People, Place, Purpose and Poetry
Architectural design studio projects make up a sizable element of the study of architecture in architecture schools. The assignments that the pupils complete are reviewed by a jury and a desk. It’s exceptional to win an architectural design competition when you’re just beginning your career or even when your professional schooling is coming to an end.
Francine Houben, creative director and founder partner of Mecanoo, began her professional career in 1980 after winning a competition for an architectural design studio in Delft, Netherlands, even though the design studio was formally founded in 1984. Houben studied at the TU Delft, and she already had an office before she finished school or even became an architect, something which is rare.
Houben, Döll, and Steenhuis won a competition to design youth housing in Kruisplein in Rotterdam when they were still Delft University of Technology students. The initiative marked a significant shift in Dutch social housing, which at the time was predominantly geared toward family units.
Along with its founder and creative director, Francine Houben, Mecanoo is also led by partners and architects, Nuno Fontarra, Rick Splinter, and Arne Lijbers, as well as by its financial director, Floris Overheul, and its Design & Research Partner, Dick van Gameren. A renowned architectural firm, Mecanoo takes pride in building high-performance structures that produce vibrant, innovative urban settings. The logo of Mecanoo has a diver, which symbolizes independence, freedom, and free spirit in the design and the processes involved.
Design Philosophy
People, Place, Purpose, Poetry ‘is the foundation of Mecanoo‘s practice, which, put simply, means that the architectural design studio, which has been in business for thirty years, is a strong supporter of creating spaces that are contextual to their surroundings, with an emphasis on the needs of the people who use them and the intention to create a purposeful design. Mecanoo firmly believes that poetry can be translated into a tactile, all-sensational design experience in the built form.
Mecanoo is a firm advocate of forward-thinking, environmentally conscious, and socially practical design ideas. This strategy can be seen in each of its design initiatives and built forms, which are only made possible by the outstanding and aesthetic collaboration of fields like architecture, urban planning, landscape architecture, and interior design. Function in a place is influenced by time, which will always alter. As a result, the design, taking into account such functional alterations, adopts a future style to account for unforeseen developments.
To create milestones in this era of a globally linked world, the design concept is centered on sustainability. Space has meaning when social factors are taken into account while designing for individuals and communities.
Mecanoo is a specialized studio that creates architectural projects with a human touch, giving context, sustainability, and consultation precedence over the built form because it believes that an architectural design project needs to consider cultural sensitivity.
Mecanoo is an architectural firm that has been around for more than three and a half decades and has made important technological advancements. Partner at Mecanoo Nuno Fontarra uses AI to convey design ideas and claims that the technology is now capable of quickly producing design alternatives.
The Arts at the National Kaohsiung Arts Centre
A city’s architecture can be considered a representation of how it has evolved from a once-important international port to a modern, varied city with a vibrant socio-cultural landscape. The National Kaohsiung Centre for the Arts is a great representation of Kaohsiung’s transformation.
Mecanoo designed the National Kaohsiung Centre for the Arts in harmony with the neighboring subtropical park to positively influence the city’s residents while taking into account the local setting of the site and its historicity. The massive, undulating structure was created in the form of the iconic indigenous Banyan trees, with their distinctive crowns. It is composed of skin and a roof and serves a wide variety of purposes.
The way the design engages the inhabitants is what exudes extrovertness throughout. People can, therefore, come here at any time of day or night. The park surrounding the building serves as the staging location for an outdoor theater that is placed on the top of the building as it curves to the ground.
Banyan Plaza’s open structure maintains the design’s context and harmony with the surrounding environment while allowing the wind to freely flow through the building. The 1981-seat Concert Hall is built to imitate a tiered vineyard, with a stage in the center and terraces surrounding it at varying floor heights.
The new National Kaohsiung Center for the Arts building project aims to create an interactive space between regional and international talents through arts and culture. Thus, the architect designed this space to symbolize the evolving vision for the city of Kaohsiung. The poetry of people, place, and purpose is brought to life by the seamless transition between the interior and exterior, which creates opportunities for informal and formal performances to overlap.
With an international, multidisciplinary team of experts that includes architects, interior designers, urban planners, landscape architects, and architectural engineers, Mecanoo has grown into a well-known Dutch architecture studio. Mecanoo’s social housing projects were a great market entry, and the company today boasts complex, multifunctional buildings as well as significant urban development architectural design projects. At Mecanoo, growth has been continuous.
Reference
National Kaohsiung Centre for the arts (no date) We are Mecanoo. Available at: https://www.mecanoo.nl/Projects/project/54/National-Kaohsiung-Centre-for-the-Arts?d=0&t=0 (Accessed: October 28, 2022).
