NIO architecten, Profile of the Dutch architecture firm NIO architecten
NIO architecten, Profile of the Dutch architecture firm NIO architecten
At the beginning of the year 2003 a bus station was built on the forecourt of Hoofddorp’s Spaarne Hospital. This facilities block is located in the middle of a square and is a public area in the form of an island that serves as a junction for the local bus service. The design of this kind of building is generally neutral, but here the aim was to create a strong, individual image that was less austere and generic. Hence, the building was designed in the tradition of Oscar Niemeyer as a cross between white modernism and black Baroque.
What happened here? On the walls and ceilings of the tunnel a strange imprint is visible. A big, whimsical and brightly coloured imprint, an imprint of an unreal and immeasurable shape. As if during the building an unearthly thing got stuck between the formwork. As if the soul of the former landscape, being rooted up by bulldozers, has gone underground. As if the winding pattern of old polder roads, which has made place for rigid urban developments, takes revenge in the tunnel.
Winner of the Dutch Design Award 2010
For most bridges, whether they are fixed or moveable, an architect is not required. They are simply “engineered”, as they call it in professional circles, which results in functional constructions devoid of any poetry whatsoever. Unless it be big, prestigious civil works for which the necessary extra financial resources are reserved. That is why it is actually quite nice that for this relatively small bridge an architect was considered necessary, thus escaping civil engineering indifference.
Think of Dutch public bus transport and what you see is minimal bus shelters: one small plastic bench and standard 30 by 30 paving stones. If you want to be polite you could call it ‘rational’ or Calvinistic, but actually it is simply poor. No wonder no one takes the bus with pleasure. With the design of the Kerntraject Zuidtangent, we wanted to boost the image of public bus transport by reacting against this common picture. We wanted the steel to dance and the concrete to speak. We wanted to cross technique with flora, Schiphol with the Floriade, super service with supra-identity. This way the Kerntraject Zuidtangent could instantly be given a face. Passengers had to experience that they were making use of something special. The common image of the public transport-passenger, who is standing waiting in a cramped bus shelter, would get a counterpart with style: there is bus transport and there is the Zuidtangent!
As soon as one gets the upper hand, the other one goes underground. It is the same in Amstelveen. Where the Beneluxbaan gets precedence, the other traffic routes that cross it, are built underneath, resulting in tunnels and crossovers. The term ‘underground’ should then be taken both literally and figuratively. These tunnels and crossovers are hidden from the physical space (from the eye) as well as from the mental space (from the concept); dead functional things for which no one could have any feelings. It is an art to make these kinds of spaces specific again and to bring them back to the symbolic circuit.
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adres: Vathorst, Amersfoort, HOLLAND
ontwerp: NIO architecten
opdrachtgever: Ontwikkelingsbedrijf Vathorst
aannemer: Combinatie Kunstwerken Vathorst (Dura Vermeer, BAM Civiel en Heijmans)
constructeur: DHV
ontwerpteam: Maurice Nio, Arek Seredyn
start ontwerp: 2003
oplevering: 2005
bouwkosten: ca. 8.600.000 euro
When human intervention takes on the proportion of a natural phenomenon, the question arises whether the nature gods should not be conciliated in advance. What in oriental cultures is not even considered as a form of religion anymore, but as part of everyday life, seems to have disappeared completely from the Dutch culture. In the past sailors and fishermen were capable of attributing special forces to storms, waters and sea creatures. Nowadays every kind of involvement in nature is merely seen as a political act while it could just as well be that we have to beware of upsetting the nature gods, especially when we do so much harm to our environment.
One can easily say that, in spite of the Delta works, the power and force of the water have only increased in theNetherlands. It has mainly adjusted its tactics. Instead of brute force, she now throws in all her charms and is slowly finding her way to areas far outside the polders, to the highest and driest places in the country. Following the slogan of ‘living by the water’ she takes great pleasure in flowing elegantly into new residential areas and is starting to seem unstoppable. This is also the case for Den Bosch, in the new residential area of De Grote Wielen, where waterways were built before roads.
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