“Cultural Ascent” is Synthesis Design+Architecture’s design proposal for the Taichung City Cultural Center that merges the programs of a public library, fine arts museum, and city park into an iconic contemporary architectural landmark. The aim of the building is to augment its programmatic contents by creating gradient spatial conditions through sectional movement, while utilizing variable façade patterning and articulation to register varying programmatic conditions. The building organization is driven by two ramping and interlocking masses of gradient program – library and museum- that peel up from the landscape in opposing clock-wise moves each hinging on a structural core.

Below the ground the two programs are unified through shared parking and administration spaces, while above grade each program operates independently, yet intersects at key moments where exchange is facilitated through shared circulation, vertical cores and a sculptural roof terrace, ultimately merging into a single articulated mass. In section the two opposing ground moves work collectively to frame a connective portal between the urban condition and the park to the south with the mass of the building floating above, while in plan those moves create a multi-story atrium condition.

The proposal seeks to present an urban gateway to the park while simultaneously extending the landscaping of the park through the building and providing a legible edge to the park. The sculptural base of the building peels away from the landscape in two distinct land-forms to sculpt a framed portal connecting the city and the park. As they ascend, the two masses fuse into a sculpted mass of interlocking volumes and cantilevering floor slabs that hover over the park to shield the sculpted ground condition from the harsh Taiwanese sun. Read the rest of this entry »

OOIIO Architecture is behind the design of Miraflores – Barranco in Lima, Peru. This iconic proposal for a pedestrian bridge between two districts will bridge over the natural gap called Bajada de Armendáriz, which ends just in front of Pacific Ocean. The bridge brings together two distinct realities – on one side is Miraflores, majestic, residential, were you can find important shopping centers that became new urban attraction points in the past few years. It is also the place where you can find most of the touristic hotels. Barranco, on the other side, is the city bohemian district. On the Colonial Epoch it used to be the leisure area, and it keeps its charm. Nowadays there are many museums and cultural live. Walking though its streets you can find several musicians and at night is the fashionable place to go for dinner with friends.

The idea was that two districts both benefit from connection with another. OOIIO proposes a bridge as a landmark, a new city´s symbol, a meeting point, an object that welcomes Lima inhabitants to cross over from one district to the other. Thanks to its special and flashy shape it will encourage tourists walk, promoting urban activities on it.

The bridge can be used as a relaxing place, for lying under the sun, to sit down and see how people walk or the cars pass by, to watch sunsets. It acts as a small size amphitheater, to encourage urban activities on it. This bridge is also a garden, a plaza, a viewpoint, a sculpture, a terrace, a meeting-point, an element to shake the city. It is an opportunity to get a landscape regeneration of this big city void. Read the rest of this entry »

2018 Skyscraper Competition is open for registration.

MahaNakhon by Ole Scheeren at OMA is a 77-storey high-rise complex located in Bangkok’s Central Business District. This vertical development of more than 150,000 square meters will be comprised of a landscaped public plaza; a multi-level retail centre with restaurants, cafes, and 24-hour marketplace; 200 serviced apartments operated by the Ritz-Carlton; the Bangkok Edition, a 150 room boutique hotel in collaboration with Marriot International and Ian Schrager; and a rooftop Sky Bar and restaurant. MahaNakhon is the most ambitious complex of contemporary architecture and urbanism in Thailand and the tallest building in Bangkok.

The design of MahaNakhon dismantles the typical tower and podium typology, creating a skyscraper that melds with the city by gradually ‘dissolving’ as it flows downward to meet the ground. A series of cascading indoor/outdoor terraces at the base of the tower accommodates retail and entertainment facilities, evoking the shifting protrusions of a mountain landscape. An adjacent freestanding seven-storey building – the “Cube” with corresponding terraces creates an expansive outdoor atrium – forming a valley and network of social, dining, and leisure spaces that serve the residences and the public. MahaNakhon Square, at the front, is designed as a dynamic public plaza, a spot for planned and spontaneous cultural events, a landscaped retreat for the city’s inhabitants, and a rare venue for cultural and social interaction.

The Tower has been carefully carved to introduce a three-dimensional ribbon of architectural pixels that coil up the tower’s full height to reveal the inner life of the building. This generates a set of specific features – projecting glass sky-boxes with sweeping views and generous indoor/outdoor spaces – uncommon to high-rise living, but well-suited to the tropical climate of Bangkok. The pixels have been designed to maximize unobstructed panoramas and offers rare birds-eye views of the city and Chaophraya River. Residences located in the non-pixelated area of the tower enjoy a parallel innovation: double-height living spaces equipped with multiple bays of full-height bi-fold balcony windows – sections of facade that fold inwards and upwards – transforming living areas into indoor/outdoor environments. Read the rest of this entry »

The AA Visiting School is a worldwide network of design workshops and other programmes organised by the Architectural Association School of Architecture. The event will take place in Bilbao from July 23rd to August 5th, focusing on new lectures over territorial macro and micro scales.

We have 20 scholarships for our readers interested on this activity, you just need to send us your CV/portfolio and a statement explaining why you would like to participate in this event. For more details read below.

The workshop will explore the question of ‘place’ or ‘topos’ and its radical transformation in the recent years due to the proliferation and availability of environmental parameters. Departing from the notion of ‘computing,’ understood as information processing, strategies of ‘data mining’ and ‘indexing’ will be proposed as sensible readings of the site and the territory.

The breeding of local environmental parameters will generate new forms of architectural agency and expression. Diverse mechanisms will be used to materialize ‘invisible’ information such as environmental and social conditions, users’ preferences, digital information, etc. The capture of ‘local’ data will be done through the use of sensors, site specific simulations and rss feeds which will be used to capture information in the ‘network’. The workshop will provide the students with technical support to use microprocessors and sensing technologies. Each team will be looking at one main environmental parameter, in its broader sense, such as sun light, programmatic densification, urban flux, users’ data collected from urban behavioural patterns, potential energetic consumption/production, etc to synthesize ‘Datascapes’ that will feed into the projects. These ‘Datascapes’ will be built from the following devices, software and strategies. Read the rest of this entry »