A glimpse of P.C. Hooftstraat street of Amsterdam | Crystal Houses
Well known for the world’s haute couture, P.C. Hooftstraat stands out as the third-best shopping street for fashion freaks and many popular stars to set their style in trend. It is one of Amsterdam’s historical residential streets, which now hosts wide luxury brands on its street front. The street is at Oud-Zuid, running from the Stadhouderskade to the Vondelpark of Amsterdam, Netherlands.
The street underwent profound design changes to meet the needs of the floating population and the foot traffic encountered. This involved widening the lanes, setting up some seating areas, and parking-bays, and creating a little more landscape to bring a sense of comfort engaging the shopaholics. The city was also conscious of its historical value and designed its aesthetic rule to ensure the Dutch historical aesthetics remained intact while also including international style and sensibility.
The urban design team put forth the design proposal of interweaving the street’s historical style with creative glass infusion to adapt and redefine the idea of transforming historical cities to meet the current generation’s up look in this fashion street.
Call for urban reinvention
Many astounding architects were called to reinvent the streetscape of Hoosftraat, giving a new look to its original building, including The Looking Glass, Rose house, and many more sculpted facades of the original houses in Hofstraat. The crystal houses is one of the fascinating designs brought to the new aesthetic definitions of P.C Hoofstraat of Amsterdam.
Creation of Crystal Houses
With a brief focus on combining the Dutch heritage with the current contemporary style, MVRDV, a firm based in Rotterdam, The Netherlands, brought a curious idea of innovation employing extensive use of glass in making its façade. The vision was to let the glazed bricks dissolve gradually into the traditional brick façade making up the existing urban fabric of the street.
“The increased globalisation of retail has led to the homogenisation of high-end shopping streets,’ says MVRDV.’ Crystal houses offer the store a window surface that contemporary stores need whilst maintaining architectural character and individuality, resulting in a flagship store that hopes to stand out amongst the rest.”
Design
Their store required a holistic redesign of the spaces, which led to a decision to completely demolish the two houses the government and create the same essence of existence to reality but also developed it further with their design. The design revolutionised the space proportions of 80% retail with 20% housing which had been the ambition of Amsterdam to host distinctive retail flagship without bringing any compromises to its historical ensemble.
Here the traditional brick façade is replaced with a nearly whole glass façade developed with new construction methods and research. The architecture team partnered with Poesia in Resana to precisely design and cast the Solid glass bricks.
Design and technological innovation
The structural solving and research were carried out with the Delft University and Technology and ABT- an engineering firm who created sensitive solutions to structural and fabrication techniques involved in executing the Crystal Houses.
Since the design ambitiously proposed a full glass façade, the need to restore its strength was solved with a low-tech idea of using full-fat milk. Its low transparency and high bonding capability proved to be an ideal liquid to function as the reflecting surface-to-level of the first layer of bricks.
The strength of the solid glass bricks was also carefully designed to endure any impact more strongly than the conventional brick cement construction. The execution demanded close supervision and an extremely high level of accuracy, which left a hand full of experts at the site to bring up any development needed onsite throughout the process.
The use of glass also brought along its energy requirements to be made renewable. It was also preplanned, where the building was designed with a ground source heat pump, providing optimal indoor climate throughout the year.
Architect’s Philosophy | Crystal Houses
The architect’s philosophical thought behind this idea is that once the building reaches its life span for the style, the façade can be entirely melted down and take new life in time. This also ensures that glass minimises waste materials’ origin, where imperfect brick can be melted and remade.
Since it is a retail outlet, the notion of security is also provided by creating a ram-raid defence plinth that prevents tampering.
Overall, this design represents the evolution of architecture, as it incorporates elements of sustainability and efficient response to changing societal needs while still inclined to oblige historical conservation with technological advancements. It is a model for how architecture can adapt and thrive in the modern world. It has significantly impacted the city of Amsterdam and the surrounding neighbourhood regarding its unique and striking design and how they have transformed the urban landscape and revitalised the historical area.
References:
Articles
Hernández, D. (2016) Crystal Houses / MVRDV, ArchDaily. ArchDaily. Available at: https://www.archdaily.com/785923/crystal-houses-mvrdv (Accessed: December 28, 2022).
designboom, philip stevens I. (2019) MVRDV’s transparent brick store in Amsterdam re-opens for Hermès, designboom. Available at: https://www.designboom.com/architecture/mvrdv-hermes-store-amsterdam-crystal-houses-transparent-brick-facade-06-27-2019/ (Accessed: December 28, 2022).
designboom, philip stevens I. (2019) Crystal houses by MVRDV features a façade made entirely from glass, designboom. Available at: https://www.designboom.com/architecture/mvrdv-crystal-houses-amsterdam-chanel-flagship-store-glass-facade-04-20-2016/ (Accessed: December 28, 2022).
Montes, E.D. (2018) Chanel Crystal House glistens in Lego Bricks, The Brothers Brick. Available at: https://www.brothers-brick.com/2018/02/15/chanel-crystal-house-glistens-lego-bricks/ (Accessed: December 28, 2022).
Wilkinson, T. (2021) Crystal houses in Amsterdam by MVRDV, Architectural Review. Available at: https://www.architectural-review.com/buildings/crystal-houses-in-amsterdam-by-mvrdv (Accessed: December 28, 2022).
Crystal houses (no date) MVRDV. Available at: https://www.mvrdv.nl/projects/240/crystal-houses (Accessed: December 28, 2022).
BrickArchitecture.com (2020) Crystal Houses / MVRDV, Do you love bricks? So do we… Brick Architecture. Available at: https://brickarchitecture.com/projects/crystal-houses-mvrdv (Accessed: December 28, 2022).
Iype, J. (2019) Unstudio renovates P.C. Hooftstraat 138’s facade in Amsterdam, the Netherlands, STIRworld. STIRworld.com. Available at: https://www.stirworld.com/see-news-unstudio-renovates-p-c-hooftstraat-138-s-facade-in-amsterdam-the-netherlands (Accessed: December 28, 2022).
https://warenar.eu/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/PC-Hooftstraat-45-Amsterdam.pdf (Accessed: December 28, 2022).
Digital Video
video crystal houses chanel store mvrdv amsterdam replica glass brick facade (2016) Dezeen. Available at: https://www.dezeen.com/2016/05/09/video-crystal-houses-chanel-store-mvrdv-amsterdam-replica-glass-brick-facade-movie/ (Accessed: December 28, 2022).
Images
Modern day P.C Hootstraat street, Amsterdam (no date) foursquare. Available at: https://www.google.com/url?sa=i&url=https%3A%2F%2Ffoursquare.com%2Fv%2Fpc-hooftstraat-661%2F5450f46d498efe95d309fa90&psig=AOvVaw2G6UT1OXXKlx3WDlyronRO&ust=1672511715688000&source=images&cd=vfe&ved=0CA8QjRxqFwoTCPCu_-39ofwCFQAAAAAdAAAAABAT (Accessed: December 28, 2022).
How Crystal Houses innovates the historical streetscape (no date) brickarchitecture. Available at: https://brickarchitecture.com/images/projects/crystal-houses-mvrdv/description-2.jpg (Accessed: December 28, 2022).
Step-wise illustration of the process (no date) images.adsttc.com. Available at: https://images.adsttc.com/media/images/5717/9bbb/e58e/ce07/4f00/027c/slideshow/Step_Diagram.jpg?1461164832 (Accessed: December 28, 2022).
Construction of Crystal Houses (no date) i.ytimg. Available at: https://i.ytimg.com/vi/3JwcKQRdJXA/maxresdefault.jpg (Accessed: December 28, 2022).
Casting the solid bricks (no date) brickarchitecture. Available at: https://brickarchitecture.com/images/projects/crystal-houses-mvrdv/materials-3.jpg (Accessed: December 28, 2022).
High skilled labor and precision in execution (no date) images.adsttc. Available at: https://images.adsttc.com/media/images/5717/9876/e58e/ce07/4f00/0267/slideshow/IMG_4319.jpg?1461164130 (Accessed: December 28, 2022).