The new student housing building in the De Uithof part of Utrecht University, designed by Architectenbureau Marlies Rohmer, is something new- finally, a building without windows! Oh no, this is not what you think.
The building’s got plenty of windows, spread out amongst the 380 independent and clustered student residences and common rooms. What it doesn’t have, is a facade that must give way its purity to allow windows.
It’s not facade and windows, the two are one and it’s not a glass curtain wall. Fenestration disappears into the complex and erratic, multicoloured jumble grid of aluminum panels, creating a facade which appears a blended grey from a distance and slowly resolves to bright and vibrant the closer one gets.
Courtesy of Architectenbureau Marlies Rohmer- Photography by Scagliola en Brakkee, Rene de Wit, AkzoNobel