Vijversburg Visitor Center by Junya Ishigami & Associates and Studio Maks | 2017-08-01 | Architectural Record
What happens when nature, science, and architecture come together? If done well, a work of art is created. A recent example of this sits hidden in the grounds of Park Groot Vijversburg in Tytsjerk, a small town in the Dutch province of Friesland, 93 miles northeast of Amsterdam. It is a slender glass pavilion designed by Studio Maks and Junya Ishigami & Associates as an extension to the park’s 19thcentury villa. The Rotterdam- and Tokyo-based architects, respectively, were not looking to create a structure with a distinct shape but a building that would “melt into the environment,” as Ishigami puts it. Indeed, by not only blending nature and architecture, but using the latter to emphasize the first, they achieved something much more meaningful than an eye-catching form.