School Design | Kerrie Murphy Building | International Grammar School | Sydney | Allen Jack+Cottier

Allen Jack+Cottier have delivered this naturally ventilated mixed mode school building on the same BER budget that delivered a single school hall to most schools.

The facilities consist of an arts and crafts facility, a library, staff offices and an indoor sports hall. The roof is to become an outdoor playground shaded by an array of photovoltaic cells. This represents an enormous achievement for such a tight budget.
The iconic form of the building was inspired by the formidable collection of large brick warehouse buildings which give Ultimo its distinctive character.

Bridge Design | University of Limerick: Living Bridge | Limerick | Ireland | Wilkinson Eyre Architects

The design of this bridge, which links the University of Limerick’s main campus with a new site north of the River Shannon, grows from the site, an organic response to a natural environment. A curvaceous deck sweeps across the Shannon and its embankments in five spans between strategically located support locations. The impression is both of a single crossing but also of a series of bridges jumping from pier to pier, like stepping-stones. This span arrangement is a pragmatic response to the founding opportunities within the river, placing piers on the riverbanks, wooded islands and pool edges. The deck width ‘pulses’ along its length, offering wider platforms to be used as resting places or spaces for public art.........more

Indian Springs Metropark Environmental Discovery Center | Michigan | Smith Group

Marking the arrival at Indian Springs Metropark, the Environmental Discovery Center welcomes education groups, interested visitors and the general public to a wide variety of natural and restored ecosystems within the park. A threshold beyond the everyday view of the world, the Center offers a glimpse into the richness and diversity of the natural environment around us...........more

Corporate Headquarters Design | Giant Interactive Group Corporate Headquarters | Shanghai | China | Morphosis

The Giant Campus project is a compact village that accommodates diverse functions in a flexible framework of forms that move in and out of a folded landscape plane. Situated amid existing canals and a new man made lake, the undulating office building interacts with an augmented ground plane, joining architecture to landscape and environment to site. The East Campus office building contains three zones: open, non-hierarchical office space; private offices, and executive suites, which cantilever dramatically over the lake......more

Studio Design | Dovecote Studio | Suffolk | UK | Haworth Tompkins

Only the minimum necessary brickwork repairs were carried out to stabilise the existing ruin prior to the new structure being inserted. Decaying existing windows were left alone and vegetation growing over the dovecote was protected to allow it to continue a natural process of ageing and decay. The interior walls and ceiling of the space are lined with spruce plywood to create a timber ‘box’ within the Cor-ten shell..........more

Education and Entertainment centre | Copernicus Science Centre | Warsaw | Zalewski Architecture Group

The project of education and entertainment centre that was established and funded by the Capital City of Warsaw, Ministry of Science and Higher Education and Ministry of National Education. This cultural institution (area of 15,000 m2) houses interactive exhibitions, shows and workshops on scientific themes, activities of science and art, laboratories, planetarium, conference halls, cafes and restaurants, and offices. We worked on the building and executive project of the main building and planetarium on the basis of concept of RAr-2 Laboratory of Architecture. .......more

Barreiro College of Technology | Portugal | ARX

The building site assigned for the School is located in the outskirts of the city of Barreiro. These are rural territories which were invaded by recent constructions intersecting green-gardens and reed plots.

Residence houses are predominant and other functions were not predicted for this area and so this neighbourhood is now just a suburb with little urban life.

The soil, however, is quite interesting: broad, softly inclined and well-related with its shape – unevenness of 13,12 feet in perimeter to north and south – having at one end a dense forest of cork and large pine trees.........more

Monument Design | National Monument to Freedom and Unity | Berlin | Milla and Partner

The final decision for the design of the National Monument to Freedom and Unity in Berlin has been reached: The collaborative concept by designers Milla & Partner, Stuttgart and Berlin choreographer Sasha Waltz will be realized. This concept was one of three awarded equal first prizes by the jury in the first round in October 2010. In the final round the concept now convinced conclusively. The concept is entitled "Citizens in Motion" - a message that Sasha Waltz and Milla & Partner convey in an unexpected manner..........more

Museum Design | The China Wood Sculpture Museum | Harbin | China | MAD

Inspired by the unique local winter landscapes, the wood sculpture museum designed by MAD is a contrast between the elegance of nature and the speed of daily life. Its 200 meter long body is shaped as a frozen fluid that reflects and explores the relation between the building and the environment.

The museum linear organized interior is connected by a centralized entrance which both separates the two museums while simultaneously joining them, achieving a symbiotic relationship. The exhibition spaces are organized around 3 atriums with skylights that are designed to capture the northern low solar path. This fine balance between light and shadow guides visitors through the exhibitions, forming a poetic space which binds nature, art and people.

Museum Design | The Shanghai Museum of Glass | Shanghai | China | Logon

Located in Shanghai’s Baoshan District, this former glass manufacturing site covers a total area of 29,612sqm including thirty existing buildings varying in age and scale. logon developed the entire 20 year strategic development plan renaming the site to G+ Glass Theme Park (Glass, Art, Research and Technology Park). Phase one includes the Shanghai Museum of Glass (SHMOG) and a hot glass show covering a total site area of 5,785sqm.........more

Hotel Design | Handsome Hotel | Gyeonggido | Korea | Mass Studies

On a breakneck expansion for the past few decades, Seoul needed places in the surrounding areas for its citizens to get away to escape the tension inevitably generated from such condensed development. Add to that the astronomical rise in the number of cars in the past 20 years, and today's urbanites have both the reason and the means to seek out quiet areas yet untouched by the ravages of development. Unfortunately, the condition was ripe for ill-planned and indiscriminate establishment of "motel villages" and "food villages" in areas proximate to Seoul, including Namyangju (where the proposed hotel is located). As a result, in most of the areas with good accessibility and scenery are "pseudo cities" densely packed with crudely built structures.

The onset of the five-day workweek means that there will be an ever-increasing demand for a greater variety of leisure activities, quality environment and services around large cities.........more

Stand Alone Office Design | Atelier Tenjinyama | Japan | Ikimono Architects

This building was born to be able to hold it to prevent rain and wind.
This building is made only on four pieces of walls and roofs. The primitive constitution showed the possibility that "a person seemed to be able to spend somehow". In fact, it rises in joy and presence of mind and discovery here.
As for the design method, simplicity is clear. Make a box to live, establish the window to be connected to the town, grind a ceiling transparently to look up at the sky, plant a tree to make a bower, make a floor soil so that a root grows, raise a ceiling to be brought up greatly. So there are the scene that is various inside and out, and come across the scene beyond the imagination. This is comfort of the kinds unlike a feeling of outdoor openness. There is comfort to lead to the outside from the place that was followed physically and psychologically, or enjoying wind and rain not to prevent them.......more

Signage and Landscape Design Idea | The Overlook | Goldendale | Washington | Allied Works Architecture

The Overlook is organized as a single, eight-foot wide ribbon of concrete that emerges from the earth, rising and falling as it moves to the edge of the cliffs. Along its 150-foot length are eight volumes that open and close to the sky. From a distance the form dissolves and reemerges as line or plane in response to the quality of light, the shape and intensity of shadow and changing point of view. Drawing closer, held in the hollow wall, the surfaces are cut by a datum that establishes a specific reference to the body and to the surrounding landscape. As the form extends to the south, the land falls away, at first gently, then steeply down to the level of the river. Across the Columbia, a flat stone outcropping provides a focal point for the Overlook, both anchoring it to its place and extending its energy into the high desert beyond........more

Office Design | The Headquarters For ING Group | Amsterdam | MVSA

The headquarter offices for the ING Group occupies a long, narrow site adjacent to the motorway ring around Amsterdam. The location is at the junction of two areas, the cosmopolitan high-rise of Zuidas and the green zone of De Nieuwe Meer. The building has been kept low on the green side, with the cantilevered auditorium as a projecting element, and rises towards the urban side.
The building rests on stilts measuring 9 to 12,5 metres in height, so that travellers on the motorway still have a glimpse of the area behind the building. This arrangement also means that none of the offices in the building have their view blocked by the motorway embankment. The entrance zone is ensconced between the stilts......more

Health Center Design | Roombeek | Enschede | Netherlands | Claus en Kaan Architecten

By order of Domijn Woningcorporatie, Claus en Kaan Architecten has made a design for a health centre in the area of Roombeek in the city of Enschede in the Netherlands. The building, which apart from a health centre also comprises parking space, apartments, single family homes and a home for the disabled, occupies a remarkable position within the master plan of ArchitectenCie. A building of 10 floors arises on the crossing of Roomweg and de Bleken. The pharmacy as the most public function is prominently present. By gradually decreasing the volume of the building with spacious terrace apartments and splitting up the program in various building parts around an inner garden, the building concurrently makes a connection with the adjacent small scale buildings.

Mixed Development | Elbberg Campus Altona | Hamburg | ART Architekten

Situated between warehouses, industrial buildings, and green areas, the Elbberg Campus in Hamburg’s Großen Elbstraße, Altona, combines living, working and relaxation with another. The design is based upon the remains of existing buildings: newly designed offices, apartments and lofts are located within a newly designed park landscape, following the contours of the slope. New footpaths, staircases and terraces connect the areas above the Altonaer Balkon, to the harbour. The office building is is orientated towards the public spaces: the roof of the base of the building serves as an extensive terrace, offering a wonderful view over the harbour. Private and common areas within the complex are, on the one hand, clearly defined, and at the same time, harmoniously interwoven with a variety of architectural and lanscaping measures. With references to the Treppenviertel in Blankenese, the Elbberg Campus is a further element within the urban redevelopment plan for the Elbe embankment, to generate a mixed-use development area........more

Residental Development | Apartment building | Woonbedrijf Ieder1| Deventer | The Netherlands | KCAP

'Het Baken' (The Beacon) is part of Deventer's vinex area Vijfhoek, a residential development dominated by two and three-storey houses. In order to relieve this monotony Het Baken presents itself as a highly distinctive residential building realised on one of the last free plots. The block has the appearance of a boulder, an asymmetrical cube with a skin of slate whose massive form provides space for 22 apartments and a daycare centre. The canted, faceted contour was arrived at on the basis of sight lines and the effect of shadow. In terms both scale of design and materialisation, Het Baken cuts a striking figure. The block rises cliff-like above the bland vinex landscape, providing a welcome landmark from whatever direction it is viewed.
The ground floor acts as a transparent plinth, with the building volume jutting out on two sides above it. The plinth houses the daycare centre whose glazed facades provides plenty of contact with the surroundings........more

Shopping Mall Design | New City Centre Minsk | Belarus | BRT Architekten

The plot is located in a scenic area to the north-east of the city centre of Minsk and can be reached via an arterial road that leads to the airport. In a easterly direction about 850 m away is the new National Library of Belarus that has become a famous landmark of modern development in Minsk due to its dimension and its appearance. To the east the plot is bordered on by a belt of dense forest. The task of the design is to develop a multi-purpose complex with diverse recreational and business utilisations such as a shopping mall, a supermarket, an entertainment centre with a family and a night entertainment area, an office centre, a 5-star business hotel, an apartment hotel and a sport centre. The working field consists of two trapezoidal areas of which one is intended for the main utilisations, the other for parking solutions. The total area amounts to approx. 80,300 sqm...........more

Community Center Design | Mosaikken Community Centre | Kjellerup | Denmark | Arkitema Architects

The vision is that the entire development – the building and the surrounding spaces – will be woven into the existing, somewhat complex urban scene to create a new wholeness and identity in the area, while at the same time establishing itself as a public meeting-place. The building houses: library, cinema, meeting facilities, teaching facilities, school administration, local art exebition and more.

The aim is to create a building that is open and inviting, and which will allow itself to be coloured and transformed by the various activities taking place there during the day and evening. The building is called Mosaikken – the mosaic – because of its mix of functions which takes place in it.

The building is open towards the square that links it to the sports hall. From here, users are led into the building's common area, which has the character of a market square.

It is a bright room with a high ceiling and two large space-creating elements: "The Rotunda" and "The Bookshelf", both of which are visible from the outside, and consequently help to communicate the building's activities. The Bookshelf provides access to the library and separates it from the ‘market square’. Its location along one side of the market square means that the library makes natural use of parts of the square for its exhibitions, notice boards, etc. The school and the library are also linked by a smaller connecting building.........more

Sports Arena Design | 2013 Chinese National Games Judo Arena | Shenyang | China | Emergent

The site for the Chinese National Games Arena is located in a Shenyang University courtyard lined on three sides by University buildings and on one side by major arterial street which features the new 300kmh Shenyang High-Speed Rail line. The design is a simple volume which becomes increasingly articulated and transparent towards public spaces and its main entry.

The arena will house 3,000 fixed seats above the mezzanine level and 2,000 retractable seats below. It is designed for maximum flexibility to allow for both official Judo events in 2013 and for performing arts events, public lectures, and student sports events after the completion of the games. The retractable seating system allows for the conversion of a 51m x 31m gaming area into a 64m x 44m multifunctional space.......more

Mixed-Used Development | Weifang City | Kite City | Weifang | China | Neil M Denari

Weifang is a special city in China. Not only is it well known for the history of its handicrafts such as paper–cutting and New Year’s paintings, it is the world’s most important city for kite flying and the history of kites. For more than 2,000 years, the people of Weifang have enjoyed the exhilaration of seeing these colorful objects flying in the brisk winds of the Shandong region in Northern China.
Weifang City is a 290,000 square meter mixed-used development consisting of housing and commercial in a series of tower blocks, with a 150 meter tall mixed-use tower that anchors the southwest corner of the site. The organization of the massing responds to the client’s brief to make an iconic tower on the park with a supporting world of housing and shopping around it...........more

City Futura | City Of Milan 2210 | BplusU

“City Futura” is a visionary urban design proposal for an expansion of the City of Milan set in the year 2210. The project is part of a development plan for fifteen different sites located on the outer ring connected by the Milan Metro line. An eclectic international group of architects including MAD office from Beijing, R&Sie(n) from Paris, Rojkind Arquitectos from Ciudad de Mexico and BplusU from Los Angeles were invited to each choose one of the available sites and envision an “arch-urban object”. Our site is located in the North-West part of the city close to Piazzale Giovanni dalle Bande Nere adjacent to the Bande Nere metro train station...........more

Polyhedra House | Palisades | New Jersey | Axis Mundi Design

Palisades, New Jersey | A crystalline polyhedron shaped residence is cantilevered over the edge of a 200 million year old cliff in New Jersey.

Site
The Palisades are a line of steep cliffs along the west side of the lower Hudson River in northeastern New Jersey and southern New York in the United States. The cliffs stretch north from Jersey City to near Nyack, New York. They rise nearly vertically from near the edge of the river and are among the most dramatic geologic features in the vicinity of New York City, forming a canyon of the Hudson River north of Fort Lee, as well as providing a vista of the New York City skyline.......more

Hospital Design | MO Public Hospitals of Marseille | Marseille | France | SCAU

Along a grand boulevard de Marseille, the new psychiatric hospital design has multiple medical issues in terms of architectural and urban integration. The simplicity of the plan, the scale of the facade and its treatment provide a single response or protection, visual and solar power, continuity and fragmentation, are combined is evidence...........more