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SEUNG-WOO YOO, ROUGEMONT, CHAOWAKUL, SIMONS. K4FK4. Urban stim for the new city hall in Rotterdam

[in italiano]
ROTTERDAM CITY. Unlike a certain number of cities in The Netherlands or in the world, Rotterdam’s potential lies in its future rather than its past. In concrete terms, this potential is expressed in the city by the capacity of its inhabitants to re-built it after the tabula rasa brought by the outcome of World War 2. That makes Rotterdam very lively and in that sense a little bit more engaging. This is this idea we tried to develop for the city hall.

[19jun2002]
FLUX FORCES. In order to create a structure that can feed Rotterdam’s life, we studied the complex patterns of movements and fluxes which surround the existing building and which will pass trough the future city hall.











To connect the new building with its immediate surroundings, the project pre-establishes a working frame which is both a structural and an organizational scheme. The set up structure is standing now on the Meent Street in the core of the animation. It gets informed and deformed by the fluxes which make up the city and its life.






SKIN LANGUAGE. The underlying tension of the forces exerted on the structure is so intense that keeping the old facade would have been irrelevant. We decided to keep the old facade’s tectonics and reinterpret them. The interaction of the structure with the street becomes more present since the exterior and the interior communicate. The curved post-war monumental order generates public spaces within the building, in the heart of the city hall.

Pockets of public spaces are organized around and inside the new structure. In the fold of the skin, lies a commercial street, extension of the Meent Street that brings its activity inside as far as the other side of the building. The facade becomes an inner fold of space, bringing people and activities deep into the block.









PEOPLE BRAIN. The void created by the inner combination of programmatic elements acts like a social catalyst. The different programs inhabit the folds of the city brain.
 

Chris Seung-woo Yoo (1975, Seoul) received B.Arch with honor from the University of Auckland, and M.Sc in advanced architectural design from GSAP Columbia University, where he also received Lucile Smyser Lowenfish Memorial Prize. He is currently working at NOX with Lars Spuybroek. He also works independently in the area of media and architecture.

Florent Rougemont (1973, Grenoble) studied architecture in Lyon and Strasbourg from where he graduated in 1998. He collaborated with different offices in France and is currently working at NOX in Rotterdam. His researches explore different fields, planning, architecture, design and media.

Pitupong Chaowakul (1975, Ubonratchathani) is Bachelor in Architecture (2nd class honor) Faculty of Architecture, Chulalongkorn University, Bangkok, Thailand. He is currently a second year student at the Berlage Institute, Rotterdam for Master degree of architecture.

Steven Simons (1973, Louvain) studied at St.Lucas Hoger Architectuurinstuut Brussel. He is working at Erick van Egeraat associated architects division presentation and visualization.
They feed people’s unconscious and dehumanize the old but persistent idea of unreachable, incomprehensible and senseless authority. K4FK4 is meant to bring the authority of the city hall back into the city life and its inhabitants enabling them to appropriate the building according to their own labyrinths: «this door was made only for you», Kafka, The Trial. The building becomes part of the city.
SEUNG-WOO YOO, ROUGEMONT, CHAOWAKUL, SIMONS. K4FK4. Urban stim for the new city hall in Rotterdam


Gemente Rotterdam Ideeenenprijswraag Stadskantoor Rotterdam Competition

Project Site:
Meent Rotterdam Netherlands

Project Date:
novembre 2001

Project Team:
Chris Seung-woo Yoo
Florent Rougemont
Pitupong Chaowakul
Steven Simons
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