MVRDV has unveiled plans to sustainably transform one of its seminal projects, the Dutch Pavilion at the 2000 World Expo in Hannover. The redesign will highlight the Expo Pavilion’s reputation as a landmark for sustainable design, while transforming it into a co-working office building flanked by two new buildings: one containing student housing and the other comprising offices and parking spaces. The new vision for the Expo 2000 Pavilion will also retain the building’s third-floor forest, which made the pavilion an icon in the 2000 World Expo.
MVRDV’s design for the original Expo 2000 Pavilion responds to the Dutch Expo theme “Holland Creates Space.” The architects took a space-saving approach by stacking six different Dutch landscapes into a tower and leaving the remainder of the site open as multipurpose outdoor space. This “stacked landscape” concept conceptualizes the building as a self-contained ecosystem capable of generating its own internal resource cycles.
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The architects’ new vision for the pavilion maintains the “stacked landscape” concept, while renovating the interior to better fit an office environment. The first floor that was originally used as a grid of greenhouses, for instance, will be turned into an office with a similarly strict rectilinear layout. On the second floor, the architects will repurpose pod planters into glazed meeting rooms and office spaces. The third-floor forest level and exterior staircases will largely be kept the same as will the ground-level “dunes” that will remain as communal meeting areas with small cafes and exhibition spaces.
The co-working office building will be complemented by two new buildings that form perimeter blocks around the site and create an entry point on the west side of the site. The larger of the two buildings will contain 370 student apartments as well as 300 bike parking spots. The smaller building will feature three levels of office and meeting rooms as well as ample parking. The two new buildings will feature stepped roofs with colorful accessible terraces with different programming — from gardens and sports facilities to study areas and a cinema — in a nod to the “stacked landscape” concept.
Images via MVRDV
