Villa Arena home furnishing centre, Amsterdam
This stacked home
furnishings boulevard occupies a triangular volume close by the Amsterdam
Arena. Its four upper floors of shops are ranged round a kinked void topped off
with a transparent air-cushion roof. The edges of the floors bordering the void
are rotated one above the other to energize the interior space. Motorists reach
the two parking levels above the shops up a long straight ramp. A centrally
placed cascade of escalators then leads shoppers floor by floor with an
intervening walk-around, down to ground level. Footbridges and escalators forge
additional links between floors. Enveloping the mute outer walls is a second
transparent skin of vertical irregularly cut aluminium strips, that expresses
the circulation of people and cars round the central void.
Client
Ontwikkelingsmaatschappij Centrumgebied Zuid Oost: ING Vastgoed
Ontwikkeling BV
Architect
Benthem
Crouwel Architekten
Interior
architect
Virgile
& Stone Associates Limited, Londen
Gross floor area
180000 m²
2500 parking places
Start design
1996
Start construction
1998
Completion
2001
