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Open Fort 400 with Elastik |
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Credit: design: MAT Studio and Elastik source: international competition Organizer: Ymere/NAi |
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Project Discription: Simply imagining the effects the historic fort on Manhattan has had on its direct surroundings and the entire world is a mind boggling exercise. One can only find inspiration in how a single edifice has contributed to something as rich, diverse, and constantly self-reinventing as New York. The function which we implement on this specific location has to be the one that would enhance the dialogue among the policy, the place and the players around. While Overhoeks and NDSM has already its own characters and the high-grade business ambitions, Buiksloterham still hasn’t have the very specific character besides the industrial images and the grid system that makes the gradation of the work-live mix. We are convinced that this place needs the specific function as to be the central space of socio- economic interaction of Buiksloterham. It needs a concentrated service centre that ties all the initiatives who work there and live there to inter-exchange the opinions, activities and to the north bank of the IJ. It needs to convince different levels of people of the fact that moving their business to the Buiksloterham will continue to guarantee their livelihoods. It will have to offer attractions interesting enough for international travelers and business people to come and interact with the place and the locals. It needs regular events that will make people from over the other side of Amsterdam frequent this new cultural spot. And it will need to be flexible enough to maintain the freshness that currently gives such a strong appeal to Amsterdam Noord. Our analysis resulted in the conviction that our program should connect to the creative and cultural cluster that is emerging along the IJ. Apart from that, it should be supported by enough collateral business interests to enhance the likely success of the program. These collateral business interests should in itself contribute to the diversity and further development of the region. Special attention should be given to creating an environment that enables the social, cultural and not to forget business interaction around the clock. Furthermore, we would like to propose two entrepreneurs to open the dialogues to the next step. We have succeeded in finding the entrepreneurs that are able to realize the program needed in both Frame Publishers and the EMB Hotel Group. The proposed open FRAME takes Amsterdam’s need for a gallery creating the dialogue from the historical moment to the contemporary industrial design and uses it to enable a sustainable economic model supporting a public cultural attraction on this new location. (ie; yearly co-curated shows with FRAME and similar organizations and institutes in New York) Today the language of (industrial) design is a language spoken around the world. Successful designs form a common denominator in the lives of people from all corners of the world and from all social strata. Design is that place where high culture and low culture meet. It is unabashedly commercial yet, in its best manifestations, it strives to improve our everyday lives. The open FRAME gallery celebrates human creativity in the way it is made, used, and shown. It enables inhabitants and guests to explore industrial design in an immersive, participatory manner. The open FRAME not only shows the end results of the design process in a spiral gallery, it also opens up the creative process of design by allowing guests to visit the studios and offices that are located in the building. The hotel will be furnished with design objects curated by the gallery that guests can purchase if they so desire. |