Designed by Allard Meine Jansen, the building “Matchbox” is a stacking of commercial units that rotates and shifts with respect to one another. The structure is a blend of creative and commercial spaces, modified to suit the artistic sector, which forms a claustrophobic situation between two different buildings to highlight the individuality of each company and user.
Being built in North Amsterdam and slated to be completed by 2010, the structure includes 22 corporate units, a rooftop restaurant and a semi-underground parking, giving its front an artistic point of interest. The units will be individually angled up to 5 meters each, giving every company its own space and identity. A central atrium garden carves open a space for natural light to filter in, thus allowing maximum use of the place. While its greenhouse roof enclosure eliminates the a need for covered bridges spanning the atrium garden and provides 365 day per year dry balcony space for its tenants.
Made in prefabricated concrete to give it the desired shape, steel is only used in internal non- structural walls of the construction, so that the user can pin up their work with magnets. The black frames around the boxes are constructed in folded aluminum elements while the grey colored exterior surface will be preserved with a flawless Polyurethane finish
