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ALL DESIGN AND VAN DER LAAN BOUMA ARCHITEKTEN BV
NETHERLANDS
De Calypso Rotterdam
This development was designed by ALL Design and Van der Laan
Bouma Architekten did the final detailing of both the architecture and engineering. Vectorworks software was used in the Van der Laan Bouma Architekten office in the Netherlands. The Calypso is on the Mauritsweg, a few minutes’ walk from the Central Station in Rotterdam. The complex consists of a 70-meter-high tower and a volume composed of three towers with the same height, standing together on a 20-meter-high plinth. Previously occupied by a hotel, the Calypso theater, and St. Paul Church, the site is a key gathering point for a number of primary city routes. New offices, new shops, a refurbished church, and new residential accommodations were designed, preserving a mix of public and private realms and accommodating a broad social spectrum.
The forms of the building were originally designed as distinct crystals or “rocks,” and the church was seen as a “fallen rock.” The initial forms had separate buildings, which slowly morphed together during the design development phase. Only Tower A, to the north, was retained as a separate form. The color scheme always differentiated Tower A’s design from the rest of the building. Originally, Tower A was pink in color and subsequently changed to shades of red. Tower A, with 131 apartments, has a façade of glass panels in reddish hues. Above the plinth are 16 floors containing
eight apartments each and topped with a floor featuring three-bedroom apartments and penthouses.
The three southern towers’ forms were conceived as translucent, glass-clad elements, which became a faceted silver aluminum skin in the final design. These towers have a total of 222 apartments, including a penthouse.
The plinth has the same appearance as the north tower with offices on the north side and commercial spaces on the south side with 54 apartments and a garage. The church is part of the overall complex with facets like the southern façade towers, but it is clearly distinguished by its unusual form and copper-clad façade.