OLYMPIA KWARTIER HOUSING
Client: MVRDV / City of Almere
Type: Multi-family Residential Buildings
Location: Almere, Holland
Size: 1,200 m2 & 1,500 m2
Design: 2010
The new town of Almere, founded in the ‘80s and located near Amsterdam, has become extremely successful in the past 20 years and is planning a massive expansion (doubling its size). The Olympiakwartier is a section of the expansion closer to the sea. MVRDV was hired by the Dutch development company - Stadgenoot - to create a master plan for 10 blocks of the Olympiakwartier. LOT-EK was selected by MVRDV to design 2 of the 98 buildings that constitute the 10-block master plan.
For building G7, seventy shipping containers are stacked as a block, then rotated by 40-degrees from the street lot line, to provide 5 floors of rent controlled apartments and a green roof. The rotation creates interesting geometries in the layout of the apartments, which are organized around a central living space that spans the southwest-northeast axis of the lot - affording light exposure and cross ventilation throughout. The rotation also has a strong sculptural effect on the volume, as well as the resulting facades of the building: skewed bay windows extrude at a 40-degree angle, while red panels punched by graphic windows define the building exterior facades.
The building for lot E11 has a commercial ground floor, five floors of market-rate apartments and a green roof. Sixty shipping containers are stacked to create the apartment block. The block is then lifted on concrete walls that generate a tall and open ground level. This creates a direct visual connection between the street and the private courtyard behind the building. The block of containers is rotated by 15-degrees from the street elevation. The rotation creates interesting geometries in the layout of the apartments, which are organized around a central living space which spans the north south axis of the lot - affording light exposure and cross ventilation throughout. The rotation also has a strong sculptural effect on the volume and the resulting facades of the building: the block site line slices the container stack, generating large openings with skewed bay windows on the front and balconies on the back.