The eight-storey Student Learning Centre by Snøhetta in collaboration with Zeidler Partnership Architects boldly marks Ryerson’s new face on Yonge Street. It will feature a dazzling glass facade, a welcoming elevated plaza, a bridge to the existing library and a range of academic, study and collaborative spaces for Ryerson’s students, faculty and staff. Yonge Street frontage will feature destination retail at and below grade, creating a prominent commercial facade.

“I am thrilled to present the first look at the inspirational design of our new Ryerson University Student Learning Centre,” said Levy. “The new Student Learning Centre will have a powerful impact on student learning, life on campus and the community. It’s a transformative, bold development and an important step forward in city building. We are very excited about what the Student Learning Centre will mean for Ryerson and for Toronto.” With links to the existing Library building, the Student Learning Centre will offer a variety of creative and inspiring learning environments and spaces. Every floor will have its own personality – some will be open and interpretive with flexible furniture and terraces while others will be densely filled with enclosed study rooms for groups of four to eight people. Space will be available for independent, quiet study and contemplation. With full digital support and accessible academic services, the Student Learning Centre will foster learning success and help promote a culture of collaboration and creativity among Ryerson students. Read the rest of this entry »

Athletic Ripples designed by Studio Symbiosis is a project based on interfacing the user and his built environment into a coherent whole. The program has been translated into trajectories of movement. These flow lines generated the formal idea which is underlined by interweaving of the various activities. This results in creating a design with an inherent quality of interaction.

The program analysis resulted in the distribution of the various functions on site. Conceptually these programmatic zones were treated as pebbled dropped in water. It is the inference of the water field, thus creating ripples giving a guideline for the formal design language of the project. The central pedestrian zone caters for the primary movement on site. This linear zone has been kept exclusively for the pedestrians, thereby instilling the feeling of being in a green sports complex. It has been attempted to eliminate the dogma of vehicular congestion related to projects like this. This corridor being axial in nature branches into different activities. Read the rest of this entry »

Zaha Hadid Architects announced the completion of the Glasgow Riverside Museum of Transport. The building has received instant praise by architecture critics and the press.

The historical development of the Clyde and the city is a unique legacy; with the site situated where the Kelvin flows into the Clyde the building can flow from the city to the river. In doing so it can symbolise a dynamic relationship where the museum is the voice of both, linking the two sides and allowing the museum to be the transition from one to the other. By doing so the museum places itself in the very context of its origin and encourages connectivity between its exhibits and their wider context. Read the rest of this entry »

Llandudno Beach in Cape Town, situated on the Atlantic seaboard of the Cape Peninsula, is surrounded by large granite boulders and overlooked by mountains. The infinity pavilion beach house designed by Margot Krasojevic balances on the cliffs overlooking the town of Llandudno in cape town, the design directly engages with its context. the main open plan accommodation area consists of a series of dramatic angular forms that cascade down the cliffs to the sea edge, emphasising the precipitous nature of the site, the cliff-face uses sand blasted structural steel sections suspending the main living area, the form reflects the changing contours of the landscape preserved uninterrupted beneath. Read the rest of this entry »

High Park is located on the outskirts of the northern city of Monterrey, Mexico. Surrounded by the Majestic Sierra Madre Oriental Range. The project is designed to take full advantage of its geographic location and to help mitigate the extreme climatic conditions. As a recurring design concern for rojkind arquitectos and as a way of integrating the building into the pedestrian realm (giving back to the community), the building steps back to create an outdoor shaded space that can be enjoyed by the residents and visitors alike.

“Normally these types of building don’t allow for the creation of any public space, the entire site is developed with the intention of maximizing the most square footage for it’s commercial interest. This project takes a different approach by allowing its site not to be built in its entirely and provide public space that can be utilize by anyone” Gerardo Salinas, partner, rojkind arquitectos.

To counterbalance the strong sun, the floor plates shift in relation to one another creating a play of light and shadow, and the use of local stone, done by local craftsmen on the facade allows the building to stay cooler and makes its appearance change as the sun moves across the horizon. Read the rest of this entry »

The Galaxy Soho project by Zaha Hadid Architects in central Beijing for Soho China is a 330,000 m² office, retail and entertainment complex that will become an integral part of the living city, inspired by the grand scale Beijing. Its architecture is a composition of five continuous, flowing volumes that are set apart, fused or linked by stretched bridges. These volumes adapt to each other in all directions, generating a panoramic architecture without corners or abrupt transitions that break the fluidity of its formal composition.

The great interior courts of the project are a reflection of traditional Chinese architecture where courtyards create an internal world of continuous open spaces. Here, the architecture is no longer composed of rigid blocks, but instead comprised of volumes which coalesce to create a world of continuous mutual adaptation and fluid movement between each building. Shifting plateaus within the design impact upon each other to generate a deep sense of immersion and envelopment. As users enter deeper into the building, they discover intimate spaces that follow the same coherent formal logic of continuous curve-linearity. Read the rest of this entry »

The formal language and architectural articulation of the design by Zaha Hadid Architects aims to break the static configuration of the surrounding buildings. The design’s soft and dynamic tectonic turns it into an immediate reference for the masterplan, without the need to exhaust maximum building heights.

By way of horizontal shifts of its mass, a sense of elasticity is introduced into the design allowing the building to be grounded at its elevation to the masterplan campus. This elasticity draws visitors into its interior, and permits the building to ‘float’ above the ground plain. Read the rest of this entry »

The Fog Cinema is a proposal by 24º Studio (Fumio Hirakawa + Marina Topunova) for the “Changing the Face Pushkinsky Cinema Competition” sponsored by Architizer and DuPont.

Many masters of Russian cinema, from the introduction of Lumière Brothers to Russia, then Vertov, Eisenstien, Tarkovsky and Sokurov to name a few, have provided us with unimaginable vision of how our world can be seen from a different perspective. Through their evolving art of cinema, not only do its visuals stimulate us but furthermore, our subconscious creates a deeper imagination to the contents we literally experience. Cinema world allows us to explore the unknown territory that cannot be experienced in the reality. When we enter the realm of the black box and see the events that unfold in front of us caused by the bright projection, and in the most magical moments, we feel like we are participating in those fictional events. The collapse of reality and non-reality creates a metaphysical hyper reality. In this proposal, we question the current state of contemporary cinema house that conceals its facade with various movie advertisements and timetables. Understandably this attempt literally portrays the program contained within. But such what-you-see-is what-you-get approach does not stir our imagination leaving no space for wonderings and surprise. Read the rest of this entry »

The site for this project designed by award-winning firm Emergent, is located at the heart of downtown Shenyang. Adjacent to Zhongshan Park, it is a connector between the natural and urban life of the city, making it a perfect location for a sports complex and for a National Games Arena.

“Our project is based on creating an artificial landscape for sports activities while also creating an icon for the Games. The roof of the Civic Recreation Center and Swimming Arena are interconnected to make this continuous, differentiated sports landscape connecting Park to city with cascading sports fields, pathways, and open space. This landscape features Soccer fields, basketball courts, tennis, badminton, and volleyball courts at various levels.

The National Games Arena is located on the West end of the site – an iconic figure against the relaxed background of the sports landscape. This building is a symbol of both the Games and the new status of Shenyang as a top-ten Chinese provincial capital and international city. The architecture is based on crystal patterning found in nature at all scales. The design features large membrane bubble windows with views out to the Park and the city. The patterning of the windows spreads out onto the metal panel facades of the building, erupting as zones of solar panels on the roof. Read the rest of this entry »

The future Linkong Economic Park is favourably located within the Great Hongqiao Business Zone which lies adjacent to Hongqiao Transportation Hub and in proximity to Hongqiao Airport and Shanghai’s city centre. The Great Hongqiao Business Zone enjoys access to the Transportation Hub’s high speed rail, subway and airport transportation systems and benefits from the nearby airport’s attraction for global and local enterprises wishing to settle down in the region.

Zaha Hadid Architects’ proposal for the new Linkong SOHO building aims to provide a strong visual and programmatic identity which establishes it as a unique destination in its own right. Such identity consists of an exclusive programmatic mix consolidated in three different destinations (thematic “Courtyards”) representing distinct clusters of activities, and an exceptional architecture that moulds such a programme into a landmark. Linkong SOHO is an iconic presence, standing out from the retail context of its neighbouring plots and possesses high visibility within the larger context of the Economic Park. The building’s dynamic, curvilinear form continues through its internal spatial experiences, dramatic courtyards and flowing public spaces. Read the rest of this entry »