in collaboration with: Studio For New Realities (SFNR)
client: LSI
type: Vision Development, Urban Architecture
location: Willemsplein, Rotterdam
status: Under construction since May 2017, completion in June 2019
photography: Jeroen Verrecht, Bas Leemans
 

Direct naast de Erasmusbrug in Rotterdam is de Willemstoren verrezen. In het ontwerp hebben IWT en Studio for New Realities gestreefd naar een tijdloos en persoonlijk binnenstedelijk woonblok met 76 woningen, gericht op bewoners met een stedelijke leefstijl. De toren kenmerkt zich door de heldere vorm, met maximale aansluiting op de omgeving en robuuste materialisering.

Het gebouw is verdeeld in drie woonblokken met verschillende oriëntaties, die zich richten op de kwaliteiten uit de omgeving. Aan de voorzijde richten de woningen zich op het Willemsplein met balkons die uitkijken over de Maas. Woningen in de onderbouw zijn gericht op de Houtlaan, terwijl de woningen in het bovenste gedeelte juist uitkijken richting het Park.

Op verschillende schaalniveaus willen de architecten de onderlinge ontmoeting tussen bewoners stimuleren. De lobby op de begane grond fungeert als collectieve werk/huiskamer aan het Willemsplein en op de zevende verdieping is een gemeenschappelijke daktuin gerealiseerd, met oriëntatie op de middag- en avondzon. De diagonale vluchttrap vormt een ‘verticale straat’ die deze twee collectieve ruimten met elkaar verbindt en zo de ontmoetingen extra stimuleert. Een aantal ‘momenten’ markeren specifieke plekken in het gebouw – de monumentale uitkraging boven de entree en de doorloop naar de daktuin. 

In de appartementen geven een aantal specifieke ingrepen een ‘personal touch’: Door kookeilanden te maken kun je in gesprek blijven met je partner en gasten tijdens het koken. Door de balkonhekjes ‘om te vouwen’ is privacy en windbeschutting vergroot en een plek voor je ochtendkoffie of evening-drink gecreëerd. Het geïntegreerde lampje verlengt de leestijd ’s avonds. En openingen in de zijgevels geven zicht op de omgeving als unieke ansichtkaarten van de stad.

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Willemstoren is an understated yet sophisticated residential Minitower consisting of 76 inner city apartments situated next to the Erasmus bridge over the Maas river. 

Volumetrically divided into three blocks, each block has a clear orientation and focus. The apartments are - due to subtle stepped shifts in the facade - optimised towards their surroundings and views to create a qualitative and intimate living environment for its inhabitants.

A responsive design framework enables an efficient and pragmatic structure able to steer and control the wide range of parameters. During the design phase these are explored in order to generate a number of semi public collective spaces within the building to support a spacious tactile atmosphere. 

Type: business design
Location: xx
Status: Under Development

More information on this project will follow soon. You can contact us directly if you are curious to hear more about this.

Client: New Industry
Type: Vision Development, Strategic Narrative Design, Re-fit / Re-use, Interior Design
Location: Eiland Feyenoord, Rotterdam
Status: Under Development

How to get a dilipitated National Monument, on the Island Feyenoord on the South bank of the city of Rotterdam,
situated in a desolate park, surrounded by industries, offices and social housing, working as a destination with horeca?

To bring new life in the building for both the local residents, the people that come into the area during the day for work, as well as attract new people from the adjecent neighborhoods, districts and surrounding cities, a special kind of pre-fase before the actual design is needed. In short, how to become a new destination for the people of the Rotterdam area?

We propose a strategic narrative, a design spanning multiple scales ranging from urban design to programmatic fit-out and interior design. Each geared to its specific goals and needs, adressing different users and actors. Together they form the backdrop for the restauration and new development that forms Villa van Waning.

SECOND NATURE
Second Nature is a 9-week international summer program for students from the University at Buffalo, the State University of New York, running in June and July 2014 and situated in Amsterdam, the Netherlands.

The program focusses on contemporary urban agglomerations through the ecologies of human, natural and artificial systems that constitute them. Coincident with the increasing urbanization of the planet is the advent of intensifying social and environmental pressures, ranging from ever more powerful superstorms and regional flooding to accelerating socio-economic inequality, unrest and upheaval. Within this context, cities cannot be understood in isolation from the regional contexts that surround and support them. Second Nature explores new strategies and tactics for the design and planning of urban regions that are understood not in opposition to–but in consort with–natural processes. We examined the complex relations between people, the natural world, and the built environment and explored how they can be influenced, shaped and mediated by a variety of new and emerging techniques and technologies.

We examined notions of the constructed landscape and the integration of engineering systems within architecture and urban infrastructure. We explored how new techniques involving digital fabrication, embedded sensing, and robotic actuation can be deployed in constructing hybrid structures that engage the natural environment in more responsive ways. At the same time, we investigated how distributed sensing and computation, big data and open systems, social media and other participatory platforms can aggregate small-scale, local interactions into larger systems exhibiting network effects at a regional scale. Emphasis is placed on trans-natural, bio-mimetic and other post-sustainable design methods for addressing social and environmental change within urbanized regions.

The Summer program is supported through a wide variety of guest lectures, by experts from amongst others MIT, Delft University of Technology, Wageningen WUR, Erasmus University, UvA, the Dutch Ministry of Infrastructure and Environment, the Directorate-General for Spatial Development and Water Affairs, Amsterdam City Planning Department, Amsterdam Smart Cities, Waag Society, Arcadis, PwC and Van Oord.

In collaboration with: Mark Shepard, Antonina Simeti
Supported by: Buffalo University, New York

QUANTIFIABLE FANTASIES
From 09-13 October 2013, SARP Katowice together with the municipality of Dabrowa Gornicza held a national architecture and urbanism student workshop to determine possibilities for the area of Dabrowa Gornicza and its mining districts. For this workshop, IWT developed a framework to research possible futures. This scheme was used by the students in its elementary form, and can be used in a more elaborate form by key players to truly determine the direction to take.

Negotiation and Argumentation
Aim of the participatory set up is to provide argumentation for the start of a constructive discussion between private- (bussiness and production) and public parties (government and municipality) about the joint route to take towards a shared future image for the area and region in order to develop an embedded areal development plan which has the support of all parties involved.

Narrative Planning
This set up uses Narrative Planning as a device; the generation and investigation of different spatial stories that are possible for this area to manage the direction of future development. These generated options help to have an argumentative discussion about the direction to take, and the different steps that are foreseeable in the possible futures.

The narratives are explored through fundamental research- and consequence explorations. Argumentation is found through an extrapolation of mapped data, economical- and behavorial statistics combined with an anticipation of future demands.

Through investigating different constellations of programmatic and economic of ecosystems, a wide variety of possible futures are explored.

A Strategic narrative aimed to connect long term planning visions for Rotterdam Alexander to the Now. How to adress future stakes and Global Deadlines like rising water and land subsidence, to housing and agriculture - the impact of climate change - to an area with a caleidoscope of stake holders, interests and hundreds of thousends of inhabitants?

client: O Team, Gemeente Rotterdam, Ministerie BZK
in collaboration with: …,Staat Amsterdam
location: Rotterdam
status: Ongoing
 

client: own initiative i.c.w. Merel Beelenkamp
type: strategy, research, design
location: Middellandplein, Rotterdam
status: 2017 - current

@fundamentalrestaurant

Our ‘skin in the game’ project. Developed to investigate our questions concerning food, food production and its inmact on our surroundings; towards a Gastronomic Urbanism.

This experimental restaurant brings the gastronomic experience as an exposé of our natural living environment. After all, we live in our food.

The soils and landscapes form the foundation in the test kitchen of chef Merel Charlotte Beelenkamp and architect Bastiaan Kalmeyer, in which the focus on micro-seasons provides a leading role for vegetable dishes that are often prepared over an open fire and paired with natural wine. The menu explores the riches growing in our natural surroundings.

The menu celebrates the research of Fundamental.soils, Fundamental.landscapes, Fundamental.plants and Fundamental.ingredients in the greater Delta area. The rivers Rhine, Meuse and Scheldt have created a unique diverse biotope of different landscapes, resulting in a complex interplayof urban and natural needs. This juxtaposition of demands forms the backdrop of the menu, and the main driver of the restaurant.




We developed the spatial design for the restaurant and work on the research framework for the kitchen, in close collaboration with the Chef, as a new research tool to investigate our landscape as food providing entity, as well as urban living environment. Zone cooking - using ingredients defined by their landscape zone ie. sea, polder, river, forrest etc - and micro seasons both are vital for our transition towards a food inclusive, climate adaptive way of living in our Delta region.

client: Innerfire, Wim Hof
type: Re-fit / Re-use
location: Stroe, Barneveld
status: Built
photography: Pim Top

Transforming an existing barn structure into a gathering and exploration space to support the growing business of Wim Hof, a.k.a. The Ice Man, in the rural east of the Netherlands. Wim Hof and his company Innerfire focus on the integration of extreme human physical endurance with psychological performance through (breathing) exercises, cold water exposure and meditation training for both international private clients and professional athletes.

We propose two flexible generic main areas. One with an open, extravert and outward atmosphere, and one with a closed, introvert, secluded and grounded atmosphere. This juxtaposition forms the basic layout for upgrading the site into a no-nonsense but sensitive backdrop for the wide range of envisioned activities. 

The glass house provides day and sunlight access throughout the day, creating a never ending play of shadows and light in the space which is ideal for active physical exercises. 

The larch wood slats entirely enclose the introvert area. This locally sourced wood from the sawmill next door is combined with two artisanal walls of clay plaster, specifically mixed for this client. It creates a warm, earth-like atmosphere for meditation. The dimmable light sculpture waves through the space, as a playful reference to the breathing exercises performed in this area.

The existing steel structures are maintained and form a framework for the building requirements in which future upgrades can be integrated by plugging in to the self sustainable power network of photovoltaic cells and thermal storage on site.

A visually clean and calm appearance is accomplished by combining an array of different elements such as insulation, gutters, drainage pipes, sliding door rails, glass panels and structural beams into one carefully detailed wooden slatted element, almost like a click-on facade.

Both sheds have large sliding doors (one wooden door of 3.5m x 4.30m and two glass doors of 5.5m x 3m) positioned diagonally opposite of each other. Once opened up completely, they enable a blurred use with inside and outside activities and provide a natural air flow throughout the building.
 

client: Old Scuola
type: design and engineering
location: flexible
status: completed
photography: Jurgen Jacob Lodder

Een mobiele keuken voor het restaurant Old Scuola in Rotterdam. De foodtruck is zelfvoorzienend, opgebouwd uit staal en gerecycled plastic die iedere plek in de stad kan activeren.  

 De keuken is voorzien van twee houtovens, waardoor alle locale ingrediënten kan verzamelen en daarmee zowel op festivals als op een besloten intiem feest lokaal- en seizoensgebonden kwaliteitsgerechten op locatie kan bereiden. Toekomstbestendig, en sustainable.

 Enerzijds is de foodtruck uitermate pragmatisch en functioneel ontworpen als stalen container, om alle weersomstandigheden te kunnen doorstaan, voor hygiene, maar ook om over 10 jaar nog steeds zonder problemen te functioneren.

 Anderzijds zijn de barmeubels opgebouwd van 100% afval van plastic snijplanken, een robuust materiaal dat ook over de uiterlijke kenmerken beschikt van het terrazzo dat Old Scuola veelvuldig heeft toegepast in hun restaurant. Ook zijn marmerplaten hergebruikt, zodat de bodem van de Napolitaanse pizza nog steeds traditiegetrouw op natuursteen gemaakt kan worden. Robuust maar tactiel.

 De foodtruck dankt zijn naam Transformer aan het feit dat deze met 1 druk op de knop transformeert van een afgesloten stalen box tot een verhoogd en uitklapbare mobiele keuken. De Transformer is zelfvoorzienend omdat de warmte van de ovens kan worden opgeslagen en worden gebruikt om water te verwarmen. Daarnaast is er een aansluitpunt gemaakt voor zonnecellen om de koelingen en verlichting van energie te voorzien.

Because we have to.

Client: CIC - Cambridge Innovation Center
Type: Vision Development
Location: Central Business District, Rotterdam
Status: Under Development

CIC and Venture Cafe asked us to come up with a strategic document that both envisions a new spatial use for the well known Kriterion cinema on the roof of the Groot Handels Gebouw, as well as a conceptual fit and set up for a programmatic implementation in a larger network of cultural partners.

What if… Kriterion could start to function as a Cultural Periscope. Overlooking the central square in front of the Central Station, the gateway into the city center?

What if… Kriterion then functions as a fire starter, a lens where the different cultural entities (Movie, dance, theather etc) as well as the different bussines cultures (Port, Agri Tech, Health science etc) would come together and use, not only the space in front of the central station, but the entire CBD as a canvas to show case everything what is going on in the entire city?

What if… The functional entrance of the city, actually functions as the center of the city?

client: Old Scuola
type: Interior Design, Vision Development
location: Achterklooster 1, HIG, Rotterdam
status: Built
photography: Pim Top

We designed a new pizza headquarters for Old Scuola in Rotterdam.

Terrazzo bar elements form the epicentre of the 350m2 industrial production kitchen and restaurant, called Old Scuola. The restaurant is founded by two young entrepreneurs to support their quest to create the ultimate pizza and is located in the new creative hub ‘Het Industriegebouw’ which also houses MVRDV and Groos Concept Store.

IWT aimed to design a spatial machine, an interplay between the support strip, the bar elements and the acoustic landscape. A metal clad support strip facilitates its fixed program - two wood-fired ovens, kitchen, stairs, toilets and storage - in a minimal programmatic footprint.

The strip is accompanied by three centrally positioned terrazzo bar elements, which, together with the workbenches, double as production area during the day, and eating area in the evening. These different user zones of the bar elements enable unexpected interactions and social encounters between guests and staff.

Custom-made acoustic baffles and adjustable frames with integrated lighting on the ceiling reveal a zoning landscape focussed on a sound- and light intimacy atmosphere in this industrial production environment. The linoleum covered dining tables mark the more secluded areas under and above the entresol, and are enclosed by curtains playing with visual transparency.

In collaboration with: Jonas Klock
client: Revolt
type: Vision Development, Interior Design
location: Witte de Withstraat, Rotterdam
status: Built

Being responsible for the interior design and branding of the new venue Ballroom in the city center of Rotterdam, we introduced a two stage rocket which started with a minimalistic design for a pop-up event space, to come to a definitive design of a bar/restaurant.

The 6-week pop-up event that ran during the summer made it possible to open the bar during the construction period of the venue and aimed to try out new local products and habits which later could be used for the ‘final’ bar. A diagonal wall was positioned boldly through the old existing bar, dividing the space in two. One part functioned as construction site, the other part – a pure white canvas – was open to the public. During this event we literally introduced the new brand identity of Ballroom slowly and playfully to the Rotterdam audience.

The moment that Dutch temperatures are rising, Witte de Withstraat turns into an almost mediterranean boulevard with a great see and be seen quality. The adjacent bar De Witte Aap was voted best bar in the world a few years ago by Rough Guide. To live up to its surroundings we designed a cube for the outside that is a pixelated bar. It can adapt to all kinds of informal side-walk events and – in assembled mode – serves as a logo for the bar.

client: Private
type: Re-fit / Re-use, Interior Design
location: C.P. Tielestraat, Rotterdam
status: Under construction

For the transformation of this loft in Rotterdam West we completely opened up the traditional, existing floor plan and we introduced a minimal number of furniture pieces in order to leave the floor plan flexible and open for different uses by the residents.

By introducing these large, scalable furniture elements - scalable in dimension and materialisation - we manage both costs and appearance during the design process. The pieces are made up by a 'Facility Core' containing a study, storage, kitchen and toilets, a 'Private Block' containing the bedrooms and bathroom, and a 'Living Strip' which functions as a family gathering element connecting the kitchen area into the outdoor patio.

client: Revolt
type: Interior Design
location: Witte de Withstraat, Rotterdam
status: Built
photography: Ingmar Swalue

After the pop-up event, the ‘final’ bar/restaurant Ballroom now offers steady organic meat-balls combines with a bar priding itself in serving 52 gins, one for every week of the year.

The client (a young and upcoming cultural entrepreneurial duo in Rotterdam) did not desire one primary function for the entire space, but a design which could respond to a wide array of activities, from intimate private dinners to large public events. To meet this demand, we introduced so called stage sets which are worked out in volumetric configurations each with its own tactile materialisation, set to trigger the tactile senses of the guests, such as a space defining diagonal bar running over the full length of the interior worked out in concrete, wood and marble. A collection of atmospheres, which, put together in one space, function as a whole.

Ballroom, with its bold collection of materials including tweed, concrete, green marble, oak, olive wood and british racing green powder coated metal as well as a vertical garden and garnered with neon lights, feels somehow spacious and very intimate, where the play between volume and material makes for an intriguing clash of things to come.

client: CIC
location: Groot Handels Gebouw, Rotterdam
type: Vision Development
status: Built
photography: Ossip van Duivenbode

CIC was founded in 1999 in Cambridge, Massechusetts and today is the largest cluster of startups in the world, housing close to 1.000 companies in premium offices and co-working spaces. In 2016 CIC will launch their first Europe expansion in Rotterdam.

We collaborated with CIC US and Deloitte on the feasibility research investigating the possible locations for their European headquarters.

We explored the physical possibilities of a responsive grid as lay out tool and identity maker to manage planning, design and brand outing at the same time. To test this principle, a Beta Space of 800m2 was set up. It functions as a test site for adapting floor plans, radically densifying the layout and testing a range of materials, textures and colours, making it an iterative platform for discussing the overall spatial qualities and identity of CIC’s future development. This test space, as well as IWT’s spatial style and brandbook formed the backbone for the executive architect Kraaijvanger for the further development of CIC’s 3.000m2 office spaces. 

client: Codum
type: Vision Development, Re-fit / Re-use, Interior Design
location: Overhoeks, Amsterdam
status: Built

A 5.000 m2 transformation of the former Shell Laboratorium on the north shore of the river IJ in Amsterdam for which we designed the interior spaces, office lay-outs and developed a phasing strategy for its proposition and identity to be implemented over multiple years in this upcoming area. 

A Lab is an incubator, a movement for companies in tech and new media focussing on the impact of digital applications and new technologies on real-life cities. 
 

client: A Lab
type: Vision Development
location: Overhoeks, Amsterdam
status: Built

As part of the A Lab concept development, we initiated the Coffee Copter as first collaborative project for the tennants of the building. We worked together with Unc Inc for app development and tech support, Screenturner for the movietrailer and Puurontwerp for the development of the drone. 

After releasing the trailer, numerous media outlets like RTLZ, national newspapers like Algemeen Dagblad and websites like Buzzfeed wrote about it. The coffee drone was also featured in the BBC 1 series on the Future of Food, airing februari 2016.

It’s a familiar feeling: mid-morning, exploiting the first caffeine high of the day, at your Everest of efficiency. Yet before long comes a realization that the cup you filled before reaching your desk is empty. What to do? Abandon your station—risking all the in-transit distractions that come with refueling—or stay put, convincing yourself you can withstand the pre-lunch doldrums?

This dilemma will soon die out thanks to the Coffee Copter, a drone built to bring cups of fresh, handcrafted coffee to the caffeine-needy right where they work.
When Starbucks announced this fall that it would soon be offering delivery to select customers in the U.S., Dutch media went abuzz—and turned local attention to this video of Dutch-invented Coffee Copter’s test flight through A-Lab, a former Shell laboratory repurposed as an office space in Amsterdam Noord.

The coffee service begins with the tap of a finger. An office worker places an order via the Coffee Copter app, and the request is instantly transmitted to the café on the building’s ground floor. The barista makes the drink—rosetta everlovingly included—and then places the lidded paper cup on the waiting drone, docked at the bar. Rotors spin and off it goes, flying away, up two flights of stairs, down a hall and into an office room, where an H-marked landing pad receives the gentle touchdown. Human hands retrieve the goods.

in collaboration with: Studio for New Realities
client: NS Real Estate, Municipality of Eindhoven
type: Vision Development, research
status: finalized
year: 2014-2016

Using temporary urban programming to boost innovation and urban development.

The original plan for this scheme is based on the temporary design proposal for the redevelopment of the Central Station Square in Eindhoven, in collaboration with Studio for New Realities, NS Real Estate and the municipality of Eindhoven.

The concept of The Urban Playground is based on a historic way of ‘making city’, translated to our current time. Nowadays, budgets and subsidies dry up, the government is no longer the big urban developer it used to be and private developers are put to the task to upgrade our urban surroundings. If this is the case, who then is the driver behind qualitative urban development and urban programming?

The Urban Playground offers a site-specific, interactive, light and flexible urban development strategy that bridges the gap between commercial parties and governmental parties. Referencing Archigram’s Instant city, a curated branded environment is used as a temporary event setting, where a long term urban upgrade takes place once the event time is over.

client: Private
type: Architecture
location: Nesselande
status: Built
year: 2009

Our special project, as it kickstarted the drive to start an office during University. The design of a house for a young family, situated in the outskirts of Rotterdam, became a study into the way the parents and children live and interact, and how, on a restricted budget, a variety of spatial atmospheres could be introduced, using the box structure as a low cost construction principle.  

A ‘public’ and ‘private’ route became one guiding organisation principle. Living on a mix of levels the other. Life spanning the ground floor and first floor made for the introduction of two staircases: one for each route, each with their own respective floor height (2.6 and 3 meters). One connects the ground floor garden to the first floor living room with views spanning the dyke and natural preserve behind, the other creates an intimate short-cut between the children’s- and parent’s bedroom.