Commercial Office Towers for Zhengzhou, China, is one of the most recent projects by Asymptote Architecture. These two towers aim to have a powerful presence and stature in the overall master plan as envisioned by Arata Isosaki and his planning team. The design for two new commercial office towers, for a new central business district Longhu in China, draw inspiration from a variety of historic Chinese architectural references and the rich tradition of ceramic art in the region.  The main design features for both these towers consist of cylindrical towers placed within circular plinths that in turn provide each tower with large interior atriums and foyers. These large volumes spaces are highly accessible to the public and serve both as entryways as well as multi-use commercial space.

From these central spaces the main core elements in each tower extend upwards into a cruciform cantilevered office component. These suspended office spaces house new trading floors and other high volume programs high above and open void below while located at the base of the cylindrical towers above. Read the rest of this entry »

GRAFT, German office for architecture is eager to explore territories of design offered by a new awareness of and open-mindednes to sustainable design, converting energy-saving requirements into poetic design solutions which are not only environmentally friendly and efficient, but provide a new interpretation of the spaces we live in.

This structure in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia – a Birds Island – along these lines, presents a cost-saving response to warm climate habitation. Its living quarters provide an expansive shaded and ventilated outdoor living deck, while living space is primarily concentrated in a cooler interior core. A surrounding silicon glass skin structure provides a multi-functional translucent shell which casts subtle shadows and allows changing view patterns, hence freeing the space from the bonds of traditional walls. Curtains serve to enclose living spaces, therefore creating privacy.

This strategy is geared to cut waste and eliminate redundant energy systems. The optimized building skin doubles as a frame while implementing rainwater and solar heat collection systems, acting as wind flow conductor and distributing rainwater. Read the rest of this entry »

Budapest’s got an icon – architectural statement in Vaci Street, in the very center of the city. Asymptote’s design for the new HQ for the Budapest Bank consists of two interconnected towers along the Danube River. These subtly twisting and tapering towers rise out of the site to further revealing a shifting juxtaposition of solid and void that varies depending on one’s angle of view. As the geometry shifts and turns the buildings effectively address both the Danube River and the historic center of Budapest simultaneously.

The form is vivid and the whole movement is wrapped in glass – the building’s transparency is achieved through the use of curtain wall glazing – often used in contemporary architecture for the achievement of balance between natural light, visible connections, metaphoric transparency and more trust-based connections with society. The overall massing of the Budapest Bank is the result of an innovative structural strategy and creative optimization of zoning requirements for light and air. At the entrance level, the base of the towers artfully negotiates and accommodates the asymmetrical site enclosing a new public space within a spectacular atrium. Read the rest of this entry »

Hybios: Hybrid BIOStructures is thesis project by Rizad Joucka and Jack Chandy Francis, and it explores the fluidity of concrete as a material, coupled with the flexible workability of its forming process, as it has lead to innovation in the architectural discourse throughout history. The model typology for this research was a cultural center and the aim of this thesis is to go beyond current practices of using concrete in the built environment, in order to enable the construction of complex geometries analogues to the coherence of structures found in the nature. State of the art materials related to concrete construction, and cutting edge computer simulations are used in the research, which created a constant feedback loop between qualitative analogue prototypes and information-rich computer models.

The program of a Cultural Center was envisioned within the computational algorithm, which simulates the building form based on material qualities, forces and environmental conditions. Program and circulation are seen as main input parameters for the generation process. Design decisions that are based on pragmatic logic have been the result of the building process, working in a bottom-up form generation process. Read the rest of this entry »

Dublin-based practice Heneghan Peng Architects has recently won an international competition to design a new National Center for Contemporary Arts (NCCA) in Moscow, Russia. Their proposal was chosen from the three finalists and it offers vertically stacked exhibition spaces resembling flexible trays varying in size and height, in order to maximize accessibility while visually connecting the activities to the surrounding landscape.

The building is designed to host large-scale permanent and temporary exhibitions, lectures, professional conferences, concerts and performances, studios, art education facilities and many more. Multitude of possible routes is designed to facilitate a multitude of visitors, from browsers to specialists. A multi-level foyer allows the design to negotiate the various site and service challenges while responding to the possibilities offered by the park.

The verticality of the concept is dominant – the building is rising above Aviapark in Khodynskoe Pole. It concentrates the activities on the ground in order to further create intensity at a single point in the vast space. Given the scale and relative sparseness of activities in the area, the aim is to concentrate the flow of people to generate an excitement and energy which can then expand into other areas as the park develops. Read the rest of this entry »

Parramatta design competition has finally got its winner – twin towers by Sydney-based firm Johnson Pilton Walker were unanimously chosen by a jury of industry experts, to transform Parramatta’s skyline. The winning design was chosen from four shortlisted proposals, selected from 73 submissions in total. Lord Mayor John Chedid said that the project is essential to the revitalization of the Parramatta town center and to the safe, easy and pleasant delivery of pedestrians from the transportation hub to the center of the city.

The jury and city council were both confident that the winning design consisted of two linked buildings will complement all the aspects of the square, and be of premier appeal to national and international tenants. When finished, the commercial towers will add up to 140,000 square meters of office space to the Parramatta CBD and will function as two of the key centerpieces of the vital Parramatta Square site in the heart of the city. Read the rest of this entry »

Shenzhen Energy Mansion – SEM is BIG’s proposal for an invited competition, organized by Shenzhen Energy Company. The skyscraper proposal is the result of the successful synergy between Bjarke Ingels group and ARUP and Transsolar, and its currently under construction.

The skyscraper typology has evolved as an economically efficient way to provide flexible, functional and well-illuminated work spaces for very dense population of professionals. However, since the early 20^th century, air conditioning and electric lighting have served as modern solutions to highly increasing demand without seriously thinking to environmental consequences or energy shortages. Today the tower needs to evolve into a new sustainable species. It must, however, retain highly developed qualities such as daylight, flexibility, views and overall usability while still exercising new and untested attributes. Read the rest of this entry »

This thesis project by Carmelia Chiang explored the implications of tangential space – the condition caused by two surfaces, either physical or implied, approaching to touch at a single point. The moment of the “kiss” resolves itself in spatial discomfort, awkwardness and tension.

Architects seemed to avoid tangential moments through history, as they considered it to be dysfunctional space – the acute angle. In an eternal effort to create better composition and what they would think of as usable space, methods of overlapping or distancing have been typically employed. As a rejection of this sensibility, the intention of this thesis is to treat tangential moments as catalysts for new use, novel spatiality, unique structural solutions and unexpected atmospheric settings. By designing architecture through tangency, this thesis explores the potential of tangential space in order to provoke new forms of spatial, programmatic and practical relationships in architecture. Read the rest of this entry »

The Linz Castle has been home to the Upper Austrian National Museum since 1965. and recently it faced requirement for the enlargement of the exhibition space and new construction of the Southern wing. HoG Architektur’s architectural concept of the new wing is based on two strategies – to construct the missing wing from the fire in 1800, without closing the courtyard of the castle completely and to preserve the unique location above the city, accessible by the public any time. In order to achieve this, the new wing was layered horizontally and the central entrance level was designed as a transparent, half-open storey. It resulted with a space created above the city on top of the historic foundation through which one can enter the foyer, the museum shop and the restaurant.

The first level contrasts the maximum openness of the ground floor – it constitutes a metallic shimmering, windowless bar that floats above the solid historic wall foundation when viewed from the city. The construction as elevated steel truss enables a wide span and a projection of 30 meters above the main entrance. The steel truss of the upper level is built on three Ferro concrete cores which open up the whole building vertically. Read the rest of this entry »