The Traveller Pavilion
Transparent Social Hub
At the heart of Cumulus Park, Amsterdam’s new innovation district, sits the Traveller, a sleek and organically curved pavilion. Its transparent façade is elegantly formed around a pleasant and inviting interior housing a restaurant and event space. While energizing the campus with a place for meeting and collaboration, it provides a new iconic marker to herald the developing area.The Traveller Pavilion became a finalist for the PLAN Awards and got shortlisted for the World Architecture Festival.
The sleekness of sinuous glass meets the warmth of an inviting living room.’
Free floating
Free floating
Standing freely from the expanse of glass, a wooden element at the Traveller’s center contains all its functions and an upper deck with views over the restaurant. The warmth of timber continues to radiate from its gently curved larch wooden ceiling, that hovers over a welcoming space with variations in height and openness. Exuding the comfort of a living room, an interior of rich colors and soft textures offers an intimate indoor area – relaxing and approachable.
Approachable elegance
The separation of wooden core and glass façade – at no point do they touch each other – creates an airy and flowing interior space.’
Blurred boundaries
Blurred boundaries
Set within a campus housing ING, Amsterdam University of Applied Sciences, and Amsterdam Community College (ROC), the Traveller brings together office employees, students, entrepreneurs and neighboring residents. Designed to be seamlessly integrated with its surroundings, differences in ground level continue within the pavilion – like the concrete stairs connecting exactly to those inside, with only the glass façade as separation – creating a dynamic relationship between the interior and the exterior.
We wanted to blur the boundaries as if there’s no distinction between inside and outside.’
Ground Floor
First Floor
Site Plan
Roof Section
Forging the Form
Forging the Form
Designing the double curved wooden roof of The Traveller came with a set of complex challenges that we met by modelling the nearly 300 unique components separately.
We realized the all-around transparency of the façade – while also mitigating solar radiation – by engineering a system that combines interior sun shading with heat extraction, limiting the need for foils and triple glazing.
Through advanced modelling techniques, we integrated all the complexities of this roof into one elegant and streamlined form.’
