Signature · Architecture · Amsterdã
UNStudio
Dutch practice from Amsterdam, author of the Erasmus Bridge and the Mercedes-Benz Museum. It entered São Paulo through the front door: its first large-scale work in the city is a residential complex.
Who they are
UNStudio was born in Amsterdam in 1988, founded by architect Ben van Berkel and art historian Caroline Bos under the name Van Berkel & Bos Architectuurbureau. In 1998 it adopted its current name: the initials “UN” stand for United Network, a reference to the collaborative nature of the practice — a multinational team of specialists brought together project by project, with a repertoire ranging from architecture to product design, through interiors, urban development and infrastructure.
The practice became known for works in which geometry is the argument: the Erasmus Bridge, in Rotterdam, the Möbius House and the Mercedes-Benz Museum, in Stuttgart, whose floor plan starts from a trefoil of three overlapping circles with the centre removed, forming a triangular atrium. In all of them the design begins with a flow diagram — form is the organisation of people’s movement, not ornament applied afterwards.
The arrival in São Paulo came through Eztec, which hired the practice for the residential component of the Parque da Cidade masterplan, in Chácara Santo Antônio. Ben van Berkel describes EZ Parque da Cidade as the practice’s first large-scale project in the city. The plan’s defining decision concerns layout: instead of the paired-unit slabs with a single view common in tall Brazilian buildings, UNStudio rotated the apartments around the core in a pinwheel arrangement. Each unit gains a panoramic view on three sides, cross-ventilation and sunlight, and no floor repeats the one below — privacy comes from geometry, not distance. Each typology has a six-metre-deep terrace, reaching a quarter of the unit’s area, and the complex distributes eight suspended gardens, no more than seven minutes’ walk from any apartment.
Language
- Style: continuous geometry and twisted surfaces, with the circulation diagram as the project’s starting point; modularity and intelligent repetition in place of the singular piece.
- Materials and signature: floor plans rotated around the core, deep terraces that shade in summer and let the sun in during winter, suspended gardens as a vertical extension of the ground floor, local or adapted plant species, materials sourced close to the site. Sustainability measured and certified, not merely declared: hybrid concrete with recycled industrial by-product, solar water heating, rainwater harvesting and a vacuum waste system.
- Awards: Red Dot “Best of the Best” 2009 for the MYchair armchair, designed in-house, present in the lobbies of EZ Parque da Cidade. EZ Parque da Cidade received HQE-AQUA certification, and the Parque da Cidade masterplan is the first development in South America to obtain LEED-ND pre-certification.
Landmark works
- Erasmus Bridge, Rotterdam.
- Möbius House, the Netherlands.
- Mercedes-Benz Museum, Stuttgart.
- EZ Parque da Cidade, in Chácara Santo Antônio — the practice’s first large-scale project in São Paulo.
