Cockpit

Interior view of the cockpit.

Project Details

• Project Name: The Cockpit in an Acoustic Barrier
• Client: Hessing Holding BV, Project bureau Leidsche Rijn Utrecht
• Project Type: Retail Design, Acoustic design
• Principal Designer: Kas Oosterhuis, Ilona Lenard
• Design Team: Sander Boer, Cas Aalbers, Gijs Joosen, Tom Hals, Ines Moreire, Dimitar Karanikolov, Vladin Petrov, Tom Smith, Richard Lewis, Andrei Badesvu, Maciek Swiatkowsky, Barbara Janssen, Rafael Seemann
• Year of commencement of project: 2006
• Year of completion of project:
  • Cockpit: September 2005
  • Acoustic Barrier: 2006
• Location of site: Leidsche Rijn Utrecht, Netherlands
• Contractor: Meijers Staalbouw BV
• Construction: ONL, Meijers Staalbouw BV
• Installations: Andriessen
• Calculations: Faktor BV
• Cladding: Kalzip: Hafkon BV
• Cladding; Glass: Pilkington BV
• Interior Finishes: Bouwbedrijf Hoogh Seyst BV
• Tiles: Firma WIMO
• Concrete: GMB
• Tensile Cloth Ceiling: Poly Nederland
• Entrance Facde: Widam
• Built-Up Area: 6,400 square meters
• Length of Acoustic Barrier: 1.5 kilometres
• Cost of Construction:
  • Cockpit: EUR 5,500,000
  • Acoustic Barrier: EUR 5,100,000

Internally the floors of the showroom form a closed loop connection of four discrete levels, connected to the NURBS curves of the glass facade.

The Building

The design integrates a building volume within an acoustic barrier along the A2 highway in the center of Holland. The Acoustic Barrier and the Cockpit are designed to react to passing speeds of 120km/h and is positioned at no more than 15 meters from the highway.

The Cockpit -- Computer Rendering: Profile of Building [opens in a pop-up window - 40kb image]

Exterior view of acoustic barrier.

The building volume is stretched in the direction of the flow of cars with a length to height ratio of 10:1 and primarily houses a showroom and garage for luxury cars. Owing to its glass facade and proximity to the highway, the cars on display are highly visible to the passing traffic on the highway.

The building is experienced as a streamlined cockpit in the body of the acoustic barrier.

The design is an example of 'Non Standard Architecture' realized on a big scale with "one building, one detail" being the basic principle applied. 'Non Standard Architecture' is based on the application of the industrial method of mass customization to the conception and realization of consciously designed space.

View of the glazed ending of the cockpit.

The Cockpit and Acoustic Barrier are produced according to a strict file to factory process. ONL had written scripts running on the point cloud of reference points which is extracted from the 3d surface model. The script produces the 3d visualizations of all constituting elements which in turn produces relevant data -- neatly organized into a table -- for the production machines.

Detail of the facade node.

The cutting, welding and drilling machines read the data from the table and produce all the discrete parts without human interference. All parts are numbered and are quickly bolted together, first in the factory as a test model -- a full-size mock-up, and later directly at the building site. Architecture and construction thus come together in both -- the design and production process and as a visual end result.

View of the cockpit assembly at its site of mass production.

ONL and Meijers Staalbouw developed a system of a point cloud of complex nodes and simple connecting beams. The Acoustic Barrier and the Cockpit within it have the complexity of their forms completely embodied in the nodes so that the connection beams are as simple as possible. The triangles are produced as flat surfaces.

Credits

• Text: Courtesy of the architect
• Photographs: Courtesy of the architect
• Compiled and edited by Varun Ajani