The EU TUMO Convergence Center has announced that MVRDV has been selected as the winner of the competition to design the EU TUMO Convergence Center, a 25,000-square-metre educational facility in Yerevan, Armenia. 

MVRDV was chosen from a shortlist including Bjarke Ingels Group and 2017 Pritzker Prize winners RCR Arquitectes following an intensive two-day design workshop in Yerevan. The jury was led by Hashim Sarkis, the Dean of the MIT Department of Architecture and Urban Planning and Curator of the 2020 Venice Architecture Biennale.

TUMO is an innovative program providing free after-school education in technology and design to teenagers, currently hosting 20,000 students each week in centres in Armenia and elsewhere around the world. 

The new Convergence Center for Engineering and Applied Science is to be located next to their existing Yerevan building, and is planned as an extension to their existing program reaching university students and young professionals. It will be a mixed-use campus bringing together local students, researchers, and technologists to foster innovation and entrepreneurship.

Image courtesy of MVRDV

"The MVRDV team, headed by Winy Maas, demonstrated a deep understanding of the program and vision of the project, as well as of the urban context in which the site is located," said the TUMO Center in a statement. 

"The bold and innovative design proposals that emerged during the onsite workshop led by MVRDV were highly responsive to the project’s vision of creating an extensible platform, a nexus for collaboration, and an accessible destination with ample public space and opportunities for convergence."

The EU TUMO Convergence Center is MVRDV’s first project in Armenia. Over the coming months, MVRDV will elaborate the design initially developed in the competition workshop, and present their final proposal in spring 2020.

Top image: MVRDV’s topographical Tianjin Binhai Public Library in Tianjin. Image © Ossip van Duivdenbode

> via MVRDV & EU TUMO Convergence Center