Watermark

NIO Architecten

Watermark is a series of prototype façade panels for a cluster of buildings with divergent functions: a music hall, a national soccer museum, a fast food restaurant, a school, a wellness center and several outdoor activity shops for Middelburg, a Dutch city close to the sea.

The panels are embodiments of moods that relate to leisure, crossed with various different characteristics of water: desire-whirl, arousal-cohesion, thrill-humidity, satisfactiondrop, curiosity-drifting, relaxation-rain, joy-fl oating, excitement-boiling, welcomingwave, anticipation-ripple.

NIO Architecten is a design studio, set up by Maurice Nio and since 2003 also led by Joan Almekinders. Both graduated as architects from the Faculty of Architecture of the Delft University of Technology.

www.nio.nl

Watermark (renderings) NIO Architecten, 2006.

Watermark NIO Architecten, 2006.

Watermark

NIO Architecten, 2006.

Every project starts with a set of hard facts, such as a client, a site, a budget and a program. Every project also starts for these architects with a search for a ‘key’ reference that is able to be absorbed by and infl uence the project. This project is located in an area of the Netherlands that is very much determined by natural elements, such as wind, sea and clay. The chosen ‘key’ in this case is ‘the wave and the whirlwind’.

The architects have developed a set of rules, related to a building material where circles will be expressed in several ways. These could be small round perforations in a steel plate, patterns in concrete, big round constructional elements. For this exhibition they present several rapid prototypes of building materials that will be used within the project.