This colossal bridge design by Mexico City based BNKR Arquitectura is a unique approach to the problem of project financing. Knowing the municipal government of Acapulco wouldn’t be able to fund a three-kilometer bridge, BNKR thought to attract private investments by transforming the supporting structure into habitable spaces. Without a bridge to span it, the Bay of Acapulco is extremely inconvenient to round. The bridge would complete a loop around the bay and connect to existing highways and roads.

The roadway and parking for the bridge is set within a square tube that splits the superstructure from the support system below. The top of this is covered in walkways, bikepaths and green space. The triangular support structures house the habitable spaces above and below this main artery. The bridge is set upon island-like bases that could act as docks for watercraft and allow inhabitants and visitors to enjoy the bay at water level. Read the rest of this entry »

The ContemPLAY pavilion is a student led initiative developed at the McGill School of Architecture as part of the Directed Research Studio program under the MArch course Community Design Workshop. It is built under the leadership and supervision of Maria Mingallon, the Gerald Sheff visiting Professor, in collaboration with F.A.R.M.M. (Facility for Architectural Research and Media Mediation) directed and founded by Michael Jemtrud (Director of the School of Architecture at McGill University) and led by Jason Crow.

The pavilion project is an excellent demonstration of the latest developments in the DRS program, exposing advanced construction techniques, digital processes and theoretical approaches to architecture in the public realm. Furthermore, the project highlights the student potential as well as the capacity for trans-disciplinary team work on a high level project. The project benefits from the use of novel design and fabrication techniques, utilizing algorithms for digital modelling and thus, facilitating fabrication of complex geometries and assemblies.

The project is a unique opportunity to allow students and the McGill School of Architecture to present an unprecedented graduate studies project in North-America, setting the standard for new architectural programs. It creates an opportunity for debate and discussion as two what public space can be, and how its structures can be conceived. The pavilion is donated to the public and open to all as a means of making architecture relevant and important in the community. Read the rest of this entry »

MY Lounge Chair – for Walter Knoll

Extending Ben van Berkel’s earlier MYchair into a family of related designs, My Lounge Chair will be presented for the first time at the Walter Knoll stand in Milan. My Lounge Chair continues and extends the formal qualities and spatial effects of the earlier MYchair, with the facet shapes of the chaise longue inspired seat echoed in the curves of the supporting frame.

“My Lounge Chair is literally an expansion of the MYchair, both physically and conceptually. An actual stretching of the original chair extends the ‘Coming Home’ concept of relaxation and reflection even further.” – Ben van Berkel Read the rest of this entry »

Xin-yu Wan unvieled a proposal  to replace St. Stephen Cathedral in Vienna. The project was designed during the Excessive Workshop of Hernan Diaz-Alonso in The Institute of Architecture of Vienna  the overall concept is based on a fantasy about the architectural history of Vienna. That is to say: if Art Nouveau had had a greater influence and had lasted for a longer period in Vienna; if the articulated geometries not only work as ornaments or enclosure as is the case for the Secession, but also serves as real structure to hold the main parts of the building, what would a new cathedral be and what its sublime and magical effects.

This project is based on two kinds of elements and their respective mutations. The white elements, which combine to form both the soft curvilinear and the hard straight body. They are the main structure and first layer of the enclosure. The black elements are more of an organic nature and work as the second layer of enclosure on the outside and as floors inside. The contrast and transition between these elements give the project its unique character. Read the rest of this entry »

The Ritz-Carlton Hotel Company opened The Ritz-Carlton, Hong Kong, located in the International Commerce Centre (ICC) designed by Kohn Pedersen Fox (KPF). Soaring 490 meters above Victoria Harbor, the hotel occupies floors 102 to 118 of the building, and boasts a 360-degree view of the entire city and surrounding islands.

With interiors by Singapore’s LTW, the hotel will offer 312 guest rooms, all providing spectacular city and harbour views. Other hotel amenities include six unique dining venues, an 860-square-meter spa by ESPA, a glass-enclosed infinity pool with LED screen ceiling and an outdoor terrace with a glass-enclosed bar, both on the 118th floor.

ICC is the essence of Hong Kong in one destination: world-class hospitality, high-powered finance, global tourism, and luxury shopping, all in a single tower built over a sophisticated transportation network spanning the Pearl River Delta.

KPF Managing Principal Paul Katz said, “We applaud Sun Hung Kai Properties Group on the completion of the final element of the building, and on the opening of the highest hotel in the world. This building type is very important to us, especially in Hong Kong, a city that has taken the lead in high rise development. ICC speaks to the promise of the tall building as a sustainable paradigm, in which individual buildings form part of a larger ecosystem of vertical centers linked by horizontal networks of public transportation.” Read the rest of this entry »

The use of louvers define Guosen Securities Corporation’s new headquarters, planned for construction in Shenzhen, China, taking it from a plain office building to an exciting “green” structure – one that resembles a Chinese lantern.

The design, by the MVRDV firm, is also an ideal working environment: the skyscraper is tall (204 meters) but slender, with tight, square floorplans that locate every worker no further than 11 meters from the façade (and natural daylight).

Surrounding each floor is a lip that extends down to create a shadow in the floor below. Louvers connect these lips with the tall glass windows, and vary in shape and size depending on their orientation to the sun. The louvers not only control the sunlight intake, but they can also have solar cells placed on them as well, maximizing their environmental impace. Architects estimate that the building is able to use 33 percent less energy than it would take to typically provide enough power for the structure thanks to the louvers. Read the rest of this entry »

A lot more attention has been paid to natural disaster proof and survival architecture since the Japan quakes hit in March. One of the biggest problems facing survivors and responders after such a disaster is finding enough safe temporary shelter. Drawing inspiration from the Sao Paulo skyline, Designer Mike Reyes came up with the RISE modules to help solve this problem by taking advantage of the usable space surviving structures offer.

Sao Paolo is the largest city in the southern hemisphere and the 6^th largest in the world. It’s also the most populous in all of the Americas and when a disaster like the constant floods Sao Paolo receives hits, hundreds of thousands of families are left homeless in unsafe conditions.

Reyes asks “What would happen when a mega flood comes; leaving only the strong survivors stranded? Could this catastrophe be a road for a new, sustaining civilization?

To basically create space where there wasn’t before, the RISE system hangs securely off the exteriors of existing high-rises, and is designed flexibly enough to allow it adapt to different kinds of structures; even bridges and other infrastructure. Construction is simple: helicopters would fly in folded individual units and together with the help of survivors inside the building would basically hook the RISE unit to the interior lip like the threshold of a window. Then the survivors would unfold the walls and ceiling of the unit. The unit is held securely by the force it creates against the walls of the building. Read the rest of this entry »

As we mentioned in our post on BIG’s E2 winning project PUU-BO, the first place prize in the E2 competition was also shared with Team Arup, headed by Arup Gmbh for their design E2volution. The E2volution design was chosen by the competition jury for, in their words, its“structural clarity, based on the use of three basic elements… quick construction and cost-effective transportation”.

E2volution’s design and materials are taken from the trees of the Finnish forests. Sustainably grown timber is used to create the laminated veneer lumber that is manufactured within 100km of the pilot site, and the design emulates a tree, with a strong base and trunk leading to offshooting branches. The E2 and E2 plus design allow a choice for tenants between passive house levels and zero-plus energy standards respectively.

Because of the linear arrangement of vertical load bearing elements, E2volution modules can be arranged in a multitude of ways including townhouses, urban blocks, and up to 8-story high-rises. And because system comprises only three main elements: decks, walls, and external shear plates, which allows a high degree of flexibility in configuration. Read the rest of this entry »

The Design Incubator is an exploration programmatic extremism by Boston architect and designer Alan Lu. The Design Incubator is a performance theatre by definition, but an atypical one at that. Lu embraces the existing vertical structure the Design Incubator is built around and used it to create a theatre that shifts the focus of performance to it’s production. The result is  the Design Incubator, a theatre of production.

In many of Lu’s designs, the exterior form is characterized by fluid curves; and the Design Incubator is no different. This particular design however borrows more from the physical characteristics of textiles than of a liquid substance like the majority of Lu’s designs. The rubber exterior appears as if it was draped over the existing vertically arranged ice storage facility like a blanket or cloth would. The exterior drape is lifted and pinned to reveal the entrance to the theatre, thus revealing the structure’s program. Read the rest of this entry »

Architect, urban planner and researcher Adrian Lahoud has made the study of the existing environment and scale a main tenant of his career’s work. With his latest design, the Collective Tower, Lahoud has attempted to bring Tripoli, Lebanon out of the post-modern dark ages.

Tripoli is Lebanon’s second-largest city with a population of 500,000. Today it has a mass of faceless and formless concrete towers that house apartments and offices but say little architecturally, especially in relation to the small-scale and historic urban fabric that has filled the ancient city for centuries.

The Collective Tower is actually a bundling of three towers: the three separate structures join in the middle for support, but then splay from each other dramatically. The top portion of the building brings style and ample space, and allows the bottom portion to stay more plain, which has two benefits. The first is the obvious need for stability; the second is that the smaller base has a less impactful footprint on the city. Read the rest of this entry »