Archipelagoes: offices

Showing posts with label offices. Show all posts

1.28.2012

A new home

Well, it's been a while. Ok, to be completely honest: it's been terribly long since I've last posted here. And no, this is not a post to mention the next reanimation of this blog. However, on the new and improved website studio-also.eu, the studio for my design and research projects, I've integrated a blog. Some of the posts from this blog will be recycled over there. Same, same - but different. So, for future reference, please see the Studio Also website.

7.17.2008

Falken Baden - Burkhard Meyer

If you'd like to have a crystalline, edgy smooth-shaped building, be sure to contact a Swiss architect. The practice of creating tightly lined buildings with a subtle twist has been traditionally Swiss. And the firm Burkhard Meyer has proved to be among the best at this game, with their Falken Baden building. This building consists of offices and appartments, in a sleek, elegantly morphed box. There are several things that make this building spectacular, besides the shape of things. For starters: the huge overhangs of the building. The sharp, fully glazed corners of the building cantilever up to eight metres, with a cantilever in a different direction above that. This makes the already elegant building extra sexy in its shape.

Also, organisationally it's quite interesting how Burkhard Meyer put the different parts together. On top of a block of offices, arranged around an atrium, there are houses around a central patio. So the roof becomes a roof-terrace, inverted, turning away from the cityscape around it.
The question might be: is there nothing wrong with this building whatsoever? Well, to be honest, the atrium in the office block seems to be a bit gloomy (and almost depressing, in a way). But other than that, this building has so much going on for it. It's sheer elegance, in organisation, morpheology, materialisation and urban positioning.