MVRDV DESIGNS CREATIVE INDUSTRY HUB

ALPHABET BUILDING AMSTERDAM
MVRDV DESIGNS CREATIVE INDUSTRY HUB



Amsterdam based project development corporation NIC started sale of the MVRDV designed Alphabet building. In Amsterdam small and mid-size creative companies have trouble finding suitable office space. The Alphabet building communicates through a clear exterior design which reveals on the East façade the house number and at the main façade its extension for each company, a letter of the alphabet. The interior is highly flexible and completed with a rough and pure finishing. The 3200m2 creative industry building will be completed in 2012 according to high energy efficiency standards.

On the East facade the house number, on the front facade its extension.

The creative industry has seemingly unrealistic demands when it comes to office locations: a incubator of creative ideas which is spacious and inspiring with a differentiating design at a great location with car access. The Alphabet building in the Amsterdam port refurbishment Minervahaven unites all these qualities. The former port is currently refurbished to become a creative hub.

Behind each letter is a flexible office unit




The building is on a relatively small site of 30 x 30 meters and consists of a transparent plinth with a compact office block on top. Behind each letter of the façade the building offers a flexible unit of 128m2, the units can be sold independently or as a series of letters. Design studio Thonik will occupy the top floor or the letters A to F. As it was impossible to put the entire alphabet on the façade the letters I and Q are missing: the IQ is inside the building.

Interior finishings are concrete, aluminium and steel




The interior finishing follows the demand of creative companies, large loft like spaces with a rough finishing: no double ceilings, exposed materials such as concrete, aluminium and steel. A number of sustainable technologies give the building an excellent energy profile. Parking is located inside the plinth, circulation and spacious outside areas at the back of the building.

Alphabet Building is located at Minervahaven Amsterdam



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MVRDV was set up in Rotterdam (the Netherlands) in 1993 by Winy Maas, Jacob van Rijs and Nathalie de Vries. MVRDV engages globally in providing solutions to contemporary architectural and urban issues. A research based and highly collaborative design method engages experts from all fields, clients and stakeholders in the creative process. The results are exemplary and outspoken buildings, urban plans, studies and objects, which enable our cities and landscapes to develop towards a better future.
Early projects such as the headquarters for the Dutch Public Broadcaster VPRO and housing for elderly WoZoCo in Amsterdam lead to international acclaim.
MVRDV develops its work in a conceptual way, the changing condition is visualised and discussed through designs, sometimes literally through the design and construction of a diagram. The office continues to pursue its fascination and methodical research on density using a method of shaping space through complex amounts of data that accompany contemporary building and design processes.
MVRDV first published a cross section of these study results in FARMAX (1998), followed by a.o. MetaCity/Datatown (1999), Costa Iberica (2000), Regionmaker (2002), 5 Minutes City (2003), KM3 (2005), and more recently Spacefighter (2007) and Skycar City (2007). MVRDV deals with global ecological issues in large scale studies such as Pig City as well as in small pragmatic solutions for devastated areas of New Orleans.
Current projects include various housing projects in the Netherlands, Spain, China, France, the United Kingdom, USA, India, Korea and other countries, a bank headquarter in Oslo, Norway, a public library for Spijkenisse , Netherlands, a central market hall for Rotterdam, a culture plaza in Nanjing, China, large scale urban plans include a plan for an eco-city in Logroño, Spain, an urban vision for the doubling in size of Almere, Netherlands and Grand Paris, the vision of a post-Kyoto Greater Paris region.
The work of MVRDV is exhibited and published world wide and receives international awards. The 60 architects, designers and staff members conceive projects in a multi-disciplinary collaborative design process and apply highest technological and sustainable standards.
Together with Delft University of Technology MVRDV runs The Why Factory, an independent think tank and research institute providing argument for architecture and urbanism by envisioning the city of the future.
For information please contact public relations at MVRDV, Jan Knikker / Isabel Pagel

+31 10 477 2860 or pr@mvrdv.nl – http://www.mvrdv.nl/