Chyutin Architects won the international competition to design the new Museum of Tolerance in Jerusalem.

Architect’s vision:

The Museum of Tolerance is located at the heart of modern Jerusalem, in its rejuvenated city center, on the borderline between the spacious Independence Park, and the urban built environment. The location is a meeting site of three main streets which differ in character and function. Hillel street: a bustling commercial zone; Moshe Ben Israel street: a road crossing the park; and Moshe Salomon street- Nachalat Shiva’s pedestrian mall, a tourist hub, full of restaurants and shops.

The buildings surrounding the museum site have diverse architectural characteristics, representing the history of Jerusalem architecture from the 19th century up today. We wanted the MOTJ building to be integrated into the landscape without overshadowing the preexisting urban setting on the one hand, while asserting its own unique character on the other, an iconic structure that reflects transparency and openness and generates visual interest at close and distant views. The MOTJ is to act as a bridge between the different architectural styles present in its location on one hand, while stylistically using contemporary architectural language and exploring advanced technology and materiality. We wanted the MOTJ building to stand in the warm embrace of the urban fabric and the park around it, shinning as a jewel set to the skyline of Jerusalem. Read the rest of this entry »

The proposed vision of the new Innovation Tower presents a unique opportunity to re-examine and address a creative, multidisciplinary environment. Zaha Hadid concept collects the variety of programmes of the school. Having undergone a strict process of examination of the multiple relationships amongst their unique identities they have been arranged in accordance to their ‘collateral flexibilities’. Priority lies in the drawing in of the campus staff, students and public into a welcoming new space that acts as both the building’s entrance and organiser for the existing complex.

The first architectural gesture is to raise the landscape of the existing football field and tennis grounds, so as to place the main pedestrian entrance of the new school building on a level open to it’s immediate context at podium level. The free ground below becomes accessible from the established main campus route (Yuk Choi Road) to proposed workshops, parking and access to future development on ‘Phase 8’. The new Innovation Tower on podium level is established as an open public foyer that channels deep into the building through a column-free, open showcase forum. The long integrated path from Suen Chi Sun Memorial Square guides the visitor to the main entrance and from here, a generous and welcoming space openly leads its visitors access to supporting public facilities (shop, cafeteria, museum) through a generous open exhibition ‘showcase’ spanning over two levels between podium and ground level.

Dress Code is an elementary school designed by French architectural firm Complex City in Fréchy, Switzerland – a delightful site surrounded by farming areas and beautiful hills. The focal point of the project is the outer skin inspired by local patterns of embroidery. Olivier Brouillard, the principal at Complex City, studied solar and wind exposures to create a façade module that resembles the region’s artistic heritage and protects the interior from the extreme weather and light conditions – the membrane filters the elements and creates a cellular connection between exterior and interior. The project is a playful composition of space, color, light, and geometries that is attractive to children and responds to the local culture. Read the rest of this entry »

The Peace Pentagon is an initiative in New York City that promotes Peace through food. Chefs from war torn areas around the globe are invited to share their food and culture with New Yorkers. “Thirty-two Tents” is the winning proposal by Austrian studio Sphere Architecture to design the Peace Pentagon Building in lower Manhattan.

Architects vision:

A new shape for this building can succeed only as a visible restatement of its most basic assumptions. But a building embodies basic assumptions best when it effectively restructures its entire environment— even as economically, socially, and architecturally diverse environment as lower Manhattan! The original building will double in size. The white superstructure amplifies its dimensions, both transforming the impression it makes and reconfiguring its surroundings. Read the rest of this entry »

This project is the postgraduate thesis designed by Liu Chien Sheng. It is a cathedral proposal for Vienna as a new idea for societal multi-function, and the development of sanctity and form. The site is located in St. Stephen’s Cathedral which is the center of economy, culture, and traffic for the city.

New cathedrals integrates the surrounding societal functions, such as religious, art, commercial activities, tourism and traffic system. The church of this project is placed on the ground floor, theaters and department store on the upper floor of the basement. All the layers are divided by glass floor, and thus, the activities in different level generate visual overlap by the transparence of glass floor. People can experience the new cathedral through variety of spaces. This design is more appropriate style for the cathedral which is required to have multiple functions in modern human life.

The form of architecture comes from the reserved altar structure of St. Stephen’s Cathedral. After defining the principle of the transformation, the basic column structure was reformed into various types and generates the spaces in different parts of columns to accomplish the catalogs of typologies. Read the rest of this entry »

Out of over 715 submissions from 55 countries, a jury consisting of architects Daniel Liebeskind, Richard Meier, Wendy Evans Joseph, and holocaust scholars James E. Young, Paul B. Winkler, and Clifford Chanin, selected Julian King architect as one of six finalists for the Atlantic City Boardwalk Holocaust Memorial – winner will be announced in November.

An ethereal wall of over 100,000 glass bottles representing those who survived the Nazi death camps, each with a personal message, rises out of the sand as a glimmering beacon of hope and testament to human resilience in the face of atrocity.

A call is put out for letters and photographs of the survivors, their words and images to be etched into solid bottles cast from recycled glass. Local students participate in the preliminary assembly of the bottle walls, which are then bound together in an innovative post tensioned design. Built by the community and the world, the memorial attests to the fragile but enduring bonds of humanity. Read the rest of this entry »

SOMA Architects and Park51 developer Sharif el-Gamal just unveiled a new set of renderings of the controversial Mosque proposal near Ground Zero in New York City. The project is planned to be a 15-story Islamic community center estimated to cost around $140 million -investment would come from various real-estate companies in Dubai.

The mosque will include a $17 million prayer space in the basement, a memorial, and recreational facilities. Gamal’s idea is to recover the investment by offering high-end amenities including swimming pool, gym, and spa to affluent New Yorkers – memberships would start at $2,700 per year.

SOMA’s design features a structural façade based on Arabic geometric patterns that create an interesting play between solids and voids. Read the rest of this entry »

List of the world’s 10 tallest building proposals.

Burj Mubarak Al Kabir
Madinat Al Hareer, Kuwait
234 floors
1001 meters (3284 ft)

Read the rest of this entry »

The Seoul Tea Service is the latest product design by Zaha Hadid Architects, which was commissioned by NY Projects in 2009. The service is made out of ceramic while the textured case that resembles a spaceship is carbon fiber. The fluid and dynamic form of the set is based on the exploration of movement through space. Read the rest of this entry »

Polish architectural firm Studio Architektoniczne Kwadrat won the first place in the international competition to design the World War II Museum in Gdansk, Poland.

Architect’s description:

To fit in the historic part of the city, and creating a form that may become its icon at the same time, we had to make a compromise between its forma and monumentality, being careful with its impudence and aggressiveness. We wanted the architecture to be a delicate suggestion rather than strong quotation for the World War II tragedy. That is how the idea of dynamic, expressive form had been brought to live, tearing apart the symbolic and dramatic shell covering the world, created by the war. The design of the form is to be undefined by one literally meaning. It may be discovered in many ways by each and every individual viewer. Read the rest of this entry »