Ahead of its public opening, DRIFT Museum’s home in the Van Gendt Hallen has been named a finalist for this year’s national architecture prize, cited specifically for its net-positive energy design.
The 1898 machine factory was stripped to its steel frame and rebuilt with a photovoltaic roof skin, rainwater cooling and thermal storage beneath the quay — systems that let the building generate more energy than it consumes and return the surplus to the neighbourhood grid.
“We wanted the building itself to be an artwork about our relationship to the earth,” says the project’s lead architect. “The award is confirmation that it reads that way to people outside the studio too.”
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