CONTEXT
The project affirms itself as a powerful landmark partly due to its high skyline culminating at 120 meters. Assumed high rise building, it’s visible from far away since the topography of Netherlands is rather flat. The project becomes a signal as the NS tower is at Rotterdam central station. It plays the role of a symbol for the prestigious campus of Delft University, offering three high outlines linked by programs located in covered bridges structures.
The building typology is freeing up a maximum of public space on ground floor, respecting the upcoming master plan of Mecano architects, turning the whole Mekelweg axis into a large public park. In order to insert in the best way the project into this wide landscape, we chose to settle the building on the extreme North-East corner in order to reduce the impact of the building shadows on the park. The building insertion allows the accessibility to the building from Mekelweg where the tram will soon stop, from the park as well as from the 400-space parking placed at the back side of the building respecting Mecanos parking plan insertion on Schoemakerstraat.
FUNCTIONING
If the building claims itself as a high rise and powerful landmark, it is in line with a rationalistic vision of architecture that has to prove its efficiency. Its intern functioning system is largely influenced by the previous building designed by Bakema. If Bakema brought together all public facilities and displayed them on ground floor in order to generate a dynamic base to the building, we deliberately embezzled its purpose to adapt it to the high rise typology. The resulting organisation consists in a ground floor totally occupied by public facilities (library + hall + conference room). The three towers distinguish three clear entities: one hosts the studios, the other the administration and the last one the lecture halls, tests labs and professor offices. They are all connected to each other thanks to public facilities located in covered bridge structures, turning the three towers into a single building entity. Therefore, all public facilities are spread all over the building, offering natural light comfort and fantastic panoramic views over the surrounding. The conference rooms are located at ground floor and first floor, the restaurant at 8th floor, the model room at 11th floor, the exhibition room at 19th floor, the students club at 22nd and 23rd floor. Modular spaces giving the opportunity to host workshops or partnerships with individuals or institutions beyond the university are situated at 4th, 13th and 20th floors.
BODY INSIDE
The building hasn’t been conceived as a machine but as a body, a living organism in perpetual change. Composed of three organs (the three towers), its functioning is possible and optimized thanks to the homogenised spread of public facilities described previously and to the specific attention paid to the horizontal distributions, turned into relaxing common spaces drifted in the façade, as a window display. This uncommon location is highlighting and demonstrating the perfect vascularization of the building, where flows of people replace blood flow. In this way, the building activity is continuously showcased.
BODY OUTSIDE
The façade treatment of the building contributes to turn this building into a body. Like a skin, the facade changes, moves, evolves, inhales and exhales.
The façade is composed alternately of double-glazing facade panels with a perforated stainless steel sheet inner layer, reflecting sun radiations to the facing facades in the shadow (all facades therefore benefit the sunlight input) and of translucent sliding façade panels like an epidermis, which expansion depends on the sun radiation, functioning as melanin inputs in the human skin.
LED panels integrated to the vertical steel stiles on the façade, each one connected to a computer displayed along the inner façade and switching on when the computer is in use, testify of the activity of the school at a given time. In this way the LED system makes the façade change radically during all day.
SUSTAINABLE BUILDING
The building shows intelligence in its technical elaboration and serves as an example in the area of sustainability. In a common but still efficient way, the building façades are based on a double skin façade system, with automated opening windows. Once closed, they accumulate warm air inside the building (during winter) and once opened they naturally ventilate the building (during summer). Those windows automatically open depending on the room temperature. More over, the designed façade innovates by collecting and drafting the heat produced by the important number of computers placed along the inner façade of the double skin. The position of the computers facing the windows avoids uncomfortable sun reflections. The sliding foldable plastic façade panels spread themselves depending on the sun radiations. The necessary energy to activate their motorization is produced by photovoltaic cells integrated to the vertical steel stiles of the façade. Once unfolded, the translucent panels filter the sun radiation and expose a maximum of their surface, partly composed of soft and thin photovoltaic cells, producing the necessary amount of energy to insure the artificial lighting of the double skin area and the public facilities of the building. Besides this complex sustainable façade, the roofs of the covered bridge structures floating in between the three towers are planted : hanged landscaped yards accessible to the students that also help draining the rain water.
Once collected, the water is used to maintain the outside spaces and to supply water to the sanitary facilities of the building.
CONCLUSION
The project integrates the « body» notion described before from the global organization of the program -vascularized by public facilities- to the detailed design of the double skin façade making every façade participate to the energy production of the building. The building claims its role of symbol for the entire campus culminating at 120 meters high by showcasing the common and public spaces in order to emphasize the fantastic activity of the university. This notion is stressed by the lightning LED system integrated to the vertical steel stiles testifying of TU Bowkunde activity. The building appears like a living body whom skin breathes, changing differently according to the inside activity and the weather conditions thanks to the foldable translucent façade panels.