Educatorium
In addition to the development of a new masterplan for the university, OMA was commissioned to design Educatorium, a crucial link or urban keystone for the entire academic complex. The parameter of the site is surrounded by four extremely different conditions: Horticulture and Botanical Gardens, a green boundary in the north; Transitorium 2, a 17 story office tower in the south; Transitorium 1, a 185 m long, 2 story classroom building with a central galleria in the east; Pedestrian promenade (linked with future student housing to the south as major transverse of the campus), bicycle circuit, canal and green zone in the west.
In a situation that is currently devoid of any substantial pedestrian circulation, a strategy was initiated that first sought to push the limits of the site, its surface area, as an urban stimulus. In developing the site in its entirety, bikes, students, connections, and public spaces are absorbed into a hyper compressed architectural envelope. The result for example is a canteen that pours out to the green zone on the west as an open air cafe, terrace, and new peripheral destination point for the campus, a north front extending towards and reflecting the botanical garden, and a south east corner that collects literally thousands of students daily.
The program is comprised of four primary components: canteen for 928 persons; auditoriums for 400 and 500 persons; examination halls for 150, 200, and 300 persons; and entry hall (mixing chamber). The building is composed of two planes which fold to accommodate these ranges of distinct programs. The building is a continuous unravelling of the academic and social experience of contemporary university life. Deposited on the vast surfaces of concrete and steel constructions are the large monofunctional programmatic pieces and public circuits that give the architecture form.
Upon entering the mixing chamber at the entry level, one is immediately confronted with hungry students, nervous studiers, propaganda, information areas, and on-off ramps. This intense public zone interlocks to create a single trajectory in which the entire university experience: socialization, learning, and examination, is encapsulated.
The Educatorium is conceived as a new center of gravity for the Uithof University Campus. The starting concept design is two sheets which fold and interlock. The concrete slab is treated as a malleable surface which allows an optimum fit for each program. The sloped planes of the entrance plateau function like an urban plaza or mixing chamber. Beneath this area is sheltered the bicycle parking and intersecting bike-path. Above the multi-use chamber is the two-story block of examination halls. While specifically planned for mass examinations they are also designed to allow varied configurations of furnishing and inhabitation.
The two auditoriums are accessed via the large entry area ramp. Oriented towards the north side the larger auditorium is open to the view of the botanical gardens. Two curving walls enclose the room, one solid, one of glass. Laminated with a holographic film which changes between transparent or translucent depending on the viewer’s point, the glass wall acts as a fabricated cloud alternately clearing and obscuring the view to the outside while providing a screen of privacy for the interior.
In the ceiling, steel reinforcement bars emerge from the exposed concrete slab. Steel and concrete dissociate allowing each material to work at optimum efficiency: the 20cm thick concrete slab is made to span 21 metres.
The second auditorium with 400 seats is situated to the south. Spanning between two massive walls the roof structure is a densely packed series of I-beams forming a surface of steel. The cafeteria is situated beneath the floor of the auditorium. The lines of columns are denser to the south, which almost disappear to the north towards the landscape beyond. The building is designed to accommodate up to 1000 people, the sloping ceiling together with the “random” columns generates a series of “places” within the large room.
Circulation in the Educatorium is organized around a cruciform of two corridors subdividing each plan into quadrants and functioning as the main connectors. A second system of paths allows the building to function as a network. By merging the “pause” areas with circulation, larger open territories are generated as part of strategy of eliminating frontiers in favour of more subtle techniques of separation or inclusion. What the architect has then created with the main spaces are microclimates, specific and unique atmospheres, spaces, materials, proportions, and properties.
The north facade, which can be seen in its entirety from the green expanse, is highly transparent, allowing deep view into the building, and thus revealing a pure expression of the architecture and clear impression of all the major spaces. Whereas the south facade, facing a loading zone and the administration slab of Transitorium 2, opaque in this expression, has an accumulation of service and technical program.
