The ‘MBO Raad‘ is the Dutch Association of VET Colleges. The association represents all government-­funded colleges for secondary vocational education and training and adult education in the Netherlands.

This office space was re-­created by COEN! to form a light, colourful and attractive working environment, The designs for the corporate identity, product and interior are all based on one consistent and powerful concept.

An appropriate colour combination can greatly enhance a good working environment. Colour elements can enhance and focus attention on the identity of this customer.

Coen

Office MBO Raad, image courtesy COEN!

Office MBO Raad, image courtesy COEN!

Everyone is unique. COEN! has the expertise needed to translate this uniqueness into a consistent and powerful corporate identity which fits like a glove. That’s why I started workshops to let clients discover their unique identity. This makes it for me easier to create afterwards an identity that reflects the soul of the company. So this identity lasts longer and communicates stronger. And, more important, the company creates an identity inside out instead of outside in. This has lead to this interior that feels like home for the employees: they have created it together with our agency and the architect.

Office MBO Raad, image courtesy COEN!

Our agency designed also sixteen colourful patterns for this organisation, representing the various professional fields. All VET colleges are representing one or more professional fields like trade, communication, transport etc. These patterns have been printed on wall coverings and furniture. This total approach makes it a project with an strong 'identity layer'.

Why am I so proud on this design? Because in this design, I combine communication, interior design, product  design, graphic design and art into a strong image that reflects the identity of the organization. I call this the identity layer. By the way: all other projects of my studio or made by dear colleagues as Marcel Wanders, Phillipe Starck and for example Ron Arad that carry this perfect ‘identity layer’ that fits like a glove make me very proud.

Coen

Office MBO Raad, image courtesy COEN!

+ Project credits / data

Project: Office MBO Raad, Houttuinlaan 1, Woerden, Netherlands
Client: MBO Raad, Woerden
(interior) architect: Bos en Alkemade, Frans Alkemade en Fred Bos, IJsselstein
Identity/interior designer: COEN! design agency, Coen van Ham, Eindhoven
Project leader: Van Aarle de Laat, Germaine Zielstra, Bilthoven
Constructor:  BAM/HABO, The Hague
Interior builder: Gielissen, Eindhoven
Floor: 2752 m2
Start design: January 2009
Start building: July 2009
Delivery: January 2010

+ Details

• Spacious: there are no hallways in this project, all spaces combine with each other
• Special: 300m2 special printed patterns are place don walls in this building
• Colourful: eight colours form a harmonic whole: white, brown, orange, yellow, green, blue, purple and black.
• Economic: only energy efficient lighting is placed in this building, working on motion detectors.
• Cosy: 100 special designed hanging lamps create a cosy atmosphere.
• Identity: the specific identity of the ‘MBO Raad’ is evident throughout the head office.
• Whole: all three wings of the tripod shaped buildings have been integrated to form a coherent and recognizable environment.
• Arty: The characteristic items used for the design are at the interface between applied and autonomous art.
• Timeless: the interior design is timeless and open with colourful accents.
• Affordable: in spite of the limited budget  available, it was possible to create a powerful concept.

+ All images and description courtesy COEN!

In Seoul, Korea, S-Trenue: Bundle Matrix was developed from the L-shaped podium tower by Mass Studies. Externally the tower is expressed by three slim vertical forms, composed of the central core, and two sides of unit towers, it continues extended to the podium and forms an “L” that as one element.

With the core tower at the center, the slimmer steel construction towers lean at varying angles that still maintain structural soundness. This will create as much distance as possible between the three towers and add outdoor space between them. Because of these spaces, there are many rooms inside the tower with an unusual amount of access and exposure to the outside for a more desirable residential/work environment.

Mass Studies

S-Trenue: Bundle Matrix - Panorama, drawing courtesy Mass Studies

S-Trenue: Bundle Matrix, image courtesy Mass Studies | Photo by Wan Soon Park

+ Project description by Mass Studies

This tower proposal is an alternative to the conventional residential/office tower prototype of commercial developments, with its design being specific to the site’s conditions.

S-Trenue: Bundle Matrix, diagram courtesy Mass Studies

Stocky Tower

Generally, the plan of this tower typology is determined by the maximum site coverage (60% in this case), and the maximum F.A.R. (800%), and is repeatedly stacked vertically. Proportionately, this typology is usually on the stable, short side and thus referred to as a “stocky” tower. In this plan, a tower of 14 floors (800% ÷ 60% = 13.333) is possible.

The site is located near the Yeouido National Assembly, in an area that has been developed since the 1980′s and mostly populated with towers built according to this equation to similar height and capacity scales. An urban environment crowded with these types of towers is often monotonous and uninteresting, while the paucity of space between towers results in an oppressive cityscape.

S-Trenue: Bundle Matrix, image courtesy Mass Studies | Photo by Yong-Kwan Kim

Podium Tower
Prototype 1 (Standard): This type is possible when there is enough vertical allowance. The lower four or five levels, mostly filled with high-profit commercial entities, forming a podium of maximum site coverage. Smaller (and therefore less efficient) floors are stacked repeatedly on top of the podium, using extra vertical allowance to reach its maximum height. The podium’s capacity maximizes value and invigorates the neighborhood, while the slimness of the tower improves lighting and views inside. In this project, the site is by a 100m-wide street that adds extra height allowance, for a possible total of 36 floors.

Prototype 2 (L-shaped): This is a variation of the podium tower; The tower atop the podium faces the street and horizontally forms an L-shape. The tower’s visibility increases from the street, while increased distance from neighboring buildings to the rear improves the overall environment.

S-Trenue: Bundle Matrix, image courtesy Mass Studies | Photo by Yong-Kwan Kim

S-Trenue: Bundle Matrix, image courtesy Mass Studies | Photo by Yong-Kwan Kim

Bundle Matrix
The L-shaped podium tower is reorganized and transforms into three vertical elements: three slimmer towers. The central core tower, the adjoined street-side tower, the adjoined rear tower and the podium form an “L” that continues as one element.

The core tower is of reinforced concrete construction, the other two, of steel construction. With the core tower at the center, the slimmer steel construction towers lean at varying angles that still maintain structural soundness. This will create as much distance as possible between the three towers and add outdoor space between them. Because of these spaces, there are many rooms inside the tower with an unusual amount of access and exposure to the outside for a more desirable residential/work environment.

Thirty-two bridges in the gaps connect all three towers functionally and structurally. Each of these bridges has a balcony and greenery on either side, creating pleasant gardens suspended in mid-air. The interstitial spaces extend to the commercial lower four floors with an atrium garden, escalator hall and other common areas for rest and transit that enliven the space. The design may have started from a podium tower prototype, but with the division between the podium and tower vanished, the three slimmer towers and two resultant interstitial gaps create vertical urbanity. The site is a gateway into the district, and one can expect this urbanity to act as a new, vital catalyst.

S-Trenue: Bundle Matrix, image courtesy Mass Studies | Photo by Iwan Baan

Overall Yeouido Site Plan
There are many changes in store for Yeouido in the near and far future, with its existing financial area at the core. According to the 2020 Seoul Urban Basic Project Plan, Yeouido will be developed as an international financial district and the center of northeast Asian finance.

High-density highrise projects such as the IFC and Park One are being developed to the site’s northeast as a link to such mid- to long-term plans. In the residential areas to the site’s southeast, there are mixed-use highrises already developed or under construction. This project is at the center of a rapidly-changing Yeouido’s commercial and financial center.

S-Trenue: Bundle Matrix - Longitude section, drawing courtesy Mass Studies

Main Sections
The building is comprised of 7 basement levels and 36 superstructure levels, totaling about 39.899 ? and 154.14m in height. Parking and mechanical rooms are located on basement levels 2-7, and community conveniences are on basement levels one to superstructure level four, with the remaining levels 5 to 36 being “officetels” (live/work space). Belt truss reinforcement is at levels 14-15 to strengthen the highrise. Levels 14-15, at the core of the building, contain support facilities and central mechanical rooms and mark the division of facilities.

S-Trenue: Bundle Matrix - Ground floor plan, drawing courtesy Mass Studies

S-Trenue: Bundle Matrix - Level 2 floor plan, drawing courtesy Mass Studies

S-Trenue: Bundle Matrix - Level 6 floor plan, drawing courtesy Mass Studies

S-Trenue: Bundle Matrix - Level 15 floor plan, drawing courtesy Mass Studies

S-Trenue: Bundle Matrix - Level 34 floor plan, drawing courtesy Mass Studies

Level 1 Plan: Street Park
A green park space will be installed along the 100m-wide street. In addition, an 85m x 5m garden island will be installed alongside the street 20m to the west, which is narrow but expected to see significant pedestrian traffic. The street-side park features bamboo and Japanese spurge landscaping and water fixtures. Mist fountains and lighting will create a distinctive urban park that adds to the site’s role as a gateway.

S-Trenue: Bundle Matrix, image courtesy Mass Studies | Photo by Yong-Kwan Kim

Perspective: Sky Garden
In the interstitial spaces on either side of the core tower, there are 32 green spaces planned for “sky parks.” Over two stories high and arranged to alternate on the right and left, long narrow gardens effectively cross each other in an indeterminate outdoor space. The penthouse level (36th floor) has two outdoor spaces for every three units, with 31 total outdoor spaces that complement the building’s exterior and help formulate the highrise’s identity.

S-Trenue: Bundle Matrix, image courtesy Mass Studies | Photo by Yong-Kwan Kim

S-Trenue: Bundle Matrix, image courtesy Mass Studies | Photo by Kyungsub Shin

S-Trenue: Bundle Matrix, image courtesy Mass Studies | Photo by Kyungsub Shin

+ Project credits / data

Project: S-Trenue: Bundle Matrix
Design Period: 2006.1 – 2006.7
Construction Period: 2006.8 – 2009.11
Type: Residential (Competition)
Location: Seoul, Korea
Site Area: 2931.00 m2
Site Coverage Area: 1745.01 m2
Total Floor Area: 39898.56 m2
Building-to-Land Ratio: 59.54%
Floor Area Ratio: 799.86%
Building Scope: 36F, B7
Structure: RC, SRC
Finish: T3 AL. sheet, T24(T28) low-e double glass, flit glass, marble

Architects: Mass Studies | http://www.massstudies.com/
Minsuk Cho, Kisu Park, Zongxoo U, Younkyoung Shin, Sangkyu Jeon, Jingyoung Ha, Geunmi Ryu, Jieun Lee, Joonhee Lee, Daeun Jeong, Bumhyun Chun, Kiwoong Ko, Hartmut Flothmann, Dongchul Yang, Seongbeom Mo, Byungkyun Kim, Jisoo Kim, Songmin Lee, Vin Kim, Young Kim, Ranhee Kim, Kwangjin Woo, Minho Hwang, Jiyoung Yoon, Chungwhan Park
Structural Engineer: Junwoo Structure
MEP Engineer: HANA Consulting & Engineers
Civil Engineer: CG E&C
Landscaping: Alban Mannisi + Soltos Landscaping
Construction: SK E&C
Client: SK Networks
Photograph: Iwan Baan, Kyungsub Shin, Wan Soon Park, Yong-Kwan Kim

+ About Mass Studies

Mass Studies was founded in 2003 by Minsuk Cho in Seoul, Korea, as a critical investigation of architecture in the context of mass production, intensely over-populated urban conditions, and other emergent cultural niches that define contemporary society. Amid the many frictions defining spatial conditions in the twenty-first century, namely past vs. future, local vs. global, utopia vs. reality, and individual vs. collective, Mass Studies focuses on the operative complexity of these multiple conditions instead of striving for a singular, unified perspective. For each architectural project, which exist across a wide range of scales, Mass Studies explores issues such as spatial systems/matrices, building materials/techniques, and typological divergences to foster a vision that allows the discovery of new socio/cultural potential.

Minsuk Cho, AIA, Principal

Minsuk Cho was born in Seoul and graduated from the Architectural Engineering Department of Yonsei University (Seoul, Korea) and the Graduate School of Architecture at Columbia University (New York). He began his professional career working for Kolatan/MacDonald Studio, and Polshek and Partners in New York, and later moved to the Netherlands to work for OMA. Through these jobs, he gained experience in a wide range of architectural and urban projects implemented in various locations. With partner James Slade, he established Cho Slade Architecture in 1998 in New York City to be engaged in various projects both in the U.S. and Korea. In 2003, he came back to Korea to open his own firm, Mass Studies.

He has received many awards, including first prize in the 1994 Shinkenchiku International Residential Architecture Competition, the Architectural League of New York’s “Young Architects Award” in 2000 for his work at Cho Slade Architecture, and two U.S. Progressive Architecture Awards (Citations) in 1999 and 2003. Recently, Boutique Monaco was named a finalist for the International Highrise Award (DAM) in 2008 and nominated again for S-trenue in 2010, among other awards. His work was exhibited at La Biennale di Venezia for Dalki Theme Park in 2004, and for Different but Same Houses in 2010. He was also a part of the Open House travelling exhibition from 2006 to 2008, the New Trends of Architecture in Europe and Asia Pacific 2006–2007 traveling exhibit, and has been an active lecturer and participant in symposiums worldwide.

His representative works include “Pixel House,” “Dalki Theme Park,” “Nature Poem,” “Boutique Monaco,” “Seoul Commune 2026,” “S-Trenue,” “Ann Demeulemeester Shop,” “Ring Dome,” “Xi Gallery,” and “World Expo 2010 Shanghai: Korea Pavilion.”

+ All images and drawings courtesy Mass Studies

Korean architectural firm Mass Studies has created the Open Pavilion – Public Living Room in Hakwoon Park along with LOT/EK’s Open School and Raumlabor’s Open House as part of the 2010 Anyang Public Art Project. It was inspired by Korean traditional pavilion “jung-ja“. The structure performs as a ‘Public Living Room,’ encouraging intimate social interactions.

Traditionally, a jung-ja overlooks a beautiful natural landscape, but the Hakwoon Park site, where the Open Pavilion is located, is surrounded by forests adjacent to several apartment complexes. Whereas traditional pavilions are extroverted, this pavilion is introverted.

Mass Studies

Open Pavilion - Public Living Room, diagram courtesy Mass Studies

Open Pavilion - Public Living Room, diagram courtesy Mass Studies

+ Project description by Mass Studies

The Open Pavilion was constructed in Hakwoon Park along with LOT/EK’s Open School and Raumlabor’s Open House as part of the 2010 Anyang Public Art Project, run by Artistic Director Kyong Park. The three significantly different structures form a small campus within the city’s park, promoting and supporting various community activities. Nestled within the park, the Open Pavilion is a resting place as well as a gathering place—a new kind of pavilion, or “jung-ja”  for the community.

Open Pavilion - Public Living Room, image courtesy Mass Studies

Open Pavilion - Public Living Room, image courtesy Mass Studies

Traditionally, a jung-ja overlooks a beautiful natural landscape, but the Hakwoon Park site, where the Open Pavilion is located, is surrounded by forests adjacent to several apartment complexes. Whereas traditional pavilions are extroverted, this pavilion is introverted. It brings people together in a miniature stadium-like setting, where 70 seatings, stacked in four levels, radiate from a central focal point. Though it is open to the public, the structure performs as a ‘Public Living Room,’ encouraging intimate social interactions.

Open Pavilion - Public Living Room, image courtesy Mass Studies

The lower seating portion and the upper roof portion of the pavilion are integrated into a single structural system, which takes the form of an oversized chain net. Created through the repetition of steel tube arcs of various shapes and sizes, the flattened sphere-like structure is firm and stable. The seating area in the lower half may be conceived of as a reconfiguration of bent steel tube chairs in collective form, whose interlocking acts as links in a chain. Between these links, hammocks are installed to accommodate seating. The upper half of the structure is designed to support a suspended translucent membrane roof to keep out the sun and rain.

Open Pavilion - Public Living Room, image courtesy Mass Studies

In plan, 18 sets of steel pipes are braided in concentric formation to form a chain link, while the cross section shows five levels stacked on top of each other to create a flattened sphere. Every part of the structure is in the form of an arc produced by bending steel pipes (60—140 mm in diameter) using high frequency induction heating and welding them together on-site. There are 421 arcs, ranging from 35 cm to 3 m in radius. Their total length reaches 592 m. The height of the structure is 4.5 m; the maximum diameter is 11.5 m; and the diameter of the floor surface is 7 m. Visitors enter through a distorted portion of link, which has been stretched and held up to form an entranceway.

Open Pavilion - Public Living Room, image courtesy Mass Studies

On the outsides of the steel pipes, steel rings are welded 20 cm apart where the hammocks can be attached and detached easily when replacement becomes necessary. All 70 hammocks were created using a traditional knotting method. They come in 10 different shapes with some variations. A total of 8 km of rope was used to make the braided knots, which, with the help of 12 students, took two weeks to complete.

The large parasol on the upper half of the structure is made of PVC tarpaulin and is fixed to the steel frame by a wire. The parasol was created by draping tarpaulin panels in the form of a geodesic dome.

Open Pavilion - Public Living Room, image courtesy Mass Studies

+ Project credits / data

Project: APAP 2010 Open Pavilion - Public Living Room
Design Period: 2009.9 – 2010.6
Construction Period: 20010.7 – 2010.9
Type: Public – Pavilion
Location: Anyang, Korea
Building Scope: 11.5m (DIA) x 4.5m (H)

Architects: Mass Studies | http://massstudies.com/ | Minsuk Cho, Kisu Park, Joungwon Lee, Yoonhwan Kim, Jisu Han, Suzan Babaa, Irene Matteini
Hammock Production: Youngjoo Lee (Ssamzie Sarang Craft Lab) |  Students of Architecture Club ‘JA!’, Daelim University College
Structural Engineer: TEO Structure
Lighting Engineer: Newlite
Construction: UB Construction
Client: Anyang Public Project Foundation

+ All images and drawings courtesy Mass Studies