MVRDV’s Newest: A Community Center That’s Also A Digital Collage

To please the residents of a small Dutch town, MVRDV based its latest building on a survey of nearby farmhouses, printing a digital collage of their best features onto a stark glass facade. This week MVRDV completed the Glass Farm, a mixed-use community center in Schijndel, a small town in the Netherlands. Principal Winy Maas first proposed a building when he was just 20 (!), inciting public debate and controversy that has lasted for nearly his entire career. But after 33 years and six unsuccessful designs, Maas and the residents of Schijndel finally found some common ground. Seventh time’s a charm, right? The Glass Farm is situated on Schijndel’s commons, a market square badly damaged in the failed Operation Market Garden, an Allied ploy to end World War II by Christmas of 1944. After cycling through options, including a theater, the town accepted a design for a gabled...