Tom Wiscombe Design has done a proposal for Walltopia – Collider Activity Center – a brand center and a destination for sports and recreation. The project is designed for Bulgaria, and the author strongly believes that it was necessary to rethink the status of the building as a neutral container of active furnishings in favor of building as an active participant and distinct.

The primary idea was to take the concept of “boulders” produced by Walltopia and then reinterpret them as architectural objects. The form of the building is conceived in play of three-dimensional climbing surfaces. The final outcome is the abstract and alien space, yet a contemporary climber’s paradise.

The designed is derived from the formal and organizational model of objects in objects, which is in opposition to architecture as a single-skin container and to architectural hierarchies of enclosure and usual internal subdivisions through corridors and walls. Due to the chosen model, the building is wrapped in three layers – outer skin, sub-skin and a liner. Inspired by Borromini and Baroque architecture, these skins allow separate management of exterior and interior spaces. The layers vary in material quality and they are articulated differently. The skins sometimes track each other, but usually they have completely separate lives. Read the rest of this entry »

Last week in Grottammare, Italy, the schematic design for ANIMA was unveiled, the first work in Italy by renowned firm Bernard Tschumi Architects, commissioned by the Fondazione Cassa di Risparmio di Ascoli Piceno and the Municipality of Grottammare.

ANIMA is a cultural center that will be built in Grottammare, a city in the province of Ascoli Piceno, intended to generate stronger ties between the people and the territory. The concept intends to associate its image to the most diverse manifestations of local culture, which find expression through artistic, gastronomic and environmental means. In addition to elaborating with immense precision and originality the theme by which the interior spaces are organized, Tschumi has proposed an artifact that reworks the notion of facade as an indispensable tool with which to reconfigure space. Oscillating between the figuative and the abstract, the building reinforces the identity of the region at even its conceptual stage. Read the rest of this entry »

Cheng Gong of the Southern California Institute of Architecture in Los Angeles designed this edifice while keeping in mind the values preserved in the churches created by Richard Meier, Richard Neutra, and Philip Johnson. As a respect to the existing slope of Meier’s church, the site design extends beyond the landscape and benefits it as the seating area of an “amphitheatre church”; the entrance is also shaped following the slope direction, as visitors are intended to be received at a lower level. As a response to the “drive-in” program of Neutra’s church as well as to preserve this California moto culture, drive-in parking lots are kept at the same location. Comparing to Johnson’s crystal mega church, which stands out isolated from the site, this church chooses a low-profile gesture with the same height of Meier’s building, producing an alternative standpoint with stronger communication with the surroundings.

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Synthesis Design + Architecture were awarded the first place in the invited international design competition for the Shanghai Wuzhou International Plaza, in collaboration with Shenzhen General Institute of Architectural Design and Research and FLVR Studio. Primary intent of the designers of this winning proposal was to unify the various programs, buildings and the parcels into one single and cohesive identity. The proposed development is vibrant and vivid, embodying the energy of Shanghai’s distinct urban environment.

The very form of this unique development was inspired by the flowing ribbons and choreographed movements of Chinese traditional Ribbon dances. The proposal aimed to capture the elegance of the flowing ribbons and to design the structure as a choreographed and synchronized composition of dancing surfaces which are unified, peel apart and are in constant movement, rather than a collage of singular objects.

The actual architecture emerges in space between the dancing objects and surfaces. The project is an articulation of diverse, dynamic bands, which simultaneously wrap the two created podiums, connecting two sites in the form of connective sky bridges and defining a unifying external courtyard, merging the horizontal with the vertical office towers. Read the rest of this entry »

Four architectural practices were challenged recently to re-envision New York’s Penn Station and Madison Square Garden, in order to create more livable city through intelligent urban planning and design. Four designs have been revealed, proposing fresh and improved biggest transit hub in the western hemisphere, and are focused on smart solutions for pedestrians as well as on the impact of built form to the transit access.

Skidmore, Owings & Merrill LLP (SOM), the renowned architecture, engineering, interiors and urban-planning firm, revealed its proposal. SOM was invited to contribute because of its long history of working in Manhattan, its wide-ranging expertise on extraordinarily complex sites and issues. Their plan dramatically expands the transit capacity at Penn Station – it calls for the expansion of Penn Station’s footprint by two additional blocks, in order to accommodate high-speed rail lines for the Northeast Corridor, expanded commuter rail service for the entire tri-state area, and direct rail connections to JFK, LaGuardia and Newark Airports.

The vision for the very station is very intuitive and open – the transparent Ticketing Hall is placed at the center of the site, surrounded by the radial pedestrian connections to the city. Two concourses directed north-south seamlessly enable passengers to move from ground level to level below.

The proposed design fully exhausts the potential air rights yet preserving the full four block ground-plane, for public use. The architects at SOM believe that, in order to reach its full unrealized potential, the site must be the civic heart of Midtown West. Aiming to optimize one of the largest multi-modal stations in the world, SOM provides to build public Park, four times larger than Bryant Park, a commercial development the size of Rockefeller Center, a city of Culture larger than Lincoln Center, and a residential neighborhood the size of Tudor City.

Inspired by the way silkworms weave delicate cocoons from a single strand of silk, the Silk Pavilion is created using a base of robot-woven threads. Created by The Mediated Matter group, focused on biologically inspired design fabrication tools and technologies, the pavilion explores the relationship between digital and biological fabrication on both architectural and product scales. The primary structure of this unique and fragile pavilion was created of 26 polygonal panels, made of silk treads laid down by a CNC machine.

The research of the Mediated Matter group aims to integrate computational form-finding strategies with biologically inspired fabrication and the pavilion is the outcome of a process. They strongly believe in the importance of this research, therefore enabling mediating synergies between objects and environment, between humans and objects, and between humans and environment, which would enhance the relation between natural and artificial environments by ensuring higher levels of versatility and customization, material efficiency and environmental performance integration.

The geometry of the pavilion is created using an algorithm assigning a single continuous thread across patches, therefore providing various degrees of density. The overall density was further informed by the silkworm itself, as a biological printer creating the secondary structure. A swarm of 6,500 silkworms was positioned at the bottom rim of the scaffold spinning flat non-woven silk patches, locally reinforcing the gaps across CNC-deposited silk fibers. The migration of silkworms was directed by light conditions due to spatial and environmental conditions, including geometrical density and variation in natural light and heat. Read the rest of this entry »

Zaha Hadid has been commissioned by Swarovski to design a celebratory installation which would mark the completion of her fist major build project, twenty years ago – the Fire Station at Vitra Campus, in Weil am Rhein, Germany.

Highly polished angular pieces are entitled Prima, and the components are flexible – they could be moved into different configurations. The assembly is installed in front of Fire Station, reflecting the design process of Hadid’s building. The form of the installation pieces is party derived from the dynamism of her drawings for Vitra Fire Station, expressive and exploding in three dimensions from the lines and planes of the paintings and sketches. The polished, reflective surfaces form the urban furniture – the seating for visitors, and are equipped with LED lighting.

The pieces are built using the advanced design and manufacturing technologies available, therefore the facets of Prima seating are a direct translation of the lines from the canvas, representing the detailed and thoughtful experimentation with the aim of perfecting the Fire Station Design. However, the new design could be seen as continuation of the twenty years older process, documenting architect’s remarkable adventure as an articulator of complexity, managing that two dimensional sketches evolve into a workable space and actual building. Inspired by the work of Kazimir Malevich, Hadid translated the anti-gravitational space of Russian avant-garde painting and sculpture into her own and unique architectural expression. Read the rest of this entry »

This digitally fabricated lamp, named ”Phýllon” by Nikolay Hristov Ivanov,  is inspired by the complexity of the leaf’s venation. Completely new process that employs computed simulation is used in order to generate very precise and subtle design, operating almost at a micro-scale. The project started as a design-investigation with the goal not to mimic the leaf’s pattern, but to configure a new reading – using speculative data set and reconnecting within a different logic – of a spider net, where the complexity is created by the quantity of elements and not by their quality.

The elegance of this unique lamp is an outcome of the serious exploration of numerous configurations of points, connections and logic of growth therefore the crystallized structure is extremely fragile.

The lamp is self-sufficient – it generated energy by itself. The silicon membrane contains spherical photovoltaic cells.  The leaves are composed of two layers, an external armor skeleton and internal soft membrane that merge into one homogeneous blade. Read the rest of this entry »

The Palace of Justice in Amsterdam, Netherlands, by Claus en Kaan Architecten is designed to be autonomous complex, recognizable in its presence. The exterior walls of this landmark piece are light, almost abstract, therefore adding universal and timeless quality to this massive architectural monument. The Magistrates Court and the Public Prosecutor co-habit in the Western IJ-dock complex, but clearly organized – each function is accommodated in separate volume and connected with one another by the walkway on the central fifth floor.

The abstract character of the façade is efficiently activated by applying very bright materials, white or light grey – natural stone, ceramic elements, whitewashed concrete, powder-coated steel plate and glazed brick. The glass openings, providing great panoramic views over the city and the docks are placed at the same plane as the outer walls, so the transition from one material to another is smooth and seamless.

The design is actually a compromise with the master plan of the area, done by Van Gameren and Mastenbroek, the given spatial envelope and the budget limitations. However, the architects managed to overcome the strict conditions and to provide the design they aimed for. Read the rest of this entry »

1 Park Avenue is a 550-meter, 116-story tower in Dubai, designed by Adrian Smith and Gordon Gill Architecture. The development, with a trio of podium buildings as a base, is a signature design for Dubai’s Jumeira Gardens. Undulating sculptural form of the skyscraper, as a string of pearls – traditionally harvested and traded in Dubai for generations – ensures poetic and evocative appearance of this landmark architecture.

1 Park Avenue is also a representative example of cutting-edge sustainable design. The transparent skin of the skyscraper features a high-performance exterior wall, controlling the heat transfer and light from outside, with the combination of the high-tech system of light shelves and light-sensor-activated shades. Shading fins jut out above each floor, shading the glass beneath, which allows for a more transparent curtain wall and adds visual texture to the building skin. The façade comes with the integrated photo voltaic cells, which harvest solar energy.

The complex houses premium office space, condominiums and service apartments, along with high luxury hotel, on 600,000-square-meters of space. Three podium buildings, whose form complements the form of the tower, facilitate offices and support for the hotel. Read the rest of this entry »