Educatorium 

OMA, Rem Koolhaas with Christophe Cornubert, partner in charge of design
The architect: "The design does not aim to impose a particular pattern of use, but to create a synthetic landscape open for individual and collective use".

The most striking element of the building is its curled concrete structure that provides the building with a continuous space forming both floors to the auditoria and a ceiling to the restaurant. In terms of urban development, the Educatorium completes a triangle. It borders two already existing buildings, the low-rise Ruppertgebouw and the high-rise Van Unnikgebouw. The Educatorium's large hall functions as an inner court where the routes of all three buildings come together. The huge glass façade at the north mirrors the landscape in an impressive way and allows for a very pleasant light to enter the building.

The design is based on a free suspension structure which spans around 20 meters. In combination with the expressed wish not to use more than 20 cm of concrete for the floors, revolutionary steel enforcement methods were chosen. In one of the auditoria (Theatron Hall) an egg shaped metal grid coming out of the ceiling seems to be just a work of art, but in fact is part of the roof structure. A special feature of the northern auditorium hall (Megaron Hall) is its wall that consists mainly of glass panels which are covered with a polarising foil which limits the transparency. The glass is only transparant if you look straight through it. The holographic foil is imported from Japan.

The sloped planes are designed to allow large crowds to move fluidly through and into the building, functioning like an urban plaza. The outside portico is intended as an informal podium for the students.

Contractors:
Main contractor: BAM Bredero, Bunnik
Structural engineering: ABT, Velp,
Service engineering: Linssen, Amsterdam
Acoustics: TNO-TUE, Eindhoven
Façades: Robert-Jan van Santen, Lille
Ecology: W/E Advice, Sustainable Building
Landscaping: West 8
Projection Booth: Curve, Hellevoetsluis

First studies on the location: 1991 by OMA, Art Zaaijer
Start of design process: 1993
Building periode: Sept. 1995 - Oct. 1997
First teaching activities: Sept. 1997
Officially opened: Oct. 20, 1997 by Jo Ritzen, Minister of Education.

Foundation costs: 12.7 M€, total incl. installations 19.5 M€
Volume: 45.000 m3
11.000 gross sqm, 4.000 sqm built area.
lecture halls: 400 (Theatron) and 500 (Megaron) seats
examination halls: 150, 200 and 300 seats
restaurant: 1.000 seats
underground bicycle shed: 1.000 spaces

Art:
Five light emitting polyester oval pebbles were specifically designed for the sloped portico of the Educatorium in close cooperation with O.M.A. by Joep van Lieshout. 

Inside: two large photographic works by Andreas Gursky: Atlanta and Rhine (Rhein). These works of art were made possible in part by contributions by Mondriaan Foundation, Fentener van Vlissingen Foundation, ABN AMRO Utrecht, UNA Utrecht and various departments as well as the executive board of Utrecht University.

In his large-scale photographs, Andreas Gursky captures the modern world, and its landscapes, people, architecture, and industries, in seductive detail. Shot from an elevated perspective and produced on an epic scale, Gursky’s images show the individual or granular—supermarket products, soccer players, windows on a building, or islands in the sea—subsumed by the masses or the environment. 

Awards:
Winner Rietveld Award, 1999

The Educatorium has attracted most attention of all buildings of Utrecht University, both in the vast number of publications, but also because of the amount of architectural tourists that visit regularly.

The Educatorium was awarded the status model project for sustainable and low energy development (1999), mainly due to compact building and the stacking of functions with a minimal use of materials. No mechanical cooling, night ventilation, low temperature heating, use of daylight in auditoria, minimal water usage due to Gustavsberg WSS system for flushing toilets were among the measures to reduce environmental impact. Adjacent to the examination rooms is an ecological roof garden of 1,500 sqm. Yellow and red sedum plants were selected to grow on Floradrain FD-25.

The Dutch National Programme for Model Projects for Sustainable and Low Energy Projects was initiated by the Steering Committee Experimental for Public Housing (SEV) on behalf of the Ministry of Economic Affairs (EZ) and the former Ministry of Housing, Spatial Planning and the Environment (VROM).