Zaha Hadid Architects completes the Antwerp's New Port House
22/09/2016.
[Antwerp] Belgium
metalocus, INÉS LALUETA
metalocus, INÉS LALUETA
Antwerp is Europe’s second largest shipping port, and now the Flemish city has a fitting new architectural landmark to highlight the fact, a project by Zaha Hadid Architects (ZHA). The Port House, a renovated and extended old fire station, was designed to bring together the port’s 500 staff that previously worked in separate buildings around the city.
Antwerp's New Port House by Zaha Hadid Architects. Photograph @ Tim Fisher
Antwerp's New Port House by Zaha Hadid Architects. Photograph @ Hélène Binet
Antwerp's New Port House by Zaha Hadid Architects. Photograph @ Tim Fisher
Antwerp's New Port House by Zaha Hadid Architects. Photograph @ Tim Fisher
Antwerp's New Port House by Zaha Hadid Architects. Photograph @ Hufton+Crow
Antwerp's New Port House by Zaha Hadid Architects. Photograph @ Hufton+Crow
Antwerp's New Port House by Zaha Hadid Architects. Photograph @ Tim Fisher
Antwerp's New Port House by Zaha Hadid Architects. Photograph @ Hufton+Crow
Antwerp's New Port House by Zaha Hadid Architects. Photograph @ Hufton+Crow
Antwerp's New Port House by Zaha Hadid Architects. Photograph @ Tim Fisher
Antwerp's New Port House by Zaha Hadid Architects. Photograph @ Hufton+Crow
Antwerp's New Port House by Zaha Hadid Architects. Photograph @ Hufton+Crow
Antwerp's New Port House by Zaha Hadid Architects. Photograph @ Hufton+Crow
Antwerp's New Port House by Zaha Hadid Architects. Photograph @ Tim Fisher
Antwerp's New Port House by Zaha Hadid Architects. Photograph @ Hufton+Crow
Antwerp's New Port House by Zaha Hadid Architects. Photograph @ Hufton+Crow
Antwerp's New Port House by Zaha Hadid Architects. Photograph @ Hufton+Crow
Antwerp's New Port House by Zaha Hadid Architects. Photograph @ Tim Fisher
Antwerp's New Port House by Zaha Hadid Architects. Photograph @ Tim Fisher
Antwerp's New Port House by Zaha Hadid Architects. Photograph @ Hélène Binet
Antwerp's New Port House by Zaha Hadid Architects. Photograph @ Tim Fisher
Diagram. Antwerp's New Port House by Zaha Hadid Architects.
Diagram. Antwerp's New Port House by Zaha Hadid Architects.
Site plan. Antwerp's New Port House by Zaha Hadid Architects.
Ground floor plan. Antwerp's New Port House by Zaha Hadid Architects.
Second floor plan. Ground floor plan. Antwerp's New Port House by Zaha Hadid Architects.
Bridge floor plan. Ground floor plan. Antwerp's New Port House by Zaha Hadid Architects.
Floor level new extension. Antwerp's New Port House by Zaha Hadid Architects.
Ceiling plan. Antwerp's New Port House by Zaha Hadid Architects.
Belly Ceiling plan. Antwerp's New Port House by Zaha Hadid Architects.
Short section SA. Antwerp's New Port House by Zaha Hadid Architects.
Section and elevation. Antwerp's New Port House by Zaha Hadid Architects.
Long section. Antwerp's New Port House by Zaha Hadid Architects.
Elevation. Antwerp's New Port House by Zaha Hadid Architects.
Diagram. Antwerp's New Port House by Zaha Hadid Architects.
Elevations. Antwerp's New Port House by Zaha Hadid Architects.
Diagram floor plan. Antwerp's New Port House by Zaha Hadid Architects.
Diagram floor plan. Antwerp's New Port House by Zaha Hadid Architects.
Rendering. Antwerp's New Port House by Zaha Hadid Architects.
Rendering. Antwerp's New Port House by Zaha Hadid Architects.
Rendering. Antwerp's New Port House by Zaha Hadid Architects.
The Antwerp’s 12 km of docks handle an impressive 26 per cent of Europe’s container shipping, making Antwerp’s an extremely busy and growing port facility. In 2007, the Port of Antwerp in order to developing a new building for its technical and administrative offices, which used to be housed in several different locations, proposed an international competition won by Zaha Hadid Architects.
The commission to redesign the derelict fire station at the point where the city meets the docklands – an area called Mexico Island. The 6,200 sq m of this new structure is partly transparent and partly opaque. Its triangular façade panels take their cue from the city’s reputation as an international hub for the diamond trade.
Inside, the structure offers panoramic vistas of the River Scheldt’s waters, the city and the Port. An enclosed central courtyard leads to the building’s main reception area, a public reading room and a library. The office floors unfold above, including a restaurant, meeting rooms and an auditorium.
The commission to redesign the derelict fire station at the point where the city meets the docklands – an area called Mexico Island. The 6,200 sq m of this new structure is partly transparent and partly opaque. Its triangular façade panels take their cue from the city’s reputation as an international hub for the diamond trade.
Inside, the structure offers panoramic vistas of the River Scheldt’s waters, the city and the Port. An enclosed central courtyard leads to the building’s main reception area, a public reading room and a library. The office floors unfold above, including a restaurant, meeting rooms and an auditorium.
Description project by Zaha Hadid Architects
The Port House combines a new beam-shaped structure and a former fire brigade building into a new headquarter building for the Port Authority. The project is strategically located between city and harbour, with magnificent views over both the centre and the port from behind the articulate glass walls – some transparent, others reflective – in reference to the Antwerp diamond trade.
The new Port House design consists of two entities: a former fire station and a new crystalline volume lifted above the retained building. Together they form an impressive new landmark as the headquarters of the Antwerp Port Authority, overlooking both the city and the port.
The building will house approximately 500 staff and it is organised around a central atrium from where public counters, offices and meeting rooms in the existing building are directly accessible. The offices, auditorium and panoramic restaurant in the new extension are accessible via panoramic lifts just off the central courtyard.
The new extension is positioned asymmetrically over the central courtyard of the existing building, allowing light to enter the heart of the project. The extension is supported by two sculpted concrete pillars that house stairs and lifts. Within the building, offices are open plan, creating a powerful sense of space but also providing discreet meeting and breakout areas.
The new building’s volume is enclosed by an articulated glass surface: a diamond shaped design with the facade panels rotated slightly with respect to one another. In reference to Antwerp’s diamond industry the building thereby reflects the surroundings during the day while transforming into a radiating crystal at night.
More information
Project team
Architect.- Zaha Hadid Architects (ZHA)
Design.- Zaha Hadid and Patrik Schumacher
ZHA project director.- Joris Pauwels
ZHA project architect.- Jinmi Lee
ZHA project team.- Florian Goscheff, Monica Noguero, Kristof Crolla, Naomi Fritz, Sandra Riess, Muriel Boselli, Susanne Lettau
ZHA competition team.- Kristof Crolla, Sebastien Delagrange, Paulo Flores, Jimena Araiza, Sofia Daniilidou, Andres Schenker, Evan Erlebacher,Lulu Aldihani
consultants:
executive architect: bureau bouwtechniek
structural engineers: studieburo mouton bvba
services engineers: ingenium nv
acoustic engineers: daidalos peutz
restoration consultants: origin
fire protection: fpc
Client
Antwerp Port Authority
Total floor area
12,800 square meters, (6,600 square meters in the refurbished fire station), (6,200 square meters in the new extension)
Areas and size
New extension.- 111 meters length, 24 meters width, 21 meters height
Existing fire station.- 63 meters length, 78.5 meters width, 21.5 meters height
Total height (existing building + new extension).- 46 meters (5 additional floors)
Site area.- 16,400 square meters — 90-seat auditorium, 190 bicycle parking spaces, 25 parking spaces for electric cars
General Contractor
Interbuild NV
Steel Construction
Victor Buyck Steel Construction
ZAHA HADID
Zaha Hadid, (Bagdad, 31 October 1950 – Miami, 31 March 2016) founder of Zaha Hadid Architects, was awarded the Pritzker Architecture Prize (considered to be the Nobel Prize of architecture) in 2004 and is internationally known for both her theoretical and academic work.
Each of her dynamic and innovative projects builds on over thirty years of revolutionary exploration and research in the interrelated fields of urbanism, architecture and design. Hadid’s interest lies in the rigorous interface between architecture, landscape and geology as her practice integrates natural topography and human-made systems, leading to experimentation with cutting-edge technologies. Such a process often results in unexpected and dynamic architectural forms.
Education: Hadid studied architecture at the Architectural Association from 1972 and was awarded the Diploma Prize in 1977.
Teaching: She became a partner of the Office for Metropolitan Architecture, taught at the AA with OMA collaborators Rem Koolhaas and Elia Zenghelis, and later led her own studio at the AA until 1987. Since then she has held the Kenzo Tange Chair at the Graduate School of Design, Harvard University; the Sullivan Chair at the University of Illinois, School of Architecture, Chicago; guest professorships at the Hochschule für Bildende Künste in Hamburg; the Knolton School of Architecture, Ohio and the Masters Studio at Columbia University, New York. In addition, she was made Honorary Member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters, Fellow of the American Institute of Architecture and Commander of the British Empire, 2002. She is currently Professor at the University of Applied Arts in Vienna, Austria and was the Eero Saarinen Visiting Professor of Architectural Design at Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut.
Awards: Zaha Hadid’s work of the past 30 years was the subject of critically-acclaimed retrospective exhibitions at New York’s Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in 2006, London’s Design Museum in 2007 and the Palazzo della Ragione, Padua, Italy in 2009. Her recently completed projects include the MAXXI Museum in Rome; which won the Stirling award in 2010. Hadid’s outstanding contribution to the architectural profession continues to be acknowledged by the most world’s most respected institutions. She received the prestigious ‘Praemium Imperiale’ from the Japan Art Association in 2009, and in 2010, the Stirling Prize – one of architecture’s highest accolades – from the Royal Institute of British Architects. Other recent awards include UNESCO naming Hadid as an ‘Artist for Peace’ at a ceremony in their Paris headquarters last year. Also in 2010, the Republic of France named Hadid as ‘Commandeur de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres’ in recognition of her services to architecture, and TIME magazine included her in their 2010 list of the ‘100 Most Influential People in the World’. This year’s ‘Time 100’ is divided into four categories: Leaders, Thinkers, Artists and Heroes – with Hadid ranking top of the Thinkers category.
