Dutch architectural practice UNStudio is behind the concept design for the new business district at Tongzhou in Beijing, China. This waterfront development is rather dynamic composition of towers interconnected by aerial bridges and it introduces clear asymmetry in plan, orientation, clustering and façade treatment. The architects strongly believe that this asymmetry relates to users on a more personal scale, regarding its more natural character, while it also has a far-reaching urban effect.

Six towers of this vivid and playful development form three groups which are very precisely synchronized. Each pair of towers is standing on a joint platform. As defined by the bridging connections between them, the towers are grouped as a couple, a trio and a single volume. The form of the tower or its silhouette is formed in diagonal wrapping, derived from differences between the lower and the upper plans. Lower parts of the tower are densely stacked, but as the façade goes towards the top it becomes smoother and reflective. Strong diagonals running the entire length of the tower make this transition almost seamless. Read the rest of this entry »

Trifold Madang is an entry for the Busan Opera House competition, by IwamotoScott Architecture, which addresses the sponsors’ aim to create a new icon of the North Port area, establishing an international gateway while fostering maritime tourism for the new Maritime Culture District. Their design tries to significantly dramatize the experience of going to the opera. The sculptural form at the water edge maximizes the connection between the city, the water and the surrounding landscape.

Three large programmed pedestals support the building which is lifted above the surrounding site and the space flows beneath the opera, up onto a landscaped podium, culminating in a mound at the development center. The center space evokes the memory of the traditional Korean Opera, performed in outdoor courtyards – the madang.

As visitors approach the building of the Opera, they ascend one of three exterior Grand Stairs. A large central triangular skylight anchors the space where three staircases meet. Read the rest of this entry »

Zaha Hadid Architects’s design for the Dorobanti Tower in Bucharest, Romania, aims to provide an iconic presence in the very center of the city. The architecture of this high-rise is progressive – the distinctive form and ingenious structure of the skyscraper set new parameters for sky-high living. The form of the building is a chamfered diamond and its exterior is wrapped in irregular meandering structural lattice.

Building’s profile was generated by urban parameters, site constraints and program requirements – the outcome is and elegant, tapering tower which dynamically changes surface profile. As it is tapering inwards, the skyscraper maximizes views and the incoming daylight for its users. The tower is offset at the ground level, therefore providing a generous and spacious public space and the entrance plaza.

Regarding its solid structure, the Dorobanti Tower had to be conceived to maximize strength and resilience to earthquakes, due to Bucharest’s highly vulnerable seismic zone.

The public realm adjacent to the tower is magnificent and first of its kind in Bucharest – it represents major attraction within the city, offering new meeting space and urban spot, conceived as a wrapped carpet made in concrete. The surface of that urban carpet connects three surrounding streets, linking seating areas, water basins, fountains and green spaces into one urban entity. Read the rest of this entry »

Taichung Cultural Center by BAT (Bilbao Architecture Team) grows from the ground – it represents the final oeuvre of sculptural forces of nature, showing the real Taiwan and its magnificent landscape. The design is a proposal for the new city cultural center in the land of mountains, sea and amazing coast. The view from the Taichung Gateway Park shows how the land rises, configuring unique and impressive shapes.

The structure of this astonishing landscape architecture is managed by laminated wood beams of great dept, disposed on a meter distance and joined with lateral connectors. These connectors primarily act as substructure, but they also carry some of the building systems. The roof coverings vary, depending on the functions featured in the interior and their specific requirements. However, the green carpet is the covering for the most of the roof surface, but there are also spaces which demanded great amount of light in the interior, therefore they are covered with glass panels. Solar panels and wood paves areas were also required. Read the rest of this entry »

The largest private museum in Asia, the Pingtan Art Museum, designed by MAD Architects, has just begun its construction preparation phase. Upon its completion, this ambitious private project will display over a thousand pieces of national treasures within its debut exhibition.

In 2010, the “Comprehensive Experimental Zone” project in Pingtan, the largest island in the Fujian province, was launched and the island has been decided to become the primary location for trade and cultural communication between Taiwan and the mainland. The island, currently a military base and a fisheries paradise will quickly be transformed into a large urban development zone.

However, the museum itself acts like a small island on the island, and is connected to land only by an undulating pier, bridging the gap between artificial and natural, city and culture, tradition and future. The building of the museum is an icon and represents a long-lasting earthscape in water.

In the words of the author, the island is firstly a public space, turned into a museum. All the components of its magnificent natural landscape interconnect with each other, forming a harmonious space, with the mountains in the distance. The building of this island museum is constructed in concrete, blended with the local sea shells. The interior space, formed around the movements of its visitors, resembles the ancient caves. Read the rest of this entry »

Mario Cucinella Architects won a competition to design Algeria’s telecommunication agency headquarters. Exquisitely bold, the proposal is rooted in the traditional Mediterranean architecture and it is a re-interpretation of the Algerian landscape and the sand dunes. The building is an icon, and the place where modernity and tradition melt, in form – derived from the Mediterranean tradition and the solar diagram, and in the treatment of the surface of its body.

The dunes in the Algerian desert landscape seem like natural buildings, therefore the architects aimed to mimic the natural environment, avoiding the greater impact of the built structure. However, building had to be highly visible and representative, due to its purpose and the fact that it is situated on a lot along the highway of great importance and is very near to the new urban park Bab Ezzouar. As an institutional building, new ARPT headquarters are designed as a reference point within the neighborhood and a city, a point where tradition merges with modernity in order to create new and unexpected symbolic and cultural scenarios. Therefore, the proposal for the Headquarters is highly iconic, far from traditional aesthetics of the built surroundings, and it exploits the direct contact with the new park area. Read the rest of this entry »

Designed by Amir Mikhaeil, the new Center for Contemporary Cinema, situated on the corner of Wilshire Boulevard and Virgil Avenue in Los Angeles, is neither a multiplex nor a museum – it aims to be a new manifold for projection of film and new media within the city. This inspiring design, awarded H.I.Feldman Prize at Yale, has its roots in Tarkovsky’s representation of time in cinema and the Deleuzian conception of the time-image which is not reliant on the linear progression of movement through film, therefore the project disrupts the continuous urban narrative structure of the boulevard.

The dynamic mass of the Center turns as the building rises, creating an internal cascading atrium, directed by two primary hyperbolic surfaces. The theater is consisted of two main blocks – the smaller contains theater faces inwards, while the larger facilitates four theaters with the largest one at the top, facing the city through the proscenium. The projections through the proscenium are visible to gallery visitors and viewers within the atrium. Read the rest of this entry »

The open international two-stage architectural competition for Helsinki Central Library was launched in 2012, and 544 entries were submitted from all over the world. The six entries selected for the second phase of the competition were announced in November 2012 and now the winner is finally announced – Helsinki-based architectural practice ALA Architect won the first prize. The Central Library is slated to open in 2018 and it will be a center piece of Helsinki’s public library network.

The winning entry’s primary concept was the strict division of library functions into three distinctive levels – an active ground floor, calmer upper floor and enclosed volume, located in the middle, containing functions requiring more specific space. Due to this concept – the dynamic interplay between the building’s three individual floors, the arching form has been developed, directing the visitors to utilize the spaces underneath, inside and on top of it. As a result, the building will be highly functional, significant and motivating addition to Helsinki’s urban life. Read the rest of this entry »

The Theater in Spijkenisse, Netherlands, designed by UNStudio, is currently under construction. The greatest issue the architects at UNStudio were dealing with was the placement and the orientation of the theater building in the urban location, in order it fits the surrounding and at the same time provides all the necessary architectural solutions for programming, functional needs.

The thoughtful distribution of the programs within the building was required in order to enable efficient routing through the theater. The very design and the placement of some volumes of the building take advantage of the natural variations in the ground levels of the site.

The visitors, coming from the outside – the public square and from the foyer, are pretty much directed by the two main theater spaces positioned to receive the flow. When in foyer, the sculptural stairway forms the binding element, further directing the audience to the theater rooms. The theater cafe is designed as a third theater, in the form of an amphitheater, and is located adjacent to the nearby water.

The double curvature of the roof of this theater building is smoothing the transition from the ground to the built structure, therefore minimizing the impact the building has done to the surrounding urban tissue. That artificial “landscaping” is further translated into the interior – the ceilings are matching the roof, creating almost dune-like ambient. This elegant and unique landmark piece of architecture is a statement design and a new meeting point, which completes the waterfront of this Dutch city.

Countries all over the world are adopting Carbon Neutral master plans, in an era of rising environmental awareness and energy scarcity. Denmark based BIG Architects, very active architectural office, has developed the master plan for Azerbaijan – the Zira Island on the Caspian Sea, located in the bay of Baku, the capital city. The master plan is designed in collaboration with Ramboll, engineering firm.

The architectural proposal for Zira Island is developed on the base of the country’s dramatic natural setting, in the words of Bjarke Ingels. He states that the new architecture of the island not only recreates the iconic silhouettes of the seven peaks, but also creates an autonomous ecosystem, where the flow of air, water, energy and heat are channeled in natural ways. The mountain itself creates biotopes and eco-niches – it channels the water and stores heat, providing viewpoints and valleys.

BIG’s proposal is offering organic skyline, regarding the fact that the peaks of the surrounding mountains are translated into the urbanized peaks of the hill-like development. The structure is therefore merged into the existing topography of the island. The public central valley connects the series of private resorts and beaches, together with 300 private villas with the panoramic views over the Caspian Sea.

The Zira Island is designed as a completely independent entity, regarding the external resources, which is achieved through the mix of local, traditional building strategies and new, sustainable technologies. The aim was to provide high-end living, while decreasing usage of the resources to the minimum.

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