B Tower, Rotterdam Skyscraper Building, Project, Photo, News, Design, Image
B Tower Rotterdam : Dutch Skyscraper
Rotterdam Tower building design by Wiel Arets Architects, The Netherlands
15 Aug 2012
B Tower
Dates built: 2006-12
Design: Wiel Arets Architects (WAA)
photos : Jan Bitter
photographs : Jan Bitter
31 Mar 2012
B Tower Rotterdam Building
picture © Ton Hermans
The apartment building ‘B-TOWER’*, in the middle of the picture, at the east-side of the LIJNBAAN, now finished. Architect Wiel Arets. *‘B’ because it stands next to the department store Bijenkorf. (Bee-hive).
The B Tower
Rotterdam, the Netherlands
Date: 2006 – (Under Construction)
Design: Wiel Arets Architects
picture : Wiel Arets Architects
The B Tower is located in the centre of Rotterdam, immediately adjacent to the Bijenkorf department store designed by Marcel Breuer in the late 1950s. Because of its commercial context the site below the Bijenkorf’s roofline is to be fully occupied, while above it, just thirty per cent of the lot towards the sunken shopping mall Beurstraverse, has been released to build a high-rise tower.
In order to avoid splitting the project into a basement and a tower, the design stacks three volumes of similar height. The ground-related volume contains a fashion store, The Sting, and a car park; the two upper volumes contain apartments.
Accordingly, the entrance to the store faces the pedestrian precinct whereas the private and service parts of the building can be accessed from the side road. The minimized core of the high-rise can access up to six apartments per floor so as to keep up with changing market demands.
The shifting of volumes in and out of alignment defines two areas of different depth in relation to the central circulation, resulting in two principal layouts for the apartments. In the less-deep ones, the bathroom gives a view of the city.
pictures : Wiel Arets Architects
Analogous to Breuer’s building, the façade is not related to the separate levels but to the respective volumes. The skin, which consists out of alternating glazed and aluminum panels, is an extrusion of the bottom plan. A series of cantilevered balconies clustered in a few lines takes care of the larger scale.
B Tower Rotterdam images / information from Wiel Arets Architects
Wiel Arets Architects
Location: De Bijenkorf Rotterdam, Rotterdam, The Netherlands
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