UN Studio, Amsterdam

Partners for 18 years, Ben van Berkel and Caroline Bos head up the UN Studio (established in 1998), one of the most creative architecture firms in Europe. UN stands for United Net, in reference to its multidisciplinary network of specialists in urban planning, static, CAS, graphics, photography or management, working in flexible groups. It puts the emphasis on the interconnection between the plethora of parameters that enter into play. An approach that has allowed the agency to develop ambitious projects. Among the most emblematic, the Erasmus bridge (Rotterdam , 1990-1996) with its asymmetrical form, a visual landmark in the new district of Kop van Zuid. This was followed by a quick succession of buildings and large urban projects. Each of them is the expression of a working philosophy that, rejecting all preconceived ideas, does not hesitate to explore complex experimental fields. Their design process is triggered by the exploitation of diagrams that offer sp many formal possibilities that the same basic model can be used to develop buildings or objects: from the central station of Arnhem intimately linking human movement, transport systems and light to the undulating set created for Alessi within the framework of the Tea & Coffee Towers project (2003).

The computer is always a radical means of breaking away from traditional design. The Möbius House, for example, is the result of a formal process inspired by the Möbius ribbon, a mathematical figure whose one edged, and one sided surface is formed by twisting a band. This double loop, which determines the organisation throughout the building, can be found in the plan with fluid, open, transparent spaces.

The Living Tomorrow building in Amsterdam has a fluid curve obtained from a concept that sets out to achieve a continuity between the inside and the outside in both the vertical and horizontal parts. As for the new Mercedes Benz museum in Stuttgart , it comprises two spiral circuits that permanently intersect one another over nine floors, reproducing the helicoidal system of DNA. Remarkable due to the quality of the materials and the construction, this building with its three branches and a surface area of 25 000 m˛ embodies the values of the car manufacturer: technological progress, solidity, intelligence and style.

This goes to prove that methods that call on digital tools are not superficial. To the contrary, as they highlight speed and efficiency, this new strategy provides a framework of ideas, a conceptual structure that can be adjusted to particularly varied projects.

 Ť An architecture that is not really eloquent, that does not raise any question and that does not seduce is not architecture ť, as Ben van Berkel likes to point out. ”For me, you need a ping-pong effect, attract people and seduce them. ť There is no doubt that the architecture of UN Studio can leave no one indifferent.