Tripolis Park in Amsterdam, The Netherlands office property, Dutch commercial architecture photos

Tripolis Park in Amsterdam, The Netherlands

17 October 2024

Design: MVRDV

Location: Amsterdam, The Netherlands

Tripolis Park office building Amsterdam NL

Photos © Ossip van Duivenbode

Tripolis Park, The Netherlands

Tripolis Park is complete: Aldo van Eyck’s final work renovated and protected by an office landscraper

Tripolis Park office building Amsterdam The Netherlands

The construction of Tripolis Park, which renovates and transforms one of the last projects completed by the celebrated Dutch modernist architect Aldo van Eyck, is complete. On behalf of developer Flow, MVRDV restored two of the three listed heritage buildings in line with Van Eyck’s original designs and added a 12-storey “landscraper” along the edge of the site to shelter the complex (which includes Van Eyck’s Amsterdam Orphanage next door) from noise and dust generated by the adjacent A10 highway. The new building is careful in its relationship with the heritage buildings, keeping a respectful distance so that an exciting in-between space emerges where the two meet, with bridges crossing overhead to connect old and new.

Tripolis Park office building Amsterdam The Netherlands

The creation of Tripolis, a trio of idiosyncratic office buildings of 11,000, 8,000, and 6,000 square metres, was inextricably linked to Van Eyck’s masterpiece, the Amsterdam Orphanage. Completed in 1960, the orphanage was one of the most important projects of the Structuralist movement, yet by 1986 it was already threatened with demolition.

Tripolis Park office building Amsterdam The Netherlands

A successful international campaign was launched to save the orphanage, and the municipality of Amsterdam offered the adjacent land to the developer – on the condition that Aldo and Hannie van Eyck should design the new office complex. In 1994, their new design was completed, and thus Tripolis began its life as the symbolic saviour of the orphanage.

Tripolis Park office building Amsterdam

MVRDV’s design makes the next step in this history. The original Tripolis did not prove commercially successful, standing empty for years. Meanwhile an upcoming expansion of the adjacent A10 highway, which includes a new on-ramp right alongside the Tripolis site, threatened to bring increased noise and pollution. Like the orphanage in the 1980s, the Tripolis buildings, in turn, needed an intervention to ensure their future.

Tripolis Park office building Amsterdam The Netherlands

Following archival research and close collaboration with Van Eyck’s heirs, MVRDV’s design has restored the buildings’ façades not to their original state, but one step better: to Van Eyck’s initial designs. For example, the façades are now fully clad in wood, unlike the cheaper wood and granite combination requested by the Tripolis developer in the 1990s. The building’s multi-coloured window frames are also retained

Tripolis Park office building Amsterdam NL

Inside, the renovation keeps characteristic elements such as the staircases and the natural stone floors, but it also adapts the buildings to bring them in line with modern standards, where offices are increasingly seen as spaces for meeting and collaborating. Dividing walls have been removed, so that the building is less compartmentalised, while various interventions make the building more sustainable.

Tripolis Park office building Amsterdam

The roofs are now used more intensively, with greenery and pavilions that enable interaction between all users of the complex and which can be used for events. Solar panels are also introduced, helping the development achieve BREEAM Outstanding sustainability certification.

Tripolis Park office building Amsterdam NL

The project isn’t just a renovation, however: a 12-storey landscraper known as “The Window” stands on the edge of the plot, pushed as close as possible to the A10, to form a protective wall between the highway and the rest of the site. A large rectangular window has been cut from the gridded south façade of the 34,000-square-metre office building, offering a view upon the original Tripolis complex to emphasise the project’s heritage aspects. On the other side of the building, the northern façade responds playfully to the Tripolis buildings, indented by an “echo” of their complex shapes. This intervention creates an undulating interior, an exciting, low-noise intermediate space where bridges connect the old and new buildings.

Tripolis Park office building Amsterdam NL

Tripolis Park Amsterdam NL

“Demolition of heritage is always the easy option, especially if it is located in a business district dominated by high-rise buildings,” says MVRDV founding partner Winy Maas. “Tripolis Park offers an approach to protecting heritage that at the same time meets people’s expectations for an office today. It combines this with new densification, a continuation of the development at Amsterdam Zuidas, that doesn’t copy Van Eyck’s intention, but creates a new one, like a new layer in time. And it celebrates the in-between which, as Aldo explained to me when I was a student, is one of the main sources of beauty in architecture.”

Tripolis Park Amsterdam NL

With Tripolis Park, Van Eyck’s monument is re-established within the current office rental market, evident in the fact that it has attracted two prestige tenants in Uber and law firm De Brauw Blackstone Westbroek. In the coming years, work will continue on the third of the original Tripolis buildings. The greening of the site, which will be easily accessible via walking and cycling paths from the other parts of the Zuidas and the nearby metro station, will also continue, forming a park-like campus in which Aldo van Eyck’s buildings – from 1960 and 1994 alike – are sheltered and preserved.

Tripolis Park Amsterdam NL

Tripolis Park in Amsterdam, The Netherlands – Building Information

Architects: MVRDV – https://mvrdv.com/
Location: Amsterdam, The Netherlands
Year: 2018–2023
Client: Flow Development
Size and Programme: 61,000m2 Offices, Public amenities
Sustainability certification: BREEAM-NL-Outstanding

Tripolis Park Amsterdam NL

Architect: MVRDV
Founding Partner in charge: Winy Maas
Director: Gideon Maasland
Associate Design Director: Gijs Rikken
Project Leader: Rik Lambers, Bob de Rijk
Design Team: Steven Anton, Roxana Aron, Guido Boeters, Teodora Cirjan, Joao Viaro Correa, Guillermo Corella Dekker, Karolina Duda, Cas Esbach, Valentina Fantini, Rico van de Gevel, Piotr Janus, Nika Koraca, Urszula Kuczma, Claudia Mainardi, Sanne van Manen, Rugile Ropolaite, Irgen Salianji, Maxime Sauce, Claudia Storelli, Karolina Szóstkiewicz, Laurens Veth, Olesya Vodenicharska, Mark van Wasbeek, Mariya Badeva, Rebecca Fiorentino, Nefeli Stamatari, Michele Tavola, Aleksandra Wypiór

Visualisations: Antonio Luca Coco, Luca Piattelli, Kirill Emelianov, Pavlos Ventouris, Francesco Vitale
Copyright: MVRDV Winy Maas, Jacob van Rijs, Nathalie de Vries

Tripolis Park office building Amsterdam NL 3

Partners:

Co-architect: Powered by EGM
Contractor: G&S Bouw
Project coordination: Toussaint Project Management
Landscape architect: Deltavormgroep
Structural engineer: Van Rossum Raadgevende Ingenieurs
Installations consultancy: Arcadis
MEP: Bosman Bedrijven
Cost calculation: BBN
Building Physics & Environmental Advisor: DGMR
Interior architect: Concrete

Tripolis Park office building Amsterdam

Photography by © Ossip van Duivenbode

MVRDV

Tripolis Park in Amsterdam, The Netherlands images / information received 171024

Location: Amsterdam, The Netherlands, The Netherlands, western Europe

Amsterdam Buildings

Amsterdam Architectural Designs : links

Major New Dutch Capital Building Designs

Jonas IJburg
Design: Orange Architects
Jonas Plot 42A IJburg building design
image courtesy of architects
Jonas Kavel 42A IJburg Building

Soendablok Apartments
Design: M3H Architects
Soendablok Apartments Amsterdam
photograph : M3H Architects
Soendablok Apartments

Robin Wood, Centrumeiland, IJburg
Design: Marc Koehler Architects and ANA Architects
Robin Wood Centrumeiland, IJburg, Amsterdam
image courtesy of architects practice
Robin Wood IJburg

Sluishuis IJburg Building in Amsterdam
Design: BIG – Bjarke Ingels Group and Barcode Architects
Sluishuis IJburg Building

Valley Towers at Amsterdam CBD Zuidas
Architects: MVRDV
Valley Towers by MVRDV at Amsterdam CBD Zuidas
picture : Vero Visuals
Valley Towers Amsterdam

Residential Complex on Zeeburger Island, Amsterdam, the Netherlands
Design: Studioninedots Architects
Residential Complex on Zeeburger Island Amsterdam
photo : Peter Cuypers
Residential Complex on Zeeburger Island

Amsterdam Walking Tours by e-architect

MVRDV Architects

Amsterdam Architecture – contemporary building information

Amsterdam Buildings – historic building information

Dutch Architecture

MVRDV Buildings

Comments / photos for the Tripolis Park in Amsterdam, The Netherlands design by MVRDV architects studio page welcome.