Tripolis Park Atrium | Concrete Architectural Associates

Tripolis Park, an office campus in the business district of Amsterdam, The Netherlands, has beenrevitalized with a dynamic atrium design by Concrete. The architecture is designed by MVRDVArchitects for Flow Real Estate Development.

The campus includes the monumental Tripolis complex -one of the late masterpieces of architect Aldo van Eyck - and a new massive landscraper by MVRDVthat spans across the Van Eyck buildings.Concrete designed the interior of the atrium and the main iconic lift landing, aiming to introduce ahuman scale to the seven-story-high space while playing with the contrasting symbiosis between theold and new, in which Aldo's architectural language remains preserved.

The atrium features expansiveglass facades and modular elements, creating an open atmosphere that invites natural light whileoffering a functional environment for employees and guests. This design pays homage to thearchitectural elements of the original Tripolis complex, blending urban and natural aesthetics to createa unique and vibrant atmosphere.Atrium: The In Between SpaceThe atrium serves as an 'in-between space,' located between the angular, playful architecture of Aldo vanEyck and the seven-story-high glass façade of MVRDV's newly constructed landscraper, which spans the VanEyck buildings and shields them from the A10 highway.

Concrete’s primary challenge was to reintroduce a human scale to this vast, towering space, which isdominated by the hard materials of the architecture.The program for the atrium is a public lobby space servingthe offices located in the landscraper and the Van Eyck buildings alike.Concrete used this challenge to the advantage of the design, by designing a wooden landscape for the publiclobby.

Stretching along the full length of the façade, offering places to dwell, work, wait and meet. This largewooden landscape is shaped by its architectural surroundings. On one side, the landscape mirrors the playfulgeometry of Van Eyck’s buildings, creating a complementary offset. On the other side, the landscape alignswith the slope of the nearby highway, just outside the glass façade. This results in intriguing height variationswithin the wooden block, transforming it into a dynamic setting.Concrete carefully carved a big variety of seating configurations out of the wooden block to serve the variousneeds of users.

These range from more secluded seating in the lower part facing the glass façade, to benchesaround circular communal tables embedded in the block, and tribune seating on the highest part of thelandscape from which you can see and observe the full atrium.Alongside the vibrant terrain and its intimate seating arrangements, Concrete added four large trees on thelandscape to further enhance the human scale and break the immense height of the atrium.

While the grand gesture of the wooden landscape is striking from a distance, the carefully designed detailssuchas the woodwork, stone inlays, and upholstery- unfold when you get up close to the landscape.On the far ends of the atrium Concrete used two hidden niches in the plinth of the landscaper to create verysecluded workspaces for those who seek privacy.Mirrored Elevation: Stimulating Analogue CommunicationThe angular shaped central lift lobby, designed by Concrete, is a contrast to the warm wooden landscape andits organic shapes in the atrium.

The lift lobby, though wide, has a relatively low ceiling. To counter this,Concrete lined the walls and ceiling with angled mirrors, creating the illusion of double height through reflectedimages. The angled mirrors on the walls are strategically placed to ensure that lift users can easily see andengage with one another, stimulating analogue communication.

Project team concrete: Lisa Hassanzadeh, Jolijn Vonk, Julia Hundermark, Pim Houben, Sofie Ruytenberg, Manon Pol

Design: Communal lobby for offices, ground floor with public, reception, working stations, lounge area, auditorium, hide-outs and lift lobby

Architect: MVRDV Architects, Rotterdam, NL

Executive architect: EGM architecten, Dordrecht, NL

Contractor: G&S Bouw BV, Utrecht, NL

Project managing: Toissant Project Management, Berkel en Rodenrijs, NL

Installations: Bosman bedrijven, Amsterdam, NL

Millworker bespoke furniture: Gielissen Interior Exhibition Events, Eindhoven, NL

Supplier loose furniture: BigBrands, Rotterdam, NL

Copyright: wouter van der sar for concrete