The facade with fritted glass will have QR codes integrated into it.
Image: MVRDV

Location: Esslingen, Germany Year: 2016+ Client: RVI, Germany Size and Programme: 6,500m² Mixed-use building with offices, bar and restaurant Budget: Undisclosed
Design: MVRDV – Winy Maas, Jacob van Rijs and Nathalie de Vries
Design Team: Winy Maas, Markus Nagler, Tobias Tonch, Christine Sohar, Alessio Palmieri, Cheng Cai and Bartosz Kobylakiewicz
Visualization: Antonio Luca Coco, Kirill Emelianov, Luca Piattelli, Pavlos Ventouris
www.mvrdv.com

‘CRYSTAL ROCK’ DESIGN FOR THE MILESTONE

The Milestone is a new 6,500m2 mixed-use office building by MVRDV with a distinct part-reflective façade and open geometric core has been selected by a jury for the city of Esslingen. The building will literally be a milestone, its façade designed like a crystal rock is interactive and carries the topography of the town and messages about the history and people of Esslingen. In this sense, it will become a new landmark for Esslingen that celebrates its past whilst looking forward towards the future. RVI developers have commissioned the project and construction start is envisioned for 2020.

Posted 31 January 2018

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Located in Esslingen am Necker in the region of Stuttgart in the south of Germany, Esslingen, a city with a fine historical town centre, has for the last decade progressed with ambitious regeneration projects in the areas around its main railway station. The Milestone, a 6,500m2 12-storey mixed-use building with public viewing platform located in Neue Weststadt on its square is one of such projects signalling the city’s future ambition. MVRDV ambitious design responds to the client’s brief for a mixed-use building that brings together the tension between tradition and modernity of the city.

Designed like a crystal rock, the faced is interactive and carries the topography of Esslingen Image: MVRDV


“This building shows Esslingen to people all who pass by on trains and will become a new symbol to reflect its past heritage and future’’, says Winy Maas, MVRDV co-founder. “The façade with fritted glass will have QR codes integrated on to it informing visitors about Esslingen’s people, landscape, and histories which makes the building an interactive library for all.” The buildings’ volume is pushed inwards to create a fragmented ‘esslinger grotto’ that reflects Esslingen’s actual topography and forms an open public walkway right through its centre, marking the location of the central district. On upper levels, offices are located and envisioned as light, attractive and flexible spaces that are customisable for different users to create combinations of work and life. On the ground level, the crystal rock façade opens up to the public square in front connecting the city to the building and provides public amenities including a café, restaurant and meeting areas.		The building is located next to the main train station and shows of the town to those who pass by Image: MVRDV


The buildings’ volume is pushed inwards to create a fragmented interior core that forms a public walkway Images: MVRDV		The Milestone’s part mirrored-transparent façade integrates technology and sustainability with the use of fritted glass to reduce overheating, PV cells to store and generate energy, and finally, QR codes which carry information about the city in a pixelated map spread across the building making it both visible and readable. The map, be located on the lower part of the building extends to a height of 40 meters, and with stairs and terraces, it forms a publicly accessible core that tenants and visitors can walk up to take in views of the vineyards and surrounding hills. All of these sustainability features in the façade all the potential for the building to become partly self-sufficient in future. The transparency of the façade allows an interaction between inside and out, whilst reflecting the daily interactions in the square thus turning the front of the building into a new meeting point. In contrast, at night, the building becomes illuminated through its façade and is a new beacon for Esslingen. For train travellers, the current beacon being a large chimney of a former knife factory with the abbreviation of the factory name on its side, spelling the word DICK, which means ‘big’ in German. MVRDV was commissioned to work on the project by investors RVI and construction will start in 2020.

MVRDV was set up in 1993 in Rotterdam, The Netherlands by Winy Maas, Jacob van Rijs and Nathalie de Vries. MVRDV engages globally in providing solutions to contemporary architectural and urban issues. A research-based and highly collaborative design method engages experts from all fields, clients and stakeholders in the creative process.The results are exemplary and outspoken buildings, urban plans, studies and objects, which enable our cities and landscapes to develop towards a better future.

Early projects by the office, such as the headquarters for the Dutch Public Broadcaster VPRO and WoZoCo housing for the elderly in Amsterdam lead to international acclaim. 200 architects, designers and other staff develop projects in a multi-disciplinary, collaborative design process which involves rigorous technical and creative investigation.MVRDV works with BIM and has official in-house BREEAM and LEED assessors. Together with Delft University of Technology, MVRDV runs The Why Factory, an independent think tank and research institute providing an agenda for architecture and urbanism by envisioning the city of the future.