A house by architect Ben van Berkel rarely could be described as a glass box. Instead the principal of the Amsterdam-based UNStudio avoids the rectilinear modernist approach for a more organic direction.
Architect Ben van Berkel of Amsterdam-based firm UNStudio used a unique pinwheel plan to design the Ardmore Residence, creating a new architectural icon in Singapore.
Let's Twist: A dynamic study in contrasts, this sculptural villa is a reflection of German tradition and style, as well as of the couple who commissioned it.
Ben van Berkel, principal of the Amsterdam-based architectural firm UNStudio, is known for his breathtakingly swoopy designs of sleek surfaces that never seem to end. The gleaming, aluminum-clad Mercedes-Benz Museum in Stuttgart, Germany, with its double-spiral-ramped concrete structure, convincingly argues the case [RECORD, November, 2006, page 128]. After completing that nine-story-high, 270,000 square-foot building, you might think that a 5,840-square-foot (gross) residential loft would be too rinky-dink a commission. Van Berkel argues otherwise: “I’m not interested as much in the scale of a project as with the program,” he explains. In this case, he was asked to design a loft
In the daytime, unStudio’s Haus für Musik und Musiktheater (MUMUTH) is a mysterious presence among historic houses on Lichtenfelsgasse Street in Graz, Austria’s second-largest city.