Meccano Kinematics
Completed in 2024 in United Kingdom. Images by Greg Holmes Photography. In the ever-evolving landscape of architectural restoration, Mecanoo continues to carve its name with transformative projects that honour history...
The design of the Nieuw Terbregge neighbourhood in Rotterdam draws on Mecanoo’s extensive experience in social housing. The design exceeded the requirements of the brief with several self-initiated goals, including flexible layouts and integrated, private car parking.
Within this limited site, the dwellings express both individuality and a new form of collectiveness. Importantly, a safe children’s play area is provided close to the dwellings, which share communal facilities. The project features stacked ground planes and houses grouped on peninsulas.
Every island has a lower level with car parks and an upper timber deck as a shared space onto which the kitchens front. Trees grow through openings in the deck, and these gaps also allow filtered daylight to reach below. Stairs here connect the two levels.
An association of home owners manages this ‘double-decker’ community and other shared facilities such as a mini cogeneration plant and garbage room. Suspended between the peninsulas are jungle bridges, informal connections that offer children an adventurous area for play.
Groups of apartments are carefully arranged so that the roofs slope in alternating directions. Each half of an individual apartment facade alternates between dark, raw larch wood and smooth white stucco to create a dynamic striped pattern across the buildings.
Integrated shutters control light and ventilation through the larch facades. The sunken living rooms feel especially tall and spacious because they open onto small private gardens facing the canal. Four living blocks are placed opposite the peninsulas, either in or beside the water. Appearing as a large villa, each block consists of eight apartments under one roof.
The design of the Nieuw Terbregge neighbourhood in Rotterdam draws on Mecanoo’s extensive experience in social housing. The design exceeded the requirements of the brief with several self-initiated goals, including flexible layouts and integrated, private car parking.
Within this limited site, the dwellings express both individuality and a new form of collectiveness. Importantly, a safe children’s play area is provided close to the dwellings, which share communal facilities. The project features stacked ground planes and houses grouped on peninsulas.
Every island has a lower level with car parks and an upper timber deck as a shared space onto which the kitchens front. Trees grow through openings in the deck, and these gaps also allow filtered daylight to reach below. Stairs here connect the two levels.
An association of home owners manages this ‘double-decker’ community and other shared facilities such as a mini cogeneration plant and garbage room. Suspended between the peninsulas are jungle bridges, informal connections that offer children an adventurous area for play.
Groups of apartments are carefully arranged so that the roofs slope in alternating directions. Each half of an individual apartment facade alternates between dark, raw larch wood and smooth white stucco to create a dynamic striped pattern across the buildings.
Integrated shutters control light and ventilation through the larch facades. The sunken living rooms feel especially tall and spacious because they open onto small private gardens facing the canal. Four living blocks are placed opposite the peninsulas, either in or beside the water. Appearing as a large villa, each block consists of eight apartments under one roof.
The design of the Nieuw Terbregge neighbourhood in Rotterdam draws on Mecanoo’s extensive experience in social housing. The design exceeded the requirements of the brief with several self-initiated goals, including flexible layouts and integrated, private car parking.
Within this limited site, the dwellings express both individuality and a new form of collectiveness. Importantly, a safe children’s play area is provided close to the dwellings, which share communal facilities. The project features stacked ground planes and houses grouped on peninsulas.
Every island has a lower level with car parks and an upper timber deck as a shared space onto which the kitchens front. Trees grow through openings in the deck, and these gaps also allow filtered daylight to reach below. Stairs here connect the two levels.
An association of home owners manages this ‘double-decker’ community and other shared facilities such as a mini cogeneration plant and garbage room. Suspended between the peninsulas are jungle bridges, informal connections that offer children an adventurous area for play.
Groups of apartments are carefully arranged so that the roofs slope in alternating directions. Each half of an individual apartment facade alternates between dark, raw larch wood and smooth white stucco to create a dynamic striped pattern across the buildings.
Integrated shutters control light and ventilation through the larch facades. The sunken living rooms feel especially tall and spacious because they open onto small private gardens facing the canal. Four living blocks are placed opposite the peninsulas, either in or beside the water. Appearing as a large villa, each block consists of eight apartments under one roof.
The design of the Nieuw Terbregge neighbourhood in Rotterdam draws on Mecanoo’s extensive experience in social housing. The design exceeded the requirements of the brief with several self-initiated goals, including flexible layouts and integrated, private car parking.
Within this limited site, the dwellings express both individuality and a new form of collectiveness. Importantly, a safe children’s play area is provided close to the dwellings, which share communal facilities. The project features stacked ground planes and houses grouped on peninsulas.
Every island has a lower level with car parks and an upper timber deck as a shared space onto which the kitchens front. Trees grow through openings in the deck, and these gaps also allow filtered daylight to reach below. Stairs here connect the two levels.
An association of home owners manages this ‘double-decker’ community and other shared facilities such as a mini cogeneration plant and garbage room. Suspended between the peninsulas are jungle bridges, informal connections that offer children an adventurous area for play.
Groups of apartments are carefully arranged so that the roofs slope in alternating directions. Each half of an individual apartment facade alternates between dark, raw larch wood and smooth white stucco to create a dynamic striped pattern across the buildings.
Integrated shutters control light and ventilation through the larch facades. The sunken living rooms feel especially tall and spacious because they open onto small private gardens facing the canal. Four living blocks are placed opposite the peninsulas, either in or beside the water. Appearing as a large villa, each block consists of eight apartments under one roof.
The Perth Museum is a place rich in history, renovated in a fruitful balance between preservation and innovation, to once again house a symbol such as the Stone of Destiny.
One Silk Street sits in the heart of the Ancoats area in Manchester, a significant historical landmark associated with the Industrial Revolution. It contains the highest concentration of Grade II and II* Listed mill buildings in Manchester. As part of the city's expansion plan, aimed at enhancing the quality of life and driving change in its boundaries, particularly in the Ancoats area, Mecanoo designed a new mixed-use project called One Silk Street. This innovative development encompasses a variety of housing options and commercial facilities, tailored to meet the evolving needs of contemporary residents and users.
The clear and strong volume comprising of 10 storeys including a basement, reaches a height of 34 meters. The building fully occupies the site, extending to the perimeter, and its corners are designed to be prominent, aligning with the historical grid pattern of the surrounding area. The height of the Silk Road building has carefully been determined to harmonise with the existing streetscape, which features a diverse combination of heights and volumes. A setback on the ground floor not only enhances the visual appeal of the streetscape, but also contributes to dividing the overall structure into three distinct sections: the plinth, the body, and the crown.
The plinth is designed to activate the street, incorporating entrances and terraces for the commercial spaces on the ground floor. A double-height lobby serves as a focal point for both the commercial and residential entrances, effectively dividing the entire building length while simultaneously enriching the liveliness of the street. The single-storey crown on top has been set back from the building perimeter to allow for terraces on this level. Recognising the importance of adaptability and flexibility resulted in a layout and façade design that were meticulously crafted to accommodate different functions within the building. The grid system was specifically designed to cater for the diverse requirements of both office and residential spaces.
The Silk Road development has given careful consideration to the character and materiality of the area while respecting its historical significance. The design reflects Ancoats' distinctive identity, embracing the traditional use of red brick, gracefully proportioned facades, and a consistent composition of windows that emerged from a functional design and construction approach. To enhance the visual appeal, the façades have been softened by using handmade bricks, stone accents, relief elements, and varying depths. All of which age gracefully over time.
Arriving in Delft is an unforgettable experience. From the outset, Mecanoo’s idea was to design a station that makes it clear to visitors that they have arrived in Delft. The station, in combination with the new city hall, sits atop a new train tunnel built in place of the old concrete viaduct that divided the city in two since 1965.
Coming up the escalators, the impressive ceiling with the historic map of Delft unfolds (in collaboration with Geerdes Ontwerpen). When you look outside, you see the city and the old station as a contemporary version of Johannes Vermeer’s painting 'View of Delft’.
A vaulted ceiling features an enormous historic 1877 map of Delft and its surroundings, connecting the station with the city hall. Within the station hall, walls and columns are adorned with a contemporary re-interpretation of Delft Blue tiles. You can walk directly from the station into the city hall.
Throughout the design process, the building volume has been shaved and reformed to create a compact, highly efficient building form. The lowered roof lines at the corners provide a gradual transition towards the existing small-scale development of the Delft city centre and the adjacent Wester Quarter.
Incisions in the glass volume of the city hall building form a pattern of alleyways and courtyards, which are themselves inspired by the intricate structure of Delft. The facade responds to the different sun orientations, which determined the amount of glass incorporated, thus mitigating daylight needs while reducing heat gain in the summer months.
The glass has a high light absorption factor but low solar absorption, and all windows can be opened manually for user comfort and natural ventilation. Solar panels on the roof provide 20% of the energy for the building mechanics and presence-aware lighting. The GreenCalc+ score is rated at 270.
The Museum Kaap Skil on Texel Island, transports visitors to the village of Oudeschild in the Golden Age. Dutch traditions such as the reuse of washed-up objects inspired the design of this modest but striking museum building.
The facade is composed of sawn hardwood sheet piling reclaimed from the Noord-Hollands Canal, with a characteristic roof of four peaks that echoes the rhythm of the surrounding rooftops of Oudeschild village. Visitors enter on the ground floor, where the museum café is also located.
Comprising an outer screen of vertical slats with a layer of glass behind, the textured facade provides views of the famous Dutch sky while creating a rhythmic play of shadow and light inside.
This is particularly clear on the first floor, which houses the underwater archaeology exhibits and beachcomber collection with artefacts displayed in mobile vitrines made from sturdy steel frames and glass.
The sense of light and space heightens the contrast between the openness of the first floor and the more enclosed basement with its lower ceiling.
The pièce de résistance of the museum is located here: an eighteen-metre-long and four-metre-wide model called the Reede van Texel. Projections and atmospheric lighting guide visitors through the exhibition on this floor.
LocHal is a new cultural and meeting space inserted inside the shell of a 1930s locomotive hall in the Netherlands.
Image 8 of 13 from gallery of Mecanoo's Qianhai Data Center is a "Digital Lighthouse" for Shenzhen. © Mecanoo
Day 118: Dec 10, 2010 - Four-story-high wall o' books in the TU Delft Library.
The Wozoco Apartments in Amsterdam by architect MVRDV was built in Amsterdam-Osdorp, Holland in 1994-1997.
The Stavros Niarchos Foundation Library (SNFL) is a new-generation library for all New Yorkers, with special facilities for young users, adult learning, and business. Since 1982, SNFL has been housed in a former department store with a landmark 1914 façade. It offers the perfect contemporary complement to The New York Public Library’s world-famous Stephen A. Schwarzman Building (SASB), located across Fifth Avenue from SNFL. SASB, opened in 1911, was designed by architects Carrère & Hastings in a glorious Beaux-Art style and is the mothership of NYPL’s reference collections.
New features at SNFL reflect this harmony between the buildings: long tables that recall the impressive scale of those in SASB’s Rose Main Reading Room, ceiling artwork in the Long Room that echoes the neo-classical paintings set in SASB’s ceilings, and the use of classic materials including natural stone, terrazzo, and oak.
The Stavros Niarchos Foundation Library, with 1.7 million visits a year, has an annual circulation of two million items, and this sheer volume generates challenges in access, organisation, and storage. The design solution offers more space, more books, more seats, and lower shelves. The heart of the library is the Long Room, a new space that truly brings the idea of a library into the old structure.
This dramatic linear atrium separates three floors of flexible, daylit reading areas on one side and five levels of book stacks on the other, a creative and efficient solution to balancing the need for a browsable collection and the desire for more public reading room space. Above the Long Room, the fourth and fifth floors host the Business Center and the Pasculano Learning Center facilities.
Elevators and stairs continue to the sixth floor, which is built at the original building’s roof level. This new floor has pitched wood slat ceilings and contains a flexible 268-occupant conference and event centre. SNFL now also delivers to the Midtown cityscape a sensational new public roof attraction with a striking sculptural addition. An L-shaped roof terrace runs above the 40th Street and Fifth Avenue facades and includes a roof garden and an adjacent indoor café. It is Manhattan’s only free, publicly accessible roof terrace and offers staggering views.
Above the sixth floor, a dramatic new roof slopes up to cover mechanical equipment, reaching 56m (184 feet) above street level. Its angled pitches, and patinated copper-colored surface, are inspired by Manhattan’s Beaux Art copper-clad mansard roofs, two 1904 examples of which are visible from the terrace. As a new native New Yorker, the form also nods to the tapering spires of New York’s art deco skyscrapers and faceted facades of its newer towers.
Tankers will want to pick up this set for these new wheels. I have a feeling they'll make excellent road wheels. Haven't tried them out for thrusters. There are 86 pieces of tread.
Scans des notices d'instructions des super-modèles anglais / Online archive of English Meccano Super-Models Leaflets
Meccano model page 62 Bedford Pallet-Jekta van
Meccano Society of Scotland Photos
