Shelter Design | Winnipeg Skating Shelter | Patkau Architects

Winnipeg is a city of 600,000 residents located on the Canadian prairie. It is the coldest city of its size outside of Siberia. Winter can last six months. So learning to celebrate winter - learning to take advantage of the opportunities that winter provides - makes sense.

Each shelter is formed of thin, flexible plywood which is given both structure and spatial character through bending/deformation. Skins, made of 2 layers of 3/16th inch thick flexible plywood, are cut in patterns and attached to a timber armature which consists of a triangular base, and wedge shaped spine and ridge members (the ridge is a line to negate the gravity loads of snow). Experiments in our workshop with a full-scale prototype mapped the stresses of bending. Stress points were relieved by a series of cuts and openings. The form of the shelter is a resultant of this process of stressing/deforming and then releasing stress...........more about Winnipeg Skating Shelter

Building Conversion | A church into an auditorium and a multifunctional cultural facility | David Closes Arquitecte

The project was aimed to convert the church into an auditorium and a multi-functional cultural facility. The intervention has consolidated the church without deleting the process of deterioration and collapse that the building had suffered. The project has maintained the dimensions of the church interior space and, also, the unusual entries of natural light produced by partial roof collapses. Rather than reconstructing the church, the intervention has just consolidated the old fabric distinguishing clearly the new elements executed from the original ones. The renovation carried out allows to read historical wounds and the building's most important spatial values without giving up the use of contemporary language in the new elements introduced in the intervention..........more about the conversion 

University Design | UNIFEI | Itabira Campus | Brazil | Gustavo Penna Arquiteto Associados

The intention is to build a university campus with exceptional quality in terms of infrastructure, integration with Nature and social interaction. In such place, the equipments are instruments for socialization and community life, which gives the place an identity and improves the appropriation of the spaces. The coexistence lounges, for instance, not only stimulate the meeting of people, but also allow for an image of the whole.

The setting of the buildings aims at the maximum sun exposure and the best position relating to the wind and the contour lines, assuring minimum earthworks on the original terrain. In the unbuilt areas, the natural slope will be preserved as conservation areas. The lake will be emphasized in the complex, reinsuring its importance within the institution’s environment......more