Description

With the VPRO Villa in Hilversum, the MVRDV group of architects was able to create a synthetic landscape for a Dutch broadcasting station. Six horizontal slabs constructed one above the other, diagonally and vertically linked by a complex system of routes, provide space for a pluralistic work environment. The seemingly incomplete, still malleable structure is marked by distinctive ‘cutouts’ and a dynamic roof landscape.

The non-profit media institution VPRO is part of a national broadcasting organisation consisting of eight large and several smaller radio and television stations, which share among themselves the airtime of the three public channels. The stations, each representative of (and catering to) a particular social class, used to coexist in a non-competitive relationship. It was only at the beginning of the nineties that mounting pressure created by the liberalisation of the television market and changes in the public’s viewing habits forced the public institutions out onto the open market. VPRO decided to address the competition from the commercial stations aggressively, profiling its liberality and permissiveness and building new headquarters to unite its facilities beneath one roof. Until then, they had been dispersed among thirteen free-standing villas, which no longer satisfied the workplace requirements of contemporary radio and television broadcasting stations. The headquarters are now located in Hilversum’s media park.

VPRO considers itself primarily a producer of programmes whose existence is independent of the various broadcasting media. Thus VPRO also produces informational brochures, books and digital media for its members.

For years the studios had been located in different build­ings, and the spatial separation has had a lasting effect on the organisational structure, working style and even the identity of the station. For these reasons, MVRDV felt the villa motif to be appropriate in view of its compactness, the atmosphere of the rooms and the opportunities it gives its occupants for appropriating space. The informality of the old offices has been transferred to the efficient new building. Classical building motifs like the salon, veranda and patio reappear in the new open office landscape, as do quotations of traditional villa interiors. The 350 members of staff, organised in teams – the so-called program producers – have a high degree of creative and journalistic autonomy. Having hitherto worked in the living rooms, attics and bels étages of villas, the teams are able, with flexibility, to take possession of their own areas of the building over different levels and furnish them individually.

The floor slabs of the structure (which is extremely compact, having a surface area of 50 x 50 metres and a height of 21 metres) are arranged like a geological formation. The new building has been placed in a hollow in the media park, so that the almost hilly, heather-covered roof looks like a continuation of the landscape.

For pedestrians, bicycles and cars, the entrance to the first level, open to the outside, also serves as a garage. Under a vaulted roof, a stairway leads the visitor up to the foyer. Ramps, hills and stairways form a route that leads, almost as if by accident, past work platforms to the building’s landscaped roof terrace. Long suites of rooms, like grand stairways traversing the whole building, alternate with more intimate rooms and screened-off areas. Numerous atriums and lateral ‘cuts’ create a variety of spatial relationships between the individual working areas. On the one hand, interpersonal communication is fostered and on the other, the spatial structure ensures that daylight reaches even the workplaces in the heart of the building and gives them direct contact to the outside world.

The typical fixtures and fittings of an office building would be sought in vain here. There are no plastered walls or suspended ceilings, but instead only a raised floor with an anhydride coating that enables the ground plan to be arranged flexibly. However, the large proportion of hard surfaces does have acoustic disadvantages that are only made more acute by the flowing character of the spatial structure. The furnishing strategy developed by MVRDV is based on the combination of different elements, to which belong items of furniture from the old villas that have become part of their owners’ identity, designer furniture, custom-made shelving systems, and also furniture from the standard catalogue. There is a comparable variety in the façades, too. Thirty- five glass panels, varying in colour, transparency and reflection, form the outer skin of the cube. Inexpensive perforated rubber curtains, some of them extending across several levels, bolster the effect of the solar protection panes.

In the interior of the compact VPRO broadcasting station, a pluralistic working landscape with a great variety of views opens up, from dramatic scenes through intimate niches and provisory ‘cells’ to club-like meeting areas. Going through them, the rooms seem to be almost labyrinthine, but they also represent the liberal and open character of the station.

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Originally published in: Rainer Hascher, Simone Jeska, Birgit Klauck, Office Buildings: A Design Manual, Birkhäuser, 2002.