location: Romsdalen, Norway
program: National tourist routes
client: Norwegian public roads administration
commision type: Invited Competition 1st prize
in cooperation with Multiconsult 13.3 landscaping (2004)
status: Under construction
year: 2004 - 2010
The project will enhance the experience of the Trollstigen plateau’s location and nature. Thoughtfulness regarding features and materials will underscore the site’s temper and character, and well-adapted, functional facilities will augment the visitor’s experience. The architecture is to be characterised by clear and precise transitions between planned zones and the natural landscape. Through the notion of water as a dynamic element –from snow, to running and then falling water- and rock as a static element, the project creates a series of prepositional relations that describe and magnify the unique spatiality of the site.....more
Sunday, December 26, 2010
Architecture for Discovery Green | Houston Texas | Page Southerland Page
Discovery Green returns 12 acres of land that were mostly open parking lots to a natural green space in the heart of downtown Houston.
The Gold LEED certified park houses a range of architectural elements which includes two restaurants, a park administration building, underground parking for 600 vehicles and numerous site features such as a bandstand and shade structures of various sizes and configurations.
It provides a central focus for new development and a core of outdoor activity nearby the city’s convention center, ballpark and arena.
The three primary buildings on the site--the café, the park building and the restaurant—parallel two preexisting rows of live oaks and reinforce their linear character.
Each building is composed of long, thin volumes that draw activity from the major north/south promenade deep into the park on either side.
The park building and the café have deep, shady porches that dominate their south faces. Carefully designed to create a shield from hot south and west sun, the porch roofs pitch up to the north to achieve balanced daylight for the outdoor spaces below as well as to induce air movement, drawing warm air up and out.
The south-facing roofs of the café and park building porches house an array of photovoltaic collectors that provide a portion of the power needed for the park.
The restaurant is dominated by a long, thin dining room that nestles under the boughs of the live oak alley.
Tall glass walls toward the trees and at each end open the room generously to the park, while a richly textured brick volume housing kitchen and service functions anchors the room on the street side.
The upper level of the restaurant is predominantly a shaded outdoor dining terrace accessed by broad staircases at the east and west ends.
Entry/exit points for the underground garage are also featured as landmark architectural elements in the park.
The main vehicular entry across the street from the convention center is nestled into a land berm that reflects the shape of the ramp of the garage as it descends into the ground.
Two pedestrian-only exits ascend from the garage through linear stair forms that break the ground above as long, thin pavilions.
They are faced in a colorful skin of powder coated aluminum boxes created by Austin sculptor Margo Sawyer.
Exterior materials for the park buildings are primarily natural hued masonry, metal, wood and glass.
The masonry is a ruddy Gulf Coast brick laid in a strongly horizontal coursing pattern to reflect the emphatic flatness of the clay geology of the region.
A reflective anodized aluminum is employed for roofs and trim on an explicit steel frame. Certified woods are utilized for soffits, gates, screens and decks.
Generous glass walls, primarily oriented to the north, make prominent connections between indoors and outdoors while providing soft indirect light to interior spaces.....more
The Gold LEED certified park houses a range of architectural elements which includes two restaurants, a park administration building, underground parking for 600 vehicles and numerous site features such as a bandstand and shade structures of various sizes and configurations.
It provides a central focus for new development and a core of outdoor activity nearby the city’s convention center, ballpark and arena.
The three primary buildings on the site--the café, the park building and the restaurant—parallel two preexisting rows of live oaks and reinforce their linear character.
Each building is composed of long, thin volumes that draw activity from the major north/south promenade deep into the park on either side.
The park building and the café have deep, shady porches that dominate their south faces. Carefully designed to create a shield from hot south and west sun, the porch roofs pitch up to the north to achieve balanced daylight for the outdoor spaces below as well as to induce air movement, drawing warm air up and out.
The south-facing roofs of the café and park building porches house an array of photovoltaic collectors that provide a portion of the power needed for the park.
The restaurant is dominated by a long, thin dining room that nestles under the boughs of the live oak alley.
Tall glass walls toward the trees and at each end open the room generously to the park, while a richly textured brick volume housing kitchen and service functions anchors the room on the street side.
The upper level of the restaurant is predominantly a shaded outdoor dining terrace accessed by broad staircases at the east and west ends.
Entry/exit points for the underground garage are also featured as landmark architectural elements in the park.
The main vehicular entry across the street from the convention center is nestled into a land berm that reflects the shape of the ramp of the garage as it descends into the ground.
Two pedestrian-only exits ascend from the garage through linear stair forms that break the ground above as long, thin pavilions.
They are faced in a colorful skin of powder coated aluminum boxes created by Austin sculptor Margo Sawyer.
Exterior materials for the park buildings are primarily natural hued masonry, metal, wood and glass.
The masonry is a ruddy Gulf Coast brick laid in a strongly horizontal coursing pattern to reflect the emphatic flatness of the clay geology of the region.
A reflective anodized aluminum is employed for roofs and trim on an explicit steel frame. Certified woods are utilized for soffits, gates, screens and decks.
Generous glass walls, primarily oriented to the north, make prominent connections between indoors and outdoors while providing soft indirect light to interior spaces.....more
Saturday, December 25, 2010
HENN StudioB wins 1st prize in the competition for a Nanotech Research and Development Park in Suzhou, China.
" The concept for Nano-Polis, a Nanotech Research and Development Park in the city of Suzhou drew its inspiration from both traditional Chinese Urban Planning as well as modern science. Since nanotechnology is the primary focus of the development, the arrangement and planning of the building mass was done with consideration to scale and fractal logic. The programmatic needs of the site are divided into sizes S, M, L, and XL, which are further subdivided and arranged according to specific functions. This scalar logic integrates various scales from urban to nano and provides opportunities for the buildings to interact with the users at an intimate human scale as well as creating large iconic landmarks within the site. Like most traditional Chinese cities, Nano-Polis assumes a rectilinear shape with a clearly defined border and staggered internal connections. Also the Idea of the fractal can be found in traditional Chinese cities that are assembled in a recursive logic by blocks, areas, districts, quarters and boroughs, from S to XL respectively. The overall development includes a cluster of high and medium-rise buildings surrounding a central plaza. This area houses most of the administrative, exhibition, conference and public areas as well as temporary housing facilities. This iconic centre is surrounded by a transitional “green belt” which references the traditional Chinese gardens that Suzhou is known for. A natural river flows east to west through the site which feeds a series of ponds, canals, and water features throughout this zone. This green buffer zone connects by a series of shared roofscapes, courtyards and galleries to the outer ring: The entire complex is defined by a dense belt of research and production facilities that create a defined urban edge to the surrounding context. The design of Nano-Polis employs a variety of environmentally responsible systems into its planning. Innovative technologies such as solar harvesting and rainwater collection work together with simple strategies of pedestrian access and public transportation to decrease energy consumption while creating a comfortable place to live and work. ".......more
Wednesday, December 22, 2010
The forum building (Q2) | ThyssenKrupp Quarter in Essen | JSWD Architecten
CLIENT: THYSSENKRUPP REAL ESTAT GMBH
OPEN, 2-STAGE COMPETITION WITH CHAIX & MOREL ET ASSOCIÉS
1ST PRIZE, NOVEMBER 2006
COMPLETION: 2010
GFA: 25.000 M²
The forum building (Q2) is part of the ThyssenKrupp Quarter in Essen.
The building is situated next to the Q1 office building on the eastern side of the central water axis.
The forum can be accessed through the campus as well as from underground, and is within short distance from any part of the facility.
The forum is intended as a central point of communication - a place of exchange and transfer of knowledge that will be used for meetings and conferences by the corporate management or for welcoming clients and guests who are visiting the company.
The canteen (Casino), which is also located on the ground floor, will cater for the approximately 2500 people working at the site.
The first floor is laid out as a conference level: a compact arrangement on a single level including several conference rooms, the large convention and event hall, and the “room of silence”.
The conference rooms are designed as four different room sections that may be combined.The interior is characterized by expressive room sequences with one- and two-storey buildings. Aerial spaces with different levels can be found at several locations.
As a result of the spacious experience within the room and it’s high degree of functionality, the forum is attractive and also a place of high quality to reside in......more
OPEN, 2-STAGE COMPETITION WITH CHAIX & MOREL ET ASSOCIÉS
1ST PRIZE, NOVEMBER 2006
COMPLETION: 2010
GFA: 25.000 M²
The forum building (Q2) is part of the ThyssenKrupp Quarter in Essen.
The building is situated next to the Q1 office building on the eastern side of the central water axis.
The forum can be accessed through the campus as well as from underground, and is within short distance from any part of the facility.
The forum is intended as a central point of communication - a place of exchange and transfer of knowledge that will be used for meetings and conferences by the corporate management or for welcoming clients and guests who are visiting the company.
The canteen (Casino), which is also located on the ground floor, will cater for the approximately 2500 people working at the site.
The first floor is laid out as a conference level: a compact arrangement on a single level including several conference rooms, the large convention and event hall, and the “room of silence”.
The conference rooms are designed as four different room sections that may be combined.The interior is characterized by expressive room sequences with one- and two-storey buildings. Aerial spaces with different levels can be found at several locations.
As a result of the spacious experience within the room and it’s high degree of functionality, the forum is attractive and also a place of high quality to reside in......more
Architectural Design Competition | The London Periscope By Della Valle Bernheimer
Location: London
Square Footage: 450
Type: Competitions
Year: 2010
Designed to grant a concealed viewer a privileged glimpse of the city beyond, three periscopes mark this Room for London. Oriented to the West towards the London Eye and Parliament, to the North towards Regent Park, and to the South in the direction of the Michael Faraday Memorial, these three viewing devices replace conventional windows and supplant the standard panoramas of typical glassy apertures.
Standing like sentries over the Thames, these optical devices look outward and collect images for those staying within.
Three boxed segments that can be transported and assembled are coated in a mixture of glossy and semi-gloss elastomeric covering, will be assembled into a single object.
This box is enveloped by a thick wall that serves to isolate the occupant, to distance them both visually and aurally from the city which surrounds them.
It also serves as a thick insulating membrane, allowing the structure to modulate temperature passively.
The room is accompanied therefore by a minimal mechanical system. While one might expect a glass box, instead there is an enclosed room of solitude.
It is a room of both displacement and of displaced views, a subversion of normalcy. And while one might move to great heights in order to see the city surrounding them in full view, in this room the views are momentary, isolated, emblematic, and alone.
Ironically, the room that sits at a location fully enveloped by the City of London is hermetic, contained, and opaque.
Completed in collaboration with Guy Nordenson Associates. ......more
Square Footage: 450
Type: Competitions
Year: 2010
Designed to grant a concealed viewer a privileged glimpse of the city beyond, three periscopes mark this Room for London. Oriented to the West towards the London Eye and Parliament, to the North towards Regent Park, and to the South in the direction of the Michael Faraday Memorial, these three viewing devices replace conventional windows and supplant the standard panoramas of typical glassy apertures.
Standing like sentries over the Thames, these optical devices look outward and collect images for those staying within.
Three boxed segments that can be transported and assembled are coated in a mixture of glossy and semi-gloss elastomeric covering, will be assembled into a single object.
This box is enveloped by a thick wall that serves to isolate the occupant, to distance them both visually and aurally from the city which surrounds them.
It also serves as a thick insulating membrane, allowing the structure to modulate temperature passively.
The room is accompanied therefore by a minimal mechanical system. While one might expect a glass box, instead there is an enclosed room of solitude.
It is a room of both displacement and of displaced views, a subversion of normalcy. And while one might move to great heights in order to see the city surrounding them in full view, in this room the views are momentary, isolated, emblematic, and alone.
Ironically, the room that sits at a location fully enveloped by the City of London is hermetic, contained, and opaque.
Completed in collaboration with Guy Nordenson Associates. ......more
Saturday, December 18, 2010
Office Interior By Wilson Architects | Brisbane | Australia
One of the most startling facts of the design is its modest exterior. From the street at first glance, the house and workers’ cottages, which have been joined to accommodate the practice’s expansion, look wholly domestic. The two-storey house is quintessentially a Queenslander at its core. A Mackintosh-esque design of leadlight glass windows was added during the post-fire rebuild, but ostensibly the bones are intact. The external feature of latticework, though a structural and recent addition, is visually consistent with traditional solutions for baffling the Queensland light, while discombobulating timelines through a slightly modernist interpretation of staggered parallels. It is in fact nothing more than painted stud work, but is entirely lovely. Visually, the workers’ cottages are
unchanged bar a gleaming whiteness to match the house and flat white window frosting, both of which negate any suspicion of a chintz interior.....more
unchanged bar a gleaming whiteness to match the house and flat white window frosting, both of which negate any suspicion of a chintz interior.....more
The University of Technology Sydney (UTS) | Frank Gehry
Frank Gehry has revealed images of his first building in Australia, a $150 million business school for the University of Technology Sydney (UTS). The university’s council commissioned the building in June with little idea of what it would look like, though they were confident it would rival Jorn Utzon’s opera house on the other side of the city architecturally.Gehry’s Dr Chau Chak Wing building for UTS’s Business School was inspired by the idea of a tree-house structure with “a trunk and core of activity and… branches for people to connect and do their private work,” he said.The building will have two distinct external facades, one composed of undulating brick - a reference to the sandstone of Sydney’s urban brick heritage - and the other of large, angled sheets of glass to fracture and mirror the images of surrounding buildings....more
The Mathaf: Arab Museum of Modern Art | Qatar | Jean Nouvel
It is going to be a while before Jean Nouvel’s celebrated National Museum of Qatar blossoms in the desert. But in the meanwhile, an architecturally modest museum with a far more ambitious mission is ready to open its doors for the New Year. The Mathaf: Arab Museum of Modern Art aims to be a new pan-Arab center for culture and creativity, showcasing the work of modern artists from the region. The Mathaf, pronounced MAT-haff and simply meaning “museum” in Arabic, is the third large museum project to be announced in Qatar in recent years. The expansive Museum of Islamic Art, which opened in 2008 in a building by I. M. Pei, is concerned with history – its collection dates from the 7th to the 19th centuries. Jean Nouvel’s desert rose will mostly be a Qatari exercise in national pride. The earliest pieces in the Mathaf’s collection, however, date to the 1840s. This is a museum primarily concerned with Arab modernity, considering through art some very complicated questions of identity, values and geography.....more
Wednesday, December 15, 2010
COLL-BARREU ARQUITECTOS | Software and biotechnology plants
Built |2007 | Derio | The Technology Park is a center of high technology industries turns 25 in 2010. For guidelines last phase of industrial growth decided to build two new buildings for research and production, respectively, computing and biotechnology. Both of them should work in complete independence, although the plan was considered in a unified way.
The model submitted to the competition proposed -with cedar, ebony and lemongrass- two soft insertions, no rough edges, lacking rotunda geometry –they are not circles or ellipses, or ovals-, whose perimeters should not be crossed even for access.
Two compact buildings with a ductile envelope, as a mass of grass or a plant stem, which could have existed prior to the delineation of the road. The compactness and the façade of brushed planes allows to the eye of the moving beholder (the driver on the road, pedestrians on the sidewalks) to softly surround the objects.
The façade is a double ventilated skin that allows breath the building. It connects the interior and exterior and is capitalizing energy, climatic, hygienic and space for such an exchange.
The façade is actually a vertical space that accompanies its full height, and provides natural light to both sides of the outer skin. The space between the two membranes gives users a place of permanent relationship with the outside.
It is a façade for North mist. Its light is the mist light, without shadows. The light is here as a continuous and weak material. The buildings lose their boundaries and not hurt the light.
Each user will occupy the interior according to their needs. But the construction of the façade will remain, and with it the most accurate, longer lasting elements. It is exposed the concrete with its most naive and raw sincerity. Glass sun visors are fixed with untreated stainless steel plates. Construction is a "no preservatives" one.
The exterior glass, which supports a soft pencil handmade drawing, provides a very smooth one way look, and completely open on the contrary.....more
The model submitted to the competition proposed -with cedar, ebony and lemongrass- two soft insertions, no rough edges, lacking rotunda geometry –they are not circles or ellipses, or ovals-, whose perimeters should not be crossed even for access.
Two compact buildings with a ductile envelope, as a mass of grass or a plant stem, which could have existed prior to the delineation of the road. The compactness and the façade of brushed planes allows to the eye of the moving beholder (the driver on the road, pedestrians on the sidewalks) to softly surround the objects.
The façade is a double ventilated skin that allows breath the building. It connects the interior and exterior and is capitalizing energy, climatic, hygienic and space for such an exchange.
The façade is actually a vertical space that accompanies its full height, and provides natural light to both sides of the outer skin. The space between the two membranes gives users a place of permanent relationship with the outside.
It is a façade for North mist. Its light is the mist light, without shadows. The light is here as a continuous and weak material. The buildings lose their boundaries and not hurt the light.
Each user will occupy the interior according to their needs. But the construction of the façade will remain, and with it the most accurate, longer lasting elements. It is exposed the concrete with its most naive and raw sincerity. Glass sun visors are fixed with untreated stainless steel plates. Construction is a "no preservatives" one.
The exterior glass, which supports a soft pencil handmade drawing, provides a very smooth one way look, and completely open on the contrary.....more
Architecture Triennale of Lisbon | House in Luanda | Angola | Ricardo Carvalho Joana Vilhena + Architects
The house is where myth and needs are. The act of building the house not only defines the interior space also founded what is out there. Dwelling implies the division of a space, a material or physical boundary, creating a duality between interior and exterior. The house draws the street, while fit and sustains daily life. In Luanda life unfolds in equal measure on the outside and inside, and the proposed power this reality. The house that we propose takes advantage of the street and life abroad, in its multiplicity of trade activities, work, crossings and meetings.
The present proposal draws on elements of timeless architecture. Enclosure, Patio, Stairs, Pavilion and Terrace. The venue is the lot provided that the proposal allows the association of both houses to take advantage of these interstitial spaces of permeable soil. The repetition of a universe can generate lots of private spaces, semi-private and public, generating complexity and surprise.
The courtyard is the cylindrical element of the proposed foundation. The pavilions, which we believe the domestic spaces, communicating with the courtyard surrounding it. The house consists of spaces whose function it is not set in advance. The flexibility and realism of the proposal stems from the failure to specify the destination of the spaces. Residents can take ownership of the house in an unexpected way, divide space or change the use of these.
The external staircase for access to the terrace doubles and is the front street. The repetition of this element creates an urban identity. The terraces are the notion of semi-private place where all activities can occur. Life could occur on the terraces at its most public and behind the wall inside the world of private life unfolds around a circular courtyard.....more
The present proposal draws on elements of timeless architecture. Enclosure, Patio, Stairs, Pavilion and Terrace. The venue is the lot provided that the proposal allows the association of both houses to take advantage of these interstitial spaces of permeable soil. The repetition of a universe can generate lots of private spaces, semi-private and public, generating complexity and surprise.
The courtyard is the cylindrical element of the proposed foundation. The pavilions, which we believe the domestic spaces, communicating with the courtyard surrounding it. The house consists of spaces whose function it is not set in advance. The flexibility and realism of the proposal stems from the failure to specify the destination of the spaces. Residents can take ownership of the house in an unexpected way, divide space or change the use of these.
The external staircase for access to the terrace doubles and is the front street. The repetition of this element creates an urban identity. The terraces are the notion of semi-private place where all activities can occur. Life could occur on the terraces at its most public and behind the wall inside the world of private life unfolds around a circular courtyard.....more
Tuesday, December 14, 2010
AVENIDA 8 | Sao Joao Da Madeira | Portugal | Laguarda Low Architectureo
Nestled into a hillside of the small town of Sao João Da Madeira, this new retail center is the largest building in the town. Because of the sheer size of the site, the challenge of the design was to create a building both responsive and friendly to the human scale of the town, while presenting itself as a modern and elegant unified whole. The shopping center is on two levels with two parking levels below grade, taking advantage of the depressed ground of the site. The shopping flows along a single promenade from the southeast to the northwest beginning with a grand receiving plaza at the south entrance. The façade facing the street is partially transparent, which integrates the inner promenade with the town, and opens the shoppers’ experience to the urban environment. Additionally, a bridge was built to connect the supermarket and second level of the shopping center, and is double loaded with small scale retail. The bridge becomes not just a passageway; but a place to shop, to pause and look down on the city.....more
Thursday, December 9, 2010
Australian Wildlife Centre | Minifie van Schaik Architects
The Australian Wildlife Centre is a building quite unique in both its function and form. It is both a fully functioning veterinary facility, and a remarkable and compelling experience for Sanctuary visitors.
The building has been designed to bring Healesville visitors into close contact with the vets and their patients to gain a vivid understanding of how sick and injured Australian animals are cared for. From a central space visitors can witness the diagnosis of animals, the work of the laboratory, see animals being operated on, and view them recovering and returning to health. A rich multimedia interpretive experience enables visitors to gain a keen understanding of how animals become injured and the full range of activities involved in their care
The AWC is organised around public gallery space where the ceiling dips and curves, resembling perhaps the ventricles of the heart and providing a central focus to the surrounding activities and exhibits. The roof form is also designed to work as a ‘solar chimney’, removing hot air from inside to prove passive ventilation to the gallery space, and so removing the need to air-condition. At the centre of the space the roof form descends to floor level to enclose a central space in which visitors may stand to view the multimedia explanation of animal trauma and care projected onto it’s surface. Constructed from a shimmering gold membrane, the structure is visible from the surrounding landscape. The AWC has been awarded the 2006 RAIA William Wardell Institutional Award and the 2008 Premier's Design Award for Cultural Architecture.....more
project:Australian Wildlife Health Centre
client:Zoos Victoria
date:2004-2007
location:Healesville Wildlife Sanctuary
The building has been designed to bring Healesville visitors into close contact with the vets and their patients to gain a vivid understanding of how sick and injured Australian animals are cared for. From a central space visitors can witness the diagnosis of animals, the work of the laboratory, see animals being operated on, and view them recovering and returning to health. A rich multimedia interpretive experience enables visitors to gain a keen understanding of how animals become injured and the full range of activities involved in their care
The AWC is organised around public gallery space where the ceiling dips and curves, resembling perhaps the ventricles of the heart and providing a central focus to the surrounding activities and exhibits. The roof form is also designed to work as a ‘solar chimney’, removing hot air from inside to prove passive ventilation to the gallery space, and so removing the need to air-condition. At the centre of the space the roof form descends to floor level to enclose a central space in which visitors may stand to view the multimedia explanation of animal trauma and care projected onto it’s surface. Constructed from a shimmering gold membrane, the structure is visible from the surrounding landscape. The AWC has been awarded the 2006 RAIA William Wardell Institutional Award and the 2008 Premier's Design Award for Cultural Architecture.....more
project:Australian Wildlife Health Centre
client:Zoos Victoria
date:2004-2007
location:Healesville Wildlife Sanctuary
London Olympics 2012 | Central Park Bridges | Heneghan Peng Architects
London 2012 Olympic Park, UK
Two permanent bridges are linked by a narrow diagonal span over Carpenters Lock at the centre of the Olympic Park. During the Olympics a central temporary infill between the bridges accommodates the crowds. In the legacy park, two bowls are created on either side of the lock linking the upper park concourse with the lower level of towpaths and waterways.Embedded within the design for F06 is the understanding that the Olympic / Park concourse should be perceived as a ʻcontinuous landscape that seamlessly extends across the various waterways, railways and roads’ forming a primary movement infrastructure surface for the park.
Equally important is the connection of the parkʼs two horizontal planes. The concourse upper level, connecting the north and south Olympic park and the ecological lower level made up of the towpaths and waterways.
Finally, the design understands that though the duration of the Olympics is short lived, it is this momentum that drives its legacy and the success of the park. Capturing the exuberance of the Olympic games, the surface of the temporary infill deck utilises recycled running shoes to form a multi‒coloured carpet of ‘Confetti’ to celebrate the Olympic moment. ....more
Fact sheet
Client: Olympic
Delivery Authority Date: 2007 (Competition)
Status:Under Construction
Location: London 2012 Olympic Park, UK
Collaborators:Structures | CivilAdams Kara Taylor
Two permanent bridges are linked by a narrow diagonal span over Carpenters Lock at the centre of the Olympic Park. During the Olympics a central temporary infill between the bridges accommodates the crowds. In the legacy park, two bowls are created on either side of the lock linking the upper park concourse with the lower level of towpaths and waterways.Embedded within the design for F06 is the understanding that the Olympic / Park concourse should be perceived as a ʻcontinuous landscape that seamlessly extends across the various waterways, railways and roads’ forming a primary movement infrastructure surface for the park.
Equally important is the connection of the parkʼs two horizontal planes. The concourse upper level, connecting the north and south Olympic park and the ecological lower level made up of the towpaths and waterways.
Finally, the design understands that though the duration of the Olympics is short lived, it is this momentum that drives its legacy and the success of the park. Capturing the exuberance of the Olympic games, the surface of the temporary infill deck utilises recycled running shoes to form a multi‒coloured carpet of ‘Confetti’ to celebrate the Olympic moment. ....more
Fact sheet
Client: Olympic
Delivery Authority Date: 2007 (Competition)
Status:Under Construction
Location: London 2012 Olympic Park, UK
Collaborators:Structures | CivilAdams Kara Taylor
Friday, December 3, 2010
Belair Masterplan | Brussels | Belgium | SAQ
Location Brussels, BelgiumStatus Ongoing 2008 -Surface 155 000 m2Client Breevast / Immobel The RAC site, the former National Administrative Centre looking over downtown Brussels has been left vacant since 2003. For this Modernistic complex from the 50’s situatued in the heart of the city, SAQ is asked to develop a masterplan that restores the site’s identity and in so doing regains a significant role in Brussels.
Location Brussels, BelgiumStatus Ongoing 2008 -Surface 155 000 m2Client Breevast / Immobel The RAC site, the former National Administrative Centre looking over downtown Brussels has been left vacant since 2003. For this Modernistic complex from the 50’s situatued in the heart of the city, SAQ is asked to develop a masterplan that restores the site’s identity and in so doing regains a significant role in Brussels.
Apart from developing an organizational scenario for the new program, the key position and scale of the site demand determined gestures to address the different problems concerning the accessibility and the appeal of the public plazas on the site.
By an important multifunctional program, the reactivation of existing buildings, plazas and a composition of newly built volumes, the SAQ proposal is a total concept that has the ambition to anchor the complex back in the Location Brussels, BelgiumStatus Ongoing 2008 -Surface 155 000 m2Client Breevast / Immobel The RAC site, the former National Administrative Centre looking over downtown Brussels has been left vacant since 2003. For this Modernistic complex from the 50’s situatued in the heart of the city, SAQ is asked to develop a masterplan that restores the site’s identity and in so doing regains a significant role in Brussels.
Apart from developing an organizational scenario for the new program, the key position and scale of the site demand determined gestures to address the different problems concerning the accessibility and the appeal of the public plazas on the site.
By an important multifunctional program, the reactivation of existing buildings, plazas and a composition of newly built volumes, the SAQ proposal is a total concept that has the ambition to anchor the complex back in the surrounding urban tissue.
Through a series of strategic and generous cuts accompanied by public facilities, the long-lost urban continuity of the site is restored. Access to the site becomes part of an urban promenade, a passage of activities.
The insertion of new volumes and program does not wish to negate the patrimonial value of the existing Modernistic buildings; it wishes to derive from it. The scenario reveals itself gradually on the glazed facades of the renovated office buildings. A cinematographic façade materialized by an evolving difference in color, reflection-value and relief-surface constitue the new panoramic canvas. The visitor experiences the façade as a living organism, always different in aspect according to the point of view. Further on, the scenario takes form by generating –first from the renovated buildings then individually- an intelligent shifting of volumes and slabs. Three individual towers emerge, the one more dramatic in form than the other. These new towers house an important residential program ranging from student-studios to luxurious penthouse-units offering stunning views over the city and bathing in daylight. In between the new volumes three plazas are conceived or restored. Each with their own individual spatial values.
According to their orientation, landscape characteristics, physical and functional relationships, these plazas respond
to the differing needs of gathering and circulating public
The esplanade plaza, as a landmark of the city, is strengthened by an urban installation composed of vertical sculptures. The sculptures, differing in height, fragmentize by their composition the immensity of the scale and create as such view frames upon the city skyline. The visual animation that this new layer generates after sunset guarantee a secure use of the plaza by night.....more
Location Brussels, BelgiumStatus Ongoing 2008 -Surface 155 000 m2Client Breevast / Immobel The RAC site, the former National Administrative Centre looking over downtown Brussels has been left vacant since 2003. For this Modernistic complex from the 50’s situatued in the heart of the city, SAQ is asked to develop a masterplan that restores the site’s identity and in so doing regains a significant role in Brussels.
Apart from developing an organizational scenario for the new program, the key position and scale of the site demand determined gestures to address the different problems concerning the accessibility and the appeal of the public plazas on the site.
By an important multifunctional program, the reactivation of existing buildings, plazas and a composition of newly built volumes, the SAQ proposal is a total concept that has the ambition to anchor the complex back in the Location Brussels, BelgiumStatus Ongoing 2008 -Surface 155 000 m2Client Breevast / Immobel The RAC site, the former National Administrative Centre looking over downtown Brussels has been left vacant since 2003. For this Modernistic complex from the 50’s situatued in the heart of the city, SAQ is asked to develop a masterplan that restores the site’s identity and in so doing regains a significant role in Brussels.
Apart from developing an organizational scenario for the new program, the key position and scale of the site demand determined gestures to address the different problems concerning the accessibility and the appeal of the public plazas on the site.
By an important multifunctional program, the reactivation of existing buildings, plazas and a composition of newly built volumes, the SAQ proposal is a total concept that has the ambition to anchor the complex back in the surrounding urban tissue.
Through a series of strategic and generous cuts accompanied by public facilities, the long-lost urban continuity of the site is restored. Access to the site becomes part of an urban promenade, a passage of activities.
The insertion of new volumes and program does not wish to negate the patrimonial value of the existing Modernistic buildings; it wishes to derive from it. The scenario reveals itself gradually on the glazed facades of the renovated office buildings. A cinematographic façade materialized by an evolving difference in color, reflection-value and relief-surface constitue the new panoramic canvas. The visitor experiences the façade as a living organism, always different in aspect according to the point of view. Further on, the scenario takes form by generating –first from the renovated buildings then individually- an intelligent shifting of volumes and slabs. Three individual towers emerge, the one more dramatic in form than the other. These new towers house an important residential program ranging from student-studios to luxurious penthouse-units offering stunning views over the city and bathing in daylight. In between the new volumes three plazas are conceived or restored. Each with their own individual spatial values.
According to their orientation, landscape characteristics, physical and functional relationships, these plazas respond
to the differing needs of gathering and circulating public
The esplanade plaza, as a landmark of the city, is strengthened by an urban installation composed of vertical sculptures. The sculptures, differing in height, fragmentize by their composition the immensity of the scale and create as such view frames upon the city skyline. The visual animation that this new layer generates after sunset guarantee a secure use of the plaza by night.....more
Thursday, December 2, 2010
led action facade | Madrid | Spain | Langarita Navarro Arquitectos
The city is created under emergency conditions: On the one hand, the obligation to update its infrastructures and, on the other hand, the need to maintain the same standards as in other cities, both of which require the continuous incorporation of new technologies to public spaces. If the now rare telephone booths were an example of this modernising in their day, today’s urban screens are so now. Once the economic factors were overcome, they were implemented all over the city following confused criteria linked to business performance and inertia inherited from previous examples, such as in Times Square in New York. These trends have led non-commercial display devices to become a rare exception within the city’s digitalisation process. Apart from informative electronic signs, these experiences have been uncommon and always reduced to a temporary scale. This situation shows that although some private companies are interested in them as a support for their advertising purposes, few institutions have been able to profit from their ability to activate public spaces or their capacity to create local identity and identify open processes in the city. The digital façade of the Plaza de las Letras is the result of a commission from the Arts Area of the Madrid Town Council to provide the Medialab-Prado Centre with one of those non-commercial systems as a laboratory to make visible its researches regardin art, public spaces and new technologies. The new façade aims to become a virtual space for exchange and communication with both visitors and locals. It is an infrastructure designed as an active support capable of promoting social responsibility, information transmission, social interaction and play-oriented experiences. The Led Action Façade system is a model patented to produce large-format digital façades. The device consists of a regular matrix of nodes of RGB leds implemented by means of aluminium cones, the section of which has been designed to reflect the beam of light of emission sources and to improve the screen’s viewing. The application of the Led Action Façade in the staggered party wall of the old Serrería Belga, the future headquarters of the Medialab-Prado Centre, involves the creation of a viewing device covering 144m2 and made up by some 35,000 nodes. The system has allowed the configuration of a digital support of irregular geometry that is easily adaptable and has been prepared for the emission of both fixed and moving average resolution images. On the contrary, when the system is switched off, the set of cones and nodes become a vibrant surface activated by natural light that makes it look less similar to conventional urban screens and become a characteristic feature of the party wall.........more
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