Iluma, a new entertainment and retail complex in the Bugis Street district of Singapore by WOHA Architects, will soon glitz up the city with a bold exterior design, and a variety of entertainment options indoors.

The exterior of Iluma is dynamic, with different floors featuring different façade shapes: some angularly form rectangles, and others curve into waves. These different shapes serve different purposes: the geometrically sound floors house such services as parking, cinemas and performance spaces, while the curved levels accommodate small retailers and entertainment services along “meandering paths.”

The contrast of the different levels is further accentuated by the exterior’s coloring, with “hot colors” bringing the rectangular areas to life, and gray and white schemes calming the curved areas. Though contrasting, both forms solidly place the building within its urban context: the bright angular zones speak to the city’s colorful block public housing, and the curved floors reference the intricately decorated local shop buildings.

Inside, a 40 meter-tall atrium serves as the interior focal point, and all roads lead here. The atrium is divided into two levels, with retail services downstairs, and entertainment options upstairs. Above, a lush, open-air rooftop terrace, complete with theater, event space and a café, creates an urban tropical oasis. Read the rest of this entry »

Norwegian Architectural firm MVRDV had their DnB NOR Bank Project top out this fall and is part of the large Oslo Barcode downtown development. Conceived as the largest and  most pixilated of three joined buildings which consolidate the banks operation. An underground concourse connects the three towers. The nonlinear narrative of the façade stands in opposition to it new neighbors situated along the track of the Oslo train depot. A complex program results with many informal spaces to allow staff interaction, open eating facility at the top and multiple paths through the building. The internal egress routes cross the building allowing multiple paths to each floor. Access is provided to the outdoors and green spaces for each floor as a result of the staggered floor plates.

The pixilated form also provides daylight penetration deeper into the interior and a large covered outdoor entrance to the lobby. Areas of floor to ceiling fenestration using advanced thermal glass enhances the daylight harvesting. The 17 floor building will hold an impressive 2000 workstations along with the executive suites and trading floor. A stone skin will cover the face of the building allowing for crags to provide vegetation mimicking the Norwegian mountains. Construction will be completed in early 2012. Read the rest of this entry »

OMA unveiled their design for The National Museum of Archeology and Earth Sciences (MNAST) located on one of Rabat’s highest points: the gardens of the Lyautey Residence, which used to house Morocco’s French administrator. The MNAST will act as a catalyst for Rabat’s development, its innovative architecture reinforcing its urban and cultural attraction. The building is a long, flat isoceles triangle, resembling an ancient relic or indeed an archeologist’s tool. But the shape is primarily motivated by three axes on the site: Franklin Roosevelt Avenue, facing the city in the east; the park in the north; and the Lyautey Residence and formal gardens in the south-west. Rather than appropriating the Lyautey Residence as a part of the museum, the MNAST – with its entry is at the same level – will engage it in dialogue. Through its topographical connection with the MNAST, the Residence will be inscribed anew in the contemporary history of Morocco. Read the rest of this entry »

This competition proposal for Center for Promotion of Science in Belgrade was designed by a team of young Serbian architects Milos Zivkovic, Nebojsa Stevanovic, Janko Tadic, Aleksandar Gusic and Slobodanka Tadic. The object itself is a place where two ages crash – a collision of modern function and retro environment. Its architecture should provoke, associates, intrigue observers as much as its users. In time, exhibits have taken on a new form, so today the requirements for new architectural concepts have also changed. The user now becomes a participant and without him an exhibition does not exist – by activating it he becomes a part of exhibition, together they form a spectacle.

The main space is formed by de-leveled staggered slabs, recessed from the facade so they can be perceived from all levels and angles. With continuous movement through space and the use of exhibits, the user creates a form of event for himself and for the observer. All elements of the facility are subordinated to this idea and so are the access ramp and conference room that form environments that look out on the exhibition areas. The highest level of the building is formed in relation to program requirements; it is compact and offers dark areas that correspond to different types of exhibitions. In the floor there are gaps through which you get a new perspective of the spectacle. The facade of the building is used as a filter for the outside observers who watch through Fresnel lenses which are located on three sides of museum. It gives them ability to see enlarged image of the inside space and giving them a whole different perception of the Center. Read the rest of this entry »

Budapest architecture firm Építész Stúdió has designed a “Village in the Air” to compete in this year’s A101 Bock City Competition in Moscow.

Though the apartment complex, a series of connected buildings, is raised on stilts, the complex as a whole has been designed horizontally, with the idea of a spread-out village as the largest and best way to group people residentially. The architects capped the height for the buildings within the village at four stories. Some buildings will have only two or three stories, but with four, the buildings will match the height of the surrounding trees, bringing the built environment in line with nature.

Further greening the complex is the fact that the buildings are elevated off the ground, meaning the whole surface of the village can act as a park. Green roofs symbolically connect the building tops with the ground underneath in addition to providing environmental benefits.

Well-defined courtyards and atriums help break the large-scale village into smaller pockets of neighbors, making the complex as a whole more personal. There will be 150 apartment units in the complex, which will have a total floor space of 15,000 square meters. Read the rest of this entry »

This project was developed by Jungwook Lee as Design Thesis at Cornell University. The study is briefly summarized through three main topics. The first topic was to analyze the sense of smooth and striated space from Deleuze and Guattari’s philosophy book; ‘A Thousand Plateaus with Architecture Point of View’. The second part included the research of weaving structures characterized by striation that can mutate into smooth spaces. The last study was to re-define the massive grid system in Manhattan. This study proposes the alternative architectural result of the combination of smooth spaces with striated spaces. Read the rest of this entry »

The Loop Cathedral for Vienna, Austria designed by Chi Wai Chan examines various notions and typology of a religious building bringing it closer to contemporary requirements and sensibilities. Many feel that Catholicism is just a grandiose relic on the outside without much substance on the inside. This superficiality rather than spirituality becomes the main agent for the explorations.

The project manifests the notion and affect of an ‘Exquisite Corpse’ or a skeleton of fluid lines that flow together coherently to achieve the effect of ‘part becomes whole and whole becomes part’. The language is exuberant and excessive. It is dark and sinister like a cathedral in Gotham city. The iconograpic typology of a Gothic Cathedral was disseminated with formal elements of a tower and base to remain. Animated formal attributes and surface tessellations reinstitute the ornamental and decorative affect of a Gothic Cathedral. The cathedral as an institution exists only in excess.

via suckerPUNCH

Italian architects AquiliAlberg unveiled their design for a new urban landmark in Perth, Australia. The project consists of a fluid folding surface that peels off from the ground to create three pavilions. The project is located at Forest Place, one of the most representative plazas in Perth and offers a new and exciting urban destination for the residents and visitors. The pavilions count with diverse seating and gathering areas as well as canopies and relaxation spaces. At night the project will be illuminated with multi-colored lights according to seasons, events, and celebrations. Read the rest of this entry »

A massive, mixed-use office and retail complex that will span two city blocks in Düsseldorf, Germany is currently being designed by New York architecture firm Studio Daniel Libeskind.

The “Kö-Bogen” building will be six stories tall and a total of 432,300 square feet. Located in Düsseldorf’s downtown, the building will serve consumers with flagship retail stores on the first three floors, and further fuel the economy with office space on floors four through six.

Kö-Bogen‘s façade has spaces of straight geometry, and others of flowing curves. The curves wrap around the building’s courtyards; though these open spaces let light flow into the building’s office space, from the street the building will appear to have one continuous, green roofline.

Its living roof and proximity to Hofgarten, Düsseldorf’s main park, aren’t the building’s only green features. The façade has literal cuts that allow foliage from the interior courtyards to peek through to the street.

Traffic will be eliminated from the area surrounding the Kö-Bogen building, bringing a new sort of pedestrian experience to Düsseldorf. The building’s span, extending from the Schadowplatz plaza to the park, will bring an upscale and green pedestrian route through the city’s downtown. Read the rest of this entry »

A cave-like bar designed with simple materials has created a new, visually stunning modern space in Shanghai.

The Zebar was first conceived in 2006 by a Singaporean movie director and an ex musician from southern China. Designed by Francesco Gatti of the 3Gatti Architecture Studio, the bar is one hypnotic space after another, with white plasterboard fins stacked along walls to create a mesmerizing effect that draws visitors in.

The design, says the architect, is “a caved space formed from of a digital Boolean subtraction of hundreds of slices from an amorphic blob.” A byproudct of the age of 3-D computer modeling programs, the Zebar is a “digital design created in an analogic world,” Gatti said.

Each plasterboard wall section was cut by hand. Aside from the plasterboard, the only materials used were plywood and black cement, making the project low-cost, and quick to assemble. Read the rest of this entry »