Marco Biagi explores the approach of international practices to decommissioned industrial buildings. Citing a range of recently completed projects, including Caruso St John's Veemgebouw, he discusses the rise of adaptive reuse. Biagi explains through our urgent environmental crisis, the reuse of industrial plants and depots is more necessary than ever, offering a new challenging creative outlet for contemporary architects.
"[It is the] opportunity to avoid standardization, preserving a minimum of memory of the city and its places, without necessarily falling into the perils of self-referential posturing."
Image © Filip Dujardin.
Related news
Lecture
Casabella Lectures
Adam Caruso in conversation with Federico Tranfa
Milan, Italy
8th May 2023
Adam Caruso will be in conversation with Casabella’s editor Federico Tranfa at the Theatro Milano for the magazine’s annual lecture series. The discussion will focus on the design process, exploring projects like the recently completed Swiss Life Arena.
Caruso St John's Veemgebouw building is reviewed in the Architects Journal's Climate Crisis issue. Rob Wilson explores the project's respectful and flexible retrofit of the listed 1940s warehouse, part of the former Philips factory complex. The building now provides a mix of housing above a range of public and commercial spaces.
Construction has completed on Caruso St John's redevelopment of the Veemgebouw, a former Philips factory building on Strijp S in Eindhoven. The monumental industrial site in the Brainport region of the city is now the centre of a lively urban environment.
The design repurposed the existing floors to create a varied mixed-use structure; including workspaces on the upper floors, a car-park and a food-hall on the ground floor. The project also included the addition of 38 rooftop studios and maisonettes.
Adam Caruso and fellow guests Jan De Vylder, Elke Krasny and Astrid Staufer will attend a 'Supercrit' and panel discussion on conversion in architecture, to mark the end of an exhibition of student work at TU Wien.
The mast has been craned into place on top of the Veemgebouw. The design features integrated LED lighting, continuing the local tradition for night time illuminations across the city's skyline. It echoes the mast that stood on top of the building in its previous incarnation as a factory for the Philips electrical company.
The landscape and interiors of Caruso St John's Veemgebouw Strijp S are now taking shape. The top floor of new construction contains 40 apartments, arranged around a landscaped courtyard, with external facades of curving brickwork that form a new dramatic top to the building.
Lecture
Reuse, Recycle
Lessons in Sustainable Architecture
Eindhoven, The Netherlands
10th February 2022
Peter St John is taking part in TU Eindhoven's lecture series, Lessons in Sustainable Architecture. His talk, Reuse, Recycle will discuss the practice's renovation projects with a focus on their sustainability and design process.
A publication charting the 14 year process of designing and building the Swiss Life Arena has been published by Park Books.
The book is by CCTM Real Estate & Infrastructure AG, with contributions by Ariana Pradal, Marco Keller, and Claudia Kaufmann-Morf, as well as photographs by and Philip Heckhausen.
Profile
Der Standard
A visit to the pioneers of adaptation in Zurich
Vienna, Austria
17th December 2022
Maik Novotny visits Caruso St John's Zurich office to discuss the new arena for the ZSC Lions ice-hockey team and, despite the scale of its most recently completed project, discovers the practice's long-term interest and growing commitment to projects that prioritise renovation and adaptive re-use over new construction.
Matthew Blunderfield interviewed Thomas Demand in his Berlin Studio for Scaffold Podcast. Alongside discussing his practice in reference to trauma, fiction and chance, they explore his relationship with architecture. When talking about his collaborations with Caruso St John on Nagelhaus and The Triple Folly, Demand explains his position as both close to and separate from the role of architects.
Casabella issue 940 features a review Caruso St John's Complete Works, Volume I, published by Mack Books. Federico Tranfa commends the book's thematic collation of projects, found texts and commentaries, stating it is a 'courageous way to come to terms with the past, because it is not analysed a posteriori, but instead with the cultural context of the epoch of pertinence'.
Michael Schneider spoke to Jonathan Jaeggi of Hochparterre's Sach & Krach podcast, about the recently completed Swiss Life Arena. The two discuss the building's strong façade, its complex planning and construction alongside the importance of injecting humour into architecture.