to the apartment block is located in the centre of these facilities. On entering the building via a stone clad hall, one reaches the lobby with views of the private landscaped garden through generously proportioned windows. The lobby provides access to the individual apartments via lifts and stairwells.

The facade, composed of large, irregular, roughly sanded stone slabs, gives the building a monolithic, solid character and thus adopts the solidity associated with historic Berlin. This solidity is supported and broken by the French windows, which structure the facae into modules. Together with the balconettes, they create the freely composed impression and plasiticity of the facade.

Client: IMMAGO Real AG represented by C+T Development Gmbh + Co KG
Gross Floor Area: 18,300 m2
Design Architect: David Chipperfield Architects

Friedrichstrasse 126, Berlin, Germany/ David Chipperfield

admin — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 08:55:39 +0000

Friedrich Grammar School is the oldest conserved building in the northern part of Fredrichstrasse as well as the first school building in Fredrich-Wilhelm-City. As the oldest secondary school building in Berlin, it exemplifies the type of schools that were being erected in the second third of the 19th Century, just before the Hermann Blankenstein period.

After 15 years of neglect, the registered architectural monument has been restored to house the head office for the German publishing company UIIstain Verlag, and comprises a street building and a courtyard building. Both buildings have been refurbished, and a new building intervention extends the attic story of the courtyard building by two floors, providing generous management office space for the company.

Due especially to its uninterrupted function as a school, the original buildings erected in 1848/49 and the wing extension of 1884 were surprisingly well conserved. The centrepiece of the interior is the music hall in the summerhouse extension, erected in 1884. Because of its rich ornamentation, the elaborate original detailing of the intricately formed timber ceiling (composite truss frame with English trusses) was removed completely by hand by restorers (restoration to the upper beam) and the flaws in the original were respotted neutrally.

Design and implementation were carried out in 2001/2002 on the basis of a comprehensive survey. The conservation guidelines comprised archival research, building phase surveys, maps and appraisals of its monument status, and also probing colour tests for the existence of historical colour pigments and a detailed survey of the existing doors and windows.

Client: Muller-Spreer & Co
Gross Floor Area: 4540 m2
Design Architect: David Chipperfield

Housing Villaverde Madrid, Spain/ David Chipperfield

admin — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 17:04:21 +0000

Commissioned by the Empresa Municipal de la Vivienda(EMV), the social housing scheme is located on plot 203 of a new development in Verona, in the Villaverde district of southern Madrid. Comprised of 176 one-, two-, and three-bedroom apartments, the scheme responds to an overall masterplan for the site which requested a single U-shaped block, 15m deep, and with a footprint of just over 2,000m2. Like other buildings within the same development, it also required that the block be eight stories high and have the appearance of a pitched roof. Within the confines of this brief, the design attempted to manipulate these architecturl restrictions so as to abstract the common idea of an apartment block. So whereas other neighbouring buildings adopt a symmetrical, double-pitched silhouette, here the traditional relationships of wall and roof are abstracted into a low, single pitch for the bulk of the block, and a small secondary pitch bevelling the building’s front edge.

The increase in floor area achieved by this reduction in roof volume also allowed for a more sculptural approach to the building envelope-carving back the sides of the block, away from the orthogonal, to create a more varied outline to the building’s elevation.

Further distinguished by its choice of materials – earthy-pink concrete facade panels, a rich dark grey concrete for the courtyard portico, and a dense band of landscaping in between, the effect is a rich tricolour radiating outwards. Like the building’s overall form, the surface of the block also evolved from the desire to create both an hierarchical facade (with larger rooms expressing themselves on the outside with more widow openings) and one in which this fenestration does not repeat itself over the building’s eight floors (so that each window placement appears unique). As much, then, as a three-dimensinal study into mass and form, the design of plot 203 represents a two-dimensional, almost mathematical, exercise in paterning.

Client: Empressa Municipal De la Vivienda
Gross Floor Area: 11,698 m2
Design Architect: David Chipperfield

Pantaenius House, Hamburg, Germany/David Chipperfield

admin — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 14:44:19 +0000

Pantaenius House, Hamburg, Germany

This office building forms part of a new masterplan for the HafenCity in Hamberg as part of a revitalisation program for a harbour which has lost its significance as one of Europe’s leading trade and shipping centres. The building will accommodate the head office of Pantaenius-Versicherungsgesellschaft (a yacht insurance broker) and is situated in the “Speicherstadt”, a historic area of shipping warehouses and the key architectural element of the historic harbour development of Hamburg. The design of the building attempts to find both a material and formal reference to the historic harbour.

Its simple composition of two interlocking volumes of differing heights mediates between the lower neighbouring residential buildings to the west and the higher office buildings to the north on the other side of the quay. The exterior brick skin unifies the building into one monolithic form, providing an architectural emphasis for the entrance to the harbour and a reference to the historic brick buildings of the harbour.

Long, deep horizontal incisions into the facade give the building a sculptural appearance and provide loggias on the north and south sides, creating a relationship between all interior office spaces and the exterior surroundings of the harbour. Eight floors with a roof terrace provide an attractive working environment. The floor plan allows for a flexible layout of the office floors with individual and open-plan spaces. The loggias can be accessed from all office spaces and enhance the pleasant working atmosphere of the building.

Client: Sandtor Gmbh
Gross Floor Area: 7200 m2
Design Architect: David Chipperfield

Hotel Beaumont, Maastricht, The Netherlands/ David Chipperfield

admin — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 13:33:02 +0000

Hotel Beaumont, Maastricht, The Netherlands
Hotel Beaumont Residence is a third generation family business located near to Maastricht train station. The hotel was founded in 1912 in a 4-storey corner building constructed in 1885. From this point the hotel gradually expanded along the adjoining buildings of the same block and adapted itself to acquire the status of a modern 4-star hotel with 121 rooms.

The recent replanning was prompted by the acquisition of further adjoining buildings that were to be integrated into the existing hotel configuration. The objective was to restructure the public areas on the ground floor, their complicated room layouts, their lighting conditions and the ground floor, and to redesign these areas into one generous and aesthetic whole.

In this process it was also necessary to incorporate a new show kitchen within the existiong restaurant, a new lounge, an enlarged reception area, a breakfast room with a kitchen, and a banqueting hall. The reorganization of room groupings optimised the flow of operations between the hotel’s different functions.

The characteristic room elements and furnishings that were worth conserving (for example in the restaurant) were preserved and they provided the material and colour stock for the new spaces. By means of clear and reduced architectural language and sophisticated lighting the different room qualities were strengthened without losing sight of the general language of the public ground floor areas.

Client: Harrie Beaumont
Gross Floor Area: 750 m2
Design Architect: Devid Chipperfield

Figge Art Museum, Davenport, USA/ David Chipperfield

admin — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 13:11:50 +0000

Figge Art Museum, Davenport, USA/ David Chipperfield
The centre of Davenport, located on the banks of the Mississippi on Iowa’s eastern border, suffers from many of the problems endemic to a number of American cities. Over the years the area has witnessed the departure of much of its residential and business community, leaving downtown Davenport with little of the vibrancy normally associated with urban life. In an attempt to reinvigorate this area, and recreate a connection to the river, the city identified the relocation and re-building of the Davenport Museum of Art (renamed the Figge Art Museum) as the catalyst in a programme of urban regeneration.

Identifying a wish to create some kind of emblematic building for the new city, the design of the Figge Art Museum was conceived as a monolithic glass structure that would powerfully yet simply landmark Davenport’s redeveloped waterfront. Its architecture is based around the idea of a simple volumetric block enveloped by opaque, transparent, and translucent surfaces.

These glass surfaces are fritted with horizontal banding that varies in density so as to define each of the museum’s formal elements. In urban terms, the design looks to support the old city grid by filling one half of a previously empty city block.

While maintaining a strong and singular outline, the design of the museum reveals itself as more varied than its urban footprint would suggest – different frontages reflect differing site conditions and define each of the building’s facades with distinct approaches; city plaza, street entrance, and riverside terrace. Inside the building the programme for its design and layout was based largely on the existing Davenport Museum of Art, with its rich mix of exhibition and non-exhibition functions, with the inclusion of educational spaces, drawing and study studios, lecture and library facilities.

The deisign encourages the overlap of these functions and creates a public route through the building. Visitors are aware of the activities of the Figge Art Museum, and students and artists have an immediate relationship with the collections.

Client: Davenport Museum of Art
Gross Floor Area: 10000 m2
Design Architect: David Chipperfield

Museum of Modern Literature Marbach am Neckar, Germany/ davidchipperfield

admin — Sun, 25 Oct 2009 11:52:24 +0000

Museum of Modern Literature Marbach am Neckar, Germany
The museum is located in Marbach’s scenic park, on top of a rock plateau overlooking the valley of the Neckar River. As the birthplace of the dramatist Friedrich Schiller, the town’s park already held the National Schiller Museum, built in 1903, and the Archive for German Literature, built in the 1970s. Displaying artefacts from the extensive 20th century collection from the Archive for German Literature, notably the original manuscripts of Franz Kafka’s “The Trial” and Alfred Doeblin’s “Berlin Alexanderplatz”, the museum also provides panoramic views across and over the distant landscape.

Embedded in the topography, the museum reveals different elevations depending on the viewpoint. By utilising the steep slope of the site, terraces allow for the creationg of very different characters-an intimate, shaded entrance on the brow of the hill facing the National Schiller Museum with its forecourt and park, and a grander, more open series of tiered spaces facing the valley below. A pavilion-like volume is located on the highest terrace, providing the entrance to the museum. The interiors of the museum reveal themselves as one descends down through the loggia, foyer and staircase spaces, preparing the visitor for the dark timber-panelled exhibition galleries, illuminated only by artificial light due to fragility and sensitivity of the works on display. At the same time, each of these environmentally controlled spaces borders onto a naturally lit gallery, balancing views inward to the composed, internalized world of texts and manuscripts with the green and scenic valley on the other side of the glass.

A clearly defined material concept using solid materials(fair-faced concrete, sandblasted reconstituted stone with limestone aggregate, limestone, wood, felt and glass) gives the calm, rational architectural language a sensual physical presence.

Client: Deutsches Literaturarchiv Marbach
Gross Floor Area: 3800 m2