cubes | michelangelo acciaro

“Chance alone is at the source of every innovation, of all creation in the biosphere. Pure chance, only chance, absolute but blind liberty is at the root of the prodigious edifice that is evolution.”

Jacques Monod, Chance and Necessity: An Essay on the Natural Philosophy of Modern Biology, New York, 1971.


Segmented in episodes, this building complex is divided in three different functional parts presenting offices und diversified residential uses. It breakes out of the unified whole of its rectangular outline, appearing as an exploded structure of cube modules in a successive approximation between chaos and order, while its outer contours form an apparently unsystematic, most variate skyline, which faces the historical centre of Amsterdam.

The effort is to transform a modern theme associated with megastructure into something rich containing incident, which seems prompted by the idea of an abstract gothic urban pattern: a result of chance, as if it was an accumulation of human errors. The repetition and grouping of the cube elements in random order and size - as it seems - is inspired by function, the sea view and the control of interior lighting. Offices, mixed residential uses and high-level-living volumes are seperated by voids crossing the whole building. These cutouts favour glances in direction of the sea even for those, living or passing by behind the scenes of the actual competition area.

A reinforced concrete frame structure on a regular square grid of 7,50 x 7,50 sqm guarantees the necessary fexibility for a creative design of offices and flats, without lifting the overall costs of the whole building construction. Doors, apertures, parapets and voids can be manipulated with relative ease, whereas the window as a single element provides a new mode of organization of facades and spaces. The familiar quadrangular shape is used in an unexpected way, becoming a floor-element for the small black cubes or having enormous proportions. A visible sign is formed by the five-floor office-vitrification, once more emphasized by a built shadow. Jumps in scale, smaller cubes and voids, light and shadow aerate and interrupt the monumental proportions of the bigger apertures, so particularly companies of medium and small size have the choice to find an address with a suitable identity to relate to, as well as families will find a visible landmark in their apartments. Light-flooded flats with large loggia- and terrace-spaces, often organized on two levels as maisonettes, offer spacious openings both on the front and the back side of the building complex. The access canal to a private boat-parking-basin devides apartments and offices. The water is reflecting light to the back facades, it completes the building’s shape, and generates an esclusive image of elegance.

© michelangelo acciaro | architetti