ABC-huis

ABC stands for Art Basics for Children, an organisation that develops art education courses for children. With a minimum of resources and HUB architects’ strategy, a heterogeneous building that had been converted several times was elevated to the level of an intelligent ruin. Remnants of the building’s industrial role, such as the gigantic chimney, stand like relics in the grid created by the walls.
Openings cut strategically out of both the walls and the floor, plus the introduction of room-wide glass walls, create a uniform yet articulated space. By painting all the walls and columns white, the building once again fuses into a single whole.It is fascinating to see how the users have actually understood the architecture to be a genetic code, and how, in the minds of such modernists as Charles and Ray Eames, furniture playfully takes over the role of architecture and sometimes even rivals it. Or, to put it rather more agreeably, reminds architecture of its modest yet decisive role.