ARCHITECTUREPORTFOLIO

JOS POORTMAN

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RENOVATING PHILIPS ‘NATLAB’ p 32-35renovation project, winter 2009/ 2010

RESUME p 4-5

WHERE ELEGANCE MEETS BALANCE p 28-31generative design/ experimental project, winter 2010/ 2011

MUSIC = ARCHITECTURE p 24-27theoretical/ experimental project, winter 2011/ 2012

ICONEN VAN BRABANT p 20-23renovation project, spring 2012

CELEBRATING THE FRINGE p 16-19graduation project, 2013/ 2014

CONTENTS

INSIDE THE SPEAKERBOX p 12-15conceptual design, January-February 2016

THE TRUST BUILDING p 10-11freelance architectural assignment, March 2016

LIFTED PARK p 6-9architectural/ landscape design, April-May 2016

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RESUMEPERSONALIA

Name Jos Poortman

Date of birth 30 - 04 - 1989

Nationality Dutch

E-mail poortman.j@gmail.com

Phone 040 6265496

Website issuu.com/jospoortman

EDUCATION

2011 - 2014 Diploma master – Architecture Building and Planning (ABP), Technische Universiteit Eindhoven (TU/e)

2007 - 2011 Diploma bachelor Bouwkunde, Technische Universiteit Eindhoven (TU/e)

2001 - 2007 VWO – diploma, CSG Reggesteyn, Rijssen

WORK EXPERIENCE

2016 - present Freelance architecture designer, Sydney. Advising clients, detecting/ solving problems, 3D visualisations

2015 - 2016 Salesman and customer stylist at ‘Yd‘ fashion, Sydney

2014 - 2015 Salesman at ‘The Sting’ fashion store, Eindhoven

2012 - 2013 Bartender at ‘Buena Vista steak, tapas & drinks’, Rijssen

2005 - 2012 Salesman fruits and vegetables at ‘V.O.F. Kraayenzang van der Linden’, Rijssen. Selling fuits and vegetables, customers advise and service, building market stalls

2010 (summer) Temporary working for ‘Los Rosales Floreceran’ Werkgroep Rijssen Nicaragua. Building small houses in Managua, Nicaragua

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2007 (summer) Temporary employee ‘Hammer Techniek en Detachering’ and ‘De Jong Betonvloeren B.V.’, Rijssen Prepare and execute concreting/ Temporary employee roadworker

COMPUTERS KILLS Microsoft Office (Word, Excel, PowerPoint), Adobe Photoshop, Adobe Indesign, Adobe Illustrator, Autodesk 3ds Max Design, Autodesk AutoCAD, Google SketchUp, V-ray, Artlantis

OTHER COURSES/ PAPERS

2004 In posession of diploma Koninklijke Nederlandse Gym Unie assist course

2006 Koninklijke Nederlandse Gym Unie teacher, course not finished

2007 In posession of driving license B

2008 In posession of sailing license 1

SECONDARY ACTIVITIES

september 2015 - present Researching architectureal topics, conceptual design, writing, composing musical pieces and commercial jingles

may - september 2015 Traveling in South-East Asia, photographing, writing (www.huntingthequestionmark.wordpress.com)

2013 - 2015 Guitar player/ backing vocal/ songwriter for blues-rock band ‘Kicking Streetlights‘, Eindhoven

2012 - 2014 Volunteer at youth organisation ‘Transformed’, sound engineer and band contact

2010 - 2012 Volunteer at youth organisation ‘Transformed’, escorting visitors

2008 - 2009 Parttime board ‘Eindhovense Studenten Turn Vereniging SUCA’, PR–Coördinator

HOBBIES/ SPORTS Architecture, reading, writing, traveling, photography Electric/acoustic guitar, drums, singing, songwriting, composing Gymnastics, skiing, snowboarding, wakeboarding, surfing, windsurfing, kite-surfing, longboarding

LANGUAGE SKILLS

Dutch Mother language English Fluently German Basics

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LIFTED PARKarchitectural/ landscape design, April-May 2016

A plateau, lifted from the ground to create both a viewpoint and a place of peace and retreat. A place to read and study, a place to look around or just a place to breathe and escape from a life of ever ongoing rush and stress.....

Although lifted and thereby isolated, the plateau still holds a strong relation with the earth. Trees grow through holes in the floor at the four corners of the plateau and one can follow their movement from roots and trunks at their bases to twigs and leaves at their tops. A great circular opening in the centre connects the inner courtyard pool with the upper level. From the island located in this pool, a large tree grows to easily reach the height of the lifted park and beyond, marking the heart of the design.

Two grand staircases unlock the physical transition between the ground and the plateau. One providing a path that starts narrow at its base and becomes wider with every next step, the other one doing the exact opposite. One growing and leading towards the light, the other guiding away from it.

The lifted park is about the meeting of different worlds and the transitions between them. The shadow meets the light. The steady mass of concrete and steel meets the fluidity and fluttering of water and leaves. The crafted wood meets its ancestor, the tree. The world below meets the world above. Earth meets sky and we are free to move between them, holding the endless middle ground.

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TRUST BUIDLINGfreelance architectural assignment, March 2016

In order to create a deeper understanding and explain renovation scenarios for the Trust building, a 3d model was generated.

This model was cut parallel to both passing streets and perspective sections were made in order to gain insight concerning the relations of the building’s different spaces and help the further design process whereby new functions had to be placed in different parts of the building.

Because of the building being cultural heritage, the client was advised in the renovation approach whereby respect for the monument had to be combined with a fresh appearance, supporting its new functionality.

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INSIDE THE SPEAKERBOXconceptual design, January-February 2016

The inspiration for this project was founded in Harman&Kardon’s ‘Aura‘ speaker. This device is capable of a 360o projection of sound and can be placed anywhere in the room because of its remarkable efficiency. However, besides its functionality, the aesthetics of this ‘Aura‘ speaker provide such a spatial impression of sound that it almost feels like looking at a miniature concert hall, an actual space in which human bodies can move and experience musical events.

This idea raised the following question: how would the human body experience sound from within a speakerbox? A question such as this goes beyond perceiving projected sounds from a certain source, it reaches out towards the core of the source itself and provides an introvert space in which sound grows before it is send outwards. Being inside the ‘speakerbox‘ means being completely surrounded by the resonationg materials and embraced by vibrating air.

Sound will still come from speakers hanging in the space, but is directly sent to the wall - functioning as the space’s resonance box- instead of towards the audience. In this way, the walls will start to resonate, filling the space with vibrating air causing the feeling of being inside an actual speakerbox. The hanging speakers will provide high- and mid range frequencies. The low frequencies will be generated by a vibrating platform under the central stair element, generating the bass frequencies energy from below.

In order to create a space as resonating as possible, windows and doors cannot be used since they would pierce the vibrating wall and disturb its resonation patterns. Therefore, to enter the space instead of going through doors, one must go under the ground floor and come up inside the vibrating wall.

Instead of through windows, light comes in via a great, translucent, chandelier like element which absorbs sun- and daylight from the building’s roof and transports it through

the single penetration at the very top of the speakerbox’s resonating wall.

The building surrounding the ‘speakerbox’ functions as a room in which a 360o speaker is placed, only on a much larger scale. The sound from the vibrating walls of the speakerbox floats through the buildings atrium to eventually reach its different floors.

So everywhere in the design, sound can be experienced like listening to music in a room which is scaled up to the size of an entire buidling. However, one can take the stairs down and up again to be fully and intensely embraced by sound, possibly even become part of it.

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CELEBRATING THE FRINGE‘Designing the Exception’ graduation project, 2013/ 2014

The location to work with, chosen by the architectural graduation studio, was the island of Stvanice, located in Prague, Czech. This island was called a ‘fringe’ location, an exception in its environment and had to be protected from being swallowed by the surrounding, urban tissue of Prague.

In order to learn more about fringe locations, different examples from all over the world were tracked and investigated. Although a unifying definition of the term in this context was never found, from these studies, four typical aspects came up by which a fringe location reveals itself. First, a fringe uses borders of some kind to create a contemporary or permanent isolation of a certain degree. Second, a fringe has to bring a feeling which tells the visitor about finding oneself in a different place, a place that is not yet fully understood. Third, a fringe happens to have an attitude towards its surroundings and because of its exceptional being, mostly this attitude is a position of critique, up to a certain level. Finally a fringe seems to create some sort of tension between its own area and the area surrounding it as a result of their border, ‘mystery factor’ and critical attitude. Also, the essay of Michel Foucault about ‘heterotopia’ was studied to gain more knowledge about the fringe topic. It turned out that heterotopia are not actual spaces as fringes are, but can be considered the soul of some spaces. A fringe with a heterotopian soul would become a stronger fringe.

Therefore, the function of a casino was chosen for its heterotopian character and placed not on the Stvanice Island but in the water of the Vltava River, being the very edge and border of the fringe. The building is positioned against an old dam that created a waterfall, so the river water flows over the roof of the casino and falls off behind it in a curtain of water. Both a tower and a dome grow out of the casino’s flooded roof and correspond with a power plant, positioned at the tip of Stvanice Island, arrogantly facing the city center of Prague.

One has to travel over the island to gain access to the casino.

From the island, a staircase goes down to the entrance which is behind the curtain of falling water. This entrance provides access to the space under the river water, connecting the entrance, casino dome and casino tower while looking at the back of the water curtain.

The casino dome with its two floating floors hanging free in the atmosphere, functions as the main casino space where visitors can ‘climb out’ of the river water – and thereby out of the fringe space – and face the city center while being completely surrounded by the rough river water. The casino tower functions both as casino and hotel. The ground floor is a casino floor and hotel lobby. Every other level functions as atrium and hotel room, except for the third floor which also maintains a ‘high rollers’ casino floor. The immense and extravagant hotel rooms only grow larger with every level of the tower, ending up in the final ‘Jackpot room’, which covers the entire level and faces both the Stvanice fringe and Prague’s city center.

A ‘normal’ casino is completely closed to the outside world while extremely easy accessible and provides as many hotel rooms as possible. Stvanice’s Waterfall Casino celebrates the uniqueness of its location. The difficulty in its accessibility, the remarkable position of its underwater casino floors and its insanely luxurious and exclusive hotel rooms create a surrealistic dream world. It isolates itself by using the fringe’s border, creates the fringelike ‘different, hardly to understand’ place, has a critical attitude towards its surroundings and possesses a ‘mystery factor’ that celebrates the tension between the atmosphere of the island and its embracing quays and river banks.

This extraordinary, mystery casino places a heterotopian soul in the fringe space of Stvanice Island and celebrates its unique character that may not be lost or surrender to its urban environment.

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ICONEN VAN BRABANTrenovation project for the property of ‘Landgoed Haarendael’, spring 2012

A project about renovating a country seat in the south of the Netherlands. ‘Landgoed Haarendael’, the chosen property, was founded as monk seminary in the year 1839. During the following decades, it increased in size for new wings and building parts were added to the complex. Also its function changed over time. During World War ll, it was used by the German military force to imprison Dutch dignitaries of great political and intellectual influence as hostages. After the war, it again came to be a seminary till the year of 1967, when it started to provide a home for different healthcare facilities until the year of 2012. The property has been abandoned since, except for a small museum about the history of this country seat.

In order to renovate this complex successfully, both its historical – being emotional – and architectonical – being visual and spatial – qualities had to be found, restored and if possible reinforced.

After studying the history of this property, it turned out that ‘Landgoed Haarendael’ always had been a complex in which information of great influence was shared and taught. This is why the new ‘Landgoed Haarendael’ had to become the country seat of ‘Knowledge and Innovation’. Functions as a great congress center and a luxurious hotel, temporary living and intensive, innovation-related activities on small scale had to support the sharing and teaching of knowledge so innovation could flourish again.

Also the historical analyses of the complex as façades and spaces showed that the property had lost a great deal of its pride and authority. Once, the seminary started as a perfect symmetrical whole, both the building complex and its surrounding country seat with its gardens and its great, classical driveway. Everything responded to one strong and symmetrical axis which reached the entire length of the

property. Especially the driveway, the frontal façade of the complex and its inner courtyard proved themselves as strong elements of greatness and glory that lost their strength over time.

Therefore, especially these elements were transformed in order to regain their former strength and glory. The frontal façade and the façades of the inner courtyard are plastered in white while the framework if their windows is painted dark. In this way, the façades pop out, looking strong and fresh again. The symmetry of the frontal façade is brought back with this technique, for the shape of the main façade’s left flank is mirrored on its right flank, so symmetry again is created without demolishing any of the present structures.

The symmetry and status of the classical driveway, being the largest part of the properties symmetrical axis, is reinforced by the new design of the embracing gardens. These romantically shaped gardens with their meandering pathways, bridges and waters are the playful elements that accentuate the straight and strong character of the driveway which is facing the symmetrical and majestic frontal façade of the property.

With quite simple and straightforward but smart gestures, the historical characteristics and qualities of ‘Landgoed Haarendael’ are restored and both its new functionality and appearance will let it again be the great Icon it once was.

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MUSIC = ARCHITECTUREtheoretical/ experimental project, winter 2011/ 2012

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe said once that ‘Music is liquid architecture; Architecture is frozen music’ and indeed, music and architecture seem to have quite some aspects in common. For instance, ‘Rhythm’, ‘Sequence’, ‘Dynamics’ and ‘Compositions’ are words that can both describe architectural and musical elements.

This project was all about the relation between music and architecture, how space can manipulate sound and how sounds are able to help defining space. After studying classical concerts (acoustic) and performances of pop/rock music (amplified) an interesting difference between the two occurred. In classical concerts, the acoustics of the space play a great role in shaping the total sound; with pop/rock concerts, the lesser the acoustics of the space, the better, for everything is ideally shaped digitally. In classical concerts, all musical instruments (violins, cellos, trumpets etc…) amplify themselves and form the natural source of their sound while with pop/rock concerts, the instruments (electric guitar, drums, bass guitar etc…) are amplified so most of the sound comes out of speakers instead of the natural source of the sound, being the instruments.

So the visual relation that the audience has with the performers during an acoustic performance is in harmony with their musical relation. The sounds heard by the audience, comes from the musical source providing that sound which is visible to the audience. This visual and musical relation in amplified performances seem to be disharmonious, since the audience can see the performers play on stage, but at the same time, the sound is coming from speakers located elsewhere.

The ‘Music-lab’ generates an experimental, musical experience for both performers and audience. The Music-lab is a box-in-box principle by which the inner box functions as a concert hall that can be opened and closed with immense

sound absorbing curtains. The stage within the inner box is divided into different platforms (islands) with each having their own speaker sets. The bridges between the platforms allow performers to move from one platform to another, and while doing so, the amplified sound of their instruments moves along with them, only sounding from the speakers closest to the performer.

The first concept works in this way, where the visual and musical relation is harmonious again and moreover, both performers and audience can decide what exactly to hear, depending on the position they choose in space.

With the second concept, all musical sources are positioned at the central platform which is inaccessible to the audience. The rest of the space (including the remaining platforms and bridges) can be used by the audience. All speakers are turned off and the sounds from the sources are amplified per instrument through ‘sound vests’ containing small speakers. These vests can be worn by the audience so that each visitor amplifies a typical instrument and the audience as a whole can create different musical mixes by grouping and positioning in space. Of course, with this way more experimental concept, the visual and musical relation will be extremely disharmonious, but the experience of sound in space will be felt at a new level.

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WHERE ELEGANCE MEETS BALANCEgenerative design/ experimental project, winter 2010/ 2011

After the search for personal fascination and inspiration, terms like ‘elegance’ and ‘balance’ found their way into an experimental process whereby the final result and goal were not yet defined. Questions like: ‘what is elegance?’ led the process in a search for form and shape.

By the use of computer generative design, a script was programmed to command and guide Autodesk drawing program Autocad in its performing of a number of tasks. Tension between physical and visual balance played a crucial role in the creation of this script; also the earlier found term ‘elegance’ had to play its part in the creative process, being partly responsible for the overall atmosphere of the design.

The first script lets Autoad draw flat cylinders which were called ‘stones’ and place them on top of each other whereby the program chooses the radius, height and position of every next stone within a given minimum and maximum by the use of an algorithm. The extension’s maximum of every next stone was half of its diameter.

The generated towers or columns have a surrealistic, almost alien-like appearance.

When the script was run a number of times in one trial, a wall was created. This version of the script only allowed the stones to cantilever in the Y-direction where the X-direction had to remain value 0. Therefore the thickness of the created wall was as thick as the radius of the largest stone. The combination of the fragile, cylindrical stones both interlocking and reaching out in space again gave an imaginative and surrealistic appearance with a blink of elegance and aesthetics.

This first script seemed to work considering elegance but there was no total balance created yet. Therefore, a second script was created in which its first version only calculated the cantilevers in the Y-direction and created a final stone in

the column or tower sequence, the keystone. This keystone compensates the total momentum created in the center stone of the sequence as a result of the other stones placed on top of each other with each its own extension.

The second version created, calculated and balanced the towers total momentum in both the Y- and X-direction, creating virtual shapes with a peculiar appearance, performing balance and referring to elegance.

One of the finally generated shapes was 3D-printed and actually balanced on its small, center stone.

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RENOVATING PHILIPS ‘NATLAB’project about the renovation of a former industrial complex in Eindhoven, winter 2009/ 2010

Philips always has been a famous concept in Eindhoven and its surroundings. The former industrial estate of this immense company, Strijp-S, was to be renewed with a new image and functionality, for nowadays, the industrial activities of Philips are located elsewhere. The old laboratory, the ‘Natlab’ had to be renovated in order to fit in and contribute to the new urban plan for Strijp-S which focused on the transformation from the old Strijp-S industrial estate into a cultural and creative nest for the city of Eindhoven.

After studying the history of the building, it turned out that the inner traffic flow of the Natlab played a crucial role in the creation of the innovative projects that made Philips the multinational it is today. The researching and investigating professors had most of their valuable conversations in the corridors of the building, and this exchange of information was highly responsible for the innovativeness of the laboratory.

An effective traffic flow became a strong design input to maintain the soul of the historical Natlab.

New building wings were added to the building complex, together with a tower that was necessary to satisfy the urban plan. The function of the tower had to be housing and exposing art in order to contribute to the functionality of the urban master plan.

The higher, wider levels of the tower are the apartment levels, containing three apartment units per level, except for the final, penthouse-like level, which contains two apartment units.

In between the tower’s higher and wider levels and the tower’s lower and narrower levels are two transition levels. The walls of these levels are sloping and not

straight, for these levels connect the higher, wider levels and the lower, narrower levels. These levels are used as exposition space.

Traffic junction of the complex is placed in the lower, narrower levels of the tower, where all the different building wings assemble. The ground floor of the tower is not only part of the complex inner traffic flow, but it also provides access to the main and central street of the new Strijp-S estate.

The tower’s architecture translates the impact of the Natlab renovation project. Its straight walls, bricks and industrial window style match the former Natlab appearance, except for the levels of the tower that function as traffic junction. These levels show the physical response of the different wings penetrating the towers façade with great gesture.

The outer shell of these tower levels is made of a textile membrane which is shaped in curves, visualizing the tower absorbing the impact of the wings.

The staircases, hanging in the outside of the brick walls and in the ‘half inside-outside’ space between the brick walls and the textile membrane, are a metaphor for distorted floors of the tower as a result of the impact.

The holes (doors and windows) in the brick walls, functioning as access to the staircases and show a distortion and more inward position while compared with the other brick walls of the tower, which are penetrated less (mere windows) and placed more outward.

Within the brick walls, the floors, elevators and atrium remain ‘unchanged’ by the impact of the building wings.

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