Decked out in wildly flamboyant costumes, 12 buildings pirouette in unison along the water's edge like a boisterous troupe of beefy ballerinas. Although the name Armada brings ships to mind, these buildings have also taken on a theatrical humanity, with costumes switching from bulging, gleaming stainless-steel breastplates facing the water to more angular forms in brick, render, timber and glass on the other sides. With its extraordinary sculptural forms, this―30m luxury housing development is certainly a match for Foster and Partners' Albion Riverside and Richard Rogers Partnership's Montevetro. But its 255 apartments are London, let alone on the Battersea riverfront, but in the small regional city of 's-Hertogenbosch in the Netherlands. Although Armada was developed by Dutch housebuilder Credo Integrale, part of the Wessels group, it can claim one vital British connection: it was designed by architect Tony McGuirk of Building Design Partnership in London. The British influence has clearly done nothing to alienate local people. In January, it was voted by the Dutch public as the most loved building erected in the Netherlands in the past three years.
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