NIO architecten, Profile of the Dutch architecture firm NIO architecten
NIO architecten, Profile of the Dutch architecture firm NIO architecten
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!
The building for the ZEP LeisureParkis based on Zeeland’s two most vital natural elements: wind and water. The image that the building evokes is that of a dance between a wave and a whirlwind. The wave is the horizontal binding theme for the events park, the whirlwind is the twenty-five meter high tower that can be seen from afar and that can be climbed by the daredevil.
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.
In the middle of an area dominated by the usual porched houses, gallery flats and maisonettes from the seventies, three identical blocks with a total of 33 ground-bound houses have been designed. Identical however? The residents have the choice to expand their house with an extra room on top of their roof shaped like an eye that overlooks the area. Therefore, the three blocks will never be identical after all. Secret number one.
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