A building for the car
August Allebeplein, Amsterdam_Msc1 Border Conditions_supervised by M.de Haas
The main idea of the project consists on mixing the pedestrian with the car program. Therefore, the plastic, floating façade with the horizontal openings and the dynamic lines that hides the division of the two levels stands for the car function while the stiff concrete roof with strict column grid underlines the human scale where is used by the pedestrians. The main attempt was not to create a single building, but more a combination of closed, semi-closed and open spaces that could be used in interaction, all united by the concrete slab. This roof obtains several qualities, from an open green terrace to an interior space for the formal car repair. What is also important is the relationship with the big residential building which consists a visual border, blocking the contact and activity of the square from the rest of the city. My main goal was to smoothen this border and project to the highway the new building. So I removed the existing functions from the ground floor to create a commercial front with car showrooms as well as an entrance of the square for the pedestrians. The entrance for the cars to the upper floor also begins under the residential block, with a ramp leading the cars upstairs. It is an effort to project the new program of the square to the city.
Materialisation was made in relation to the different qualities of space and the automobile-man dipole. The big linear roof is a thick concrete slab to imply the essence of the elevated ground. It is an attempt to create an upper level square, in relation to the big public space and the informal repair area designed on the front. The idea is to create this “second-level ground” under which the program is placed, in direct connection with the public square. On its top, part of the roof is used as an open space with green areas for the community also in direct relation with the café of the education building while other part is a trial road for the cars of the formal repair shop. The rest of the construction on ground floor is simple concrete columns, glass and concrete panels for the commercial spaces. Education building is distinctive from the rest of the structure and it consists the vertical element of the composition. Its front façade is transparent to project the interior to the square, while the rest is mainly closed and covered with painted aluminium panels. The most predominant element of the building is the plastic façade that becomes the outer shell which folds around the stiff roof, and expresses the spaces of automobile. The material was chosen for its ephemeral, disposable character which could fit well to a repair garage in Allebeplein and also for its possibility of different levels of transparency.