Proposal by Sanzpont Arquitectura for the Beton Hala Waterfront. Arches of the Belgrade Fortress have been reinterpreted to form a modern and iconic arcade linking the past with the present and future. The Green Slopes from Kalemegdan Park have been the main inspiration for creating a green building to expand the city’s natural landscape. Sava River Waveforms spread inland to create an elevated panoramic walkway integrated with the existing building.

Urban Design: A Park that brings together Visitors and Locals

Kalemegdan Park Expansion to the River Sava by a green roof building that extends the garden and recreational areas of the city. The green skin minimizes environmental impact, preserving the natural landscape of the site. Urban Connections to the City’s Past and Present where pedestrians can move freely in all directions without crossing with cars and trains. Through a central plaza, the project creates an urban node and a reference point that connects all the spaces. Scenic viewpoints at different levels that take advantage of views of the river and the city, making the journey a pleasant walk. Read the rest of this entry »

With a relaxed, yet stylish interior strategy for the Bella Sky Hotel’s rooms, reception and conference rooms, 3XNs design aims were to give guests the impression of arriving at a tasteful Scandinavian home.

The Best from Nordic traditions

‘Although Bella Sky is the Nordic region’s largest hotel, we have done everything to ensure that the hotel doesn’t give the typical impersonal and formal feeling that so often defines large hotels,’ says 3XN Architects’ founder and partner, Kim Herforth Nielsen. ‘Therefore, we decided to interpret the overall theme as New Nordic Cool. We looked at how Scandinavians approach the design of their homes, how they live – and then chose the best of our design tradition for the Bella Sky Hotel. Key words for us were simplicity, functionality and high quality, both in design and materials.’

Therefore anything synthetic was banned in the selection of materials for the hotel’s 814 rooms. Carpets are in wool, bed sheets in high thread count cottons, and there is a prevailing use of natural materials such as smoked oak and leather found throughout the décor. The smokey colour palette gives the rooms warmth and at the same time creates references to the Nordic nature, which is evident from the hotel views over the nature park, ‘Amager Common.’ Read the rest of this entry »

Beton Hala is today an open and spontaneous cultural hub. The new building designed by Erik Giudice Architects assumes this identity and provides more space for spontaneity and creativity.

The layout for the Waterfront Center takes it’s departing point from the linear structure of the existing Beton Hala. By concentrating the program on a linear strip, a park is created towards the Castle and a large multi activity promenade along the river.

The new structure is highly transparent, letting through views from the river towards the Castel and from the Castel towards the river. The structure becomes a transparent filter between two complementary urban public spaces: the park and the river promenade. On ground level several outdoor pedestrian passages connect the park and the promenade. The building adds a vertical dimension to the horizontality of the site, reflecting the multifaceted and diverse identity of Belgrad and its cultural life. The building becomes a stage for multiple expressions.

Through its linear layout the building leaves a generous space for open-air activities in particular for exhibitions, concerts, events. The buildings elevations become the visual and acoustical backdrop for the open-air stages that can be located on its two sides. The building is designed as a vertical public space, with large open air ramps that makes it possible to reach the top level, the viewing platforms and the connecting bridge to the castle without entering the commercial functions.

Two outdoor promenades goes through the building, while the urban landscape progressively unveils. The promenades culminates on the top terrace with a spectacular view on the river and the Belgrade skyline. Read the rest of this entry »

Quito, Ecuador.January 14th, 2121 – More than a century after the initial dream of MIT architect Mitchell Joachim and his team at Media Lab’s Smart Cities group; the EIT (Ecuador Institute of Technology) discovered the secret for a perfect balance between nature and the built environment.

Three decades of experiments in the Ecuadorian Cloud Forest and 420 billion in governmental funds were spent to arrive to this sensational discovery.

Biodynamic structures can now be grafted onto genetically engineered trees to create the NBH (Nature-Building-Hybrid) Species. After the final breakthrough in the understanding of photosynthesis inner dynamics, buildings are now able to use the energy stored in trees and output refined waste products that are used by the tree to sustain its growth.

New composite materials developed by the Oxman Foundation perfectly integrate with the trees living cells and gradually fade into bio strengthened alloys to form the basic structural substrate for the grafted building units. Read the rest of this entry »

JDS Architects have unveiled the design of a sustainable zoo they’re proposing to be built on the South Korean island of Dochodo. The architecture would serve as a tourist region where nature and structures function in equilibrium. The landscape is ideal for such a development, as it features natural peaks and valleys that could house animals and be treated as nature reserves. The proposed development would have a low ecological impact. The development will be based on zero-emission transport systems and harvest renewable energy for other power needs. Rainwater will be collected and all waste would either be reused or composted for use as biofuel and fertilizer. Read the rest of this entry »

Inspiration came from approaching a “skyscraper” as the achievement of resource densification. Humans are a resource as much as water and energy are, so should the program of a building be designed in a way to densify the resources that are in the greatest demand for its environment.

Using Detroit, Michigan for context, Riparian Urbanism is part of the solution for breathing new life into the starving urban environment. It introduces new opportunity, concentrates and mobilizes existing industries, connects the community in new provocative ways and improves overall quality of life. It cultivates algae for bio-fuel and fertilizer, provides conditioned spaced for urban farming, incubates technology start-ups and is a home to cutting edge research and development. Algae cultivation and urban farming naturally treats and filters wastewater as well as sequesters carbon dioxide through photosynthesis. The program of the building provides innovative space and location attracting human capital to develop and mature ideas into market changing products, catalyzing new industries that will re-use the expanse of abandoned infrastructure. With new technology and design capacity this urban infrastructure emerges not only as a functional necessity but as a formal icon, creating a connection by engaging population through multiple sensory channels. Through that engagement, the structure communicates its purpose and becomes an influential piece of urban evolution – culturally, economically and socially. Similar to the local riparian ecosystems in Michigan national parks the building houses zones or microclimates regulated by their programmatic thermal requirements. Farmland, Biomass, Research Labs, and Office Space come together in a symbiotic building regulating its heat based on the needs of its specific program. The building swells and billows at times of climatic extremes, indicating that its ecosystem is in-fact alive. Read the rest of this entry »

Created by Iraqi born British architect Zaha Hadid for CHANEL in 2007 and commissioned by Karl Lagerfeld, the Mobile Art Pavilion’s opening exhibition showcases a selection of work by the 2004 Pritzker Prize laureate Zaha Hadid, designer of some of the world’s most highly acclaimed projects.

A genuine immersion into the architect’s formal and conceptual repertoire, this exhibition of Hadid’s work is presented within its own architecture. Translating the intellectual and physical into the sensual and using a wide range of media, the Mobile Art Pavilion unfolds through spatial sequences which engage the visitor in unique and unexpected environments.

The Mobile Art Pavilion, donated by CHANEL to the Institut du monde arabe, will allow the institute to further develop its cultural programmes in the field of contemporary creation.

Mobile Art Pavillon: Historic “Zaha Hadid” will be the first exhibition held inside the Mobile Art Pavilion since the installation of the pavilion in front of the Institut du monde arabe. CHANEL donated the pavilion to the Institut du monde arabe at the beginning of 2011. It had previously travelled to Hong Kong, Tokyo and New York since 2007. It will now have a permanent location at the IMA, where it will be used to host exhibitions in line with the centre’s policy of showcasing talent from Arab countries.

“I think through our architecture, we can give people a glimpse of another world, and enthuse them, make them excited about ideas. Our architecture is intuitive, radical, international and dynamic. We are concerned with constructing buildings that evoke original experiences, a kind of strangeness and newness that is comparable to the experience of going to a new country. The Mobile Art Pavilion follows these principles of inspiration.” states Zaha Hadid. Read the rest of this entry »

The Plein & Pavilion project was conceived by the Battery Conservancy to create an extraordinary ‘outdoor living room’ for spontaneous and scheduled activities, public markets, seating and shade, and a gleaming white, state-of-the-art pavilion for visitor information and delicious locally grown gourmet food. Designed by UNStudio in collaboration with Handel Architects LLP, New York serving as associate architect. The project’s landscape was conceived by Parks Dept. Landscape Designer Gail Wittwer-Laird.

UNStudio’s design for New Amsterdam Plein & Pavilion creates a 5,000 square-foot, carefully programmed space located within Peter Minuit Plaza, housing regional organic food by Merchants Market, as well as the Alliance for Downtown New York’s Visitor Information Booth. This highly sculptural pavilion stands as a gateway to the Battery’s park and waterfront, with an expressive, undulating roofline and curving walls; a compact little building with the authority of a major landmark, evoking a flower opening to its surroundings. Read the rest of this entry »

The opening of Scandinavia’s largest hotel symbolizes not only the identity of the modern Ørestad area of Copenhagen, but also marks the Capital’s increasing importance on the international convention and congress scene. The sculptural profile and visibility of the hotel from the various corners of Copenhagen make it an architectural landmark which will draw many visitors to the Ørestad neighbourhood.

With its 814 rooms and 30 conference rooms, the Comwell Bella Sky Hotel offers a wealth of new accommodation and resources for the Bella Convention and Congress Center in Copenhagen. In future this will draw an even larger segment of the international world class conferences and events to Copenhagen. 3XN has designed the Bella Sky Hotel to create a distinct new profile on the Copenhagen skyline, with the two towers reaching up 76,5 meters, and leaning out at a staggering 15 degrees in each direction (11 degrees more than the leaning tower of Pisa). This results in a sculptural building unique in Copenhagen which has started drawing many curious looks from all over the city.

‘We have knowingly worked towards designing a building unlike anything else in Copenhagen – And we did that because Ørestad, which is a new city neighbourhood is also unlike any other place in Copenhagen. Bella Sky is designed specifically to reflect the identity of Ørestad, contributing in a positive manner,’ says Kim Herforth Nielsen, Principal and Founder of 3XN.

3XN has also designed a large portion of the interior, and in that regard has aimed to differentiate itself from other hotels. Read the rest of this entry »

The Austrian hydro power firm Verbund is planning the construction of a new mountain restaurant at 2250m above sea level. The same building is also to house the top terminal for the Reißeck incline railway, as well as information and display areas. The Viennese architects, Zechner & Zechner, have been chosen for the project, from among a field of international competitors.

The new top terminal has been interpreted as constructed landscape, which has developed naturally from the topography. The curving lower part of the station follows the contours of the surrounding landscape, and these are accentuated by their stone materiality. The roof encroaches on the building like a protective overhang of snow. Despite avoiding the usual visual language of alpine construction, this solution has produced a sensitive response to this unique location, and one which also captures the the client’s wish to present themselves as an ecological energy producer. Read the rest of this entry »