The Helsinki library designed by MenoMenoPiu Architects will be situated in the new green heart of Helsinki. The project will occupy 4500m² of the site. The intention is to replace the existing green that we subtract to the park in a indoor environment perfectly controlled.

We decided to conceive the building as a tree forest enclosed in a climatic box, in which the structure represents the causality of the wood .

The natural organization of the pillars is then reproduced on the glazed envelope that creates the link between nature and architecture, between the light and the shadows.

The transparent facade gives to the building a high visual permeability, allowing the exterior user to follow the internal events and the client to have a strong link with the nature and the sourrounding. The envelope lifts, allowing the life in and through it and reducing the urban limit between Takatoolo park and Alvar Aallon Katu street.

The program develops in a spiral which reaches the green winter gardens just under the roof structure. The slabs system is an open space,that leaves an extreme flexibility to the program organization. Extensible partitions are hidden through all the building in the pillars, giving the opportunity to privatize different elements of the program (client’s office, work room etc.), when needed. Read the rest of this entry »

The design of this temporary installation reinterprets the traditional Chinese garden to activate the roof terrace of the MoCA Shanghai as an undulating and responsive multi-layered landscape. The upper (canopy) layer simultaneously produces gradient spatial conditions and framed viewing portals which curate views of the surrounding hi-rise towers, while the lower (landscape) layer articulates a series of back-lit sculptural ground forms which subdivide the terrace and provide atmospheric effect through responsive color-changing LED lighting effects. Inspired by the work of Frei Otto, the entire project extends his body of design research into physical and digital form-finding processes for minimal surface structures through dynamic mesh relaxation techniques. Read the rest of this entry »

This proposal for the New Contemporary Art Museum (NCAM) in Buenos Aires by Frisly Colop Morales, Jason Easter, and Łukasz Wawrzeńczyk embodies the city’s dynamic cultural vibrancy. The building sits along the Rio de la Plata, plugging into the internationally influenced urban context as an architectural artifact representing the city itself.

The design provides various exhibition and gathering spaces for both programmed and passive interaction between local visitors, tourist and the various exhibits of architecture, painting, sculpture, fashion and textiles. Two such external spaces activate the site and enhance the Puerto Madero waterfront promenade experience. By recessing the corners of the East façade a plaza is created to the South and an amphitheater to the North. A large framed opening in the North elevation holds a dual-direction stage linking the interior auditorium with the exterior amphitheater. Large retractable panel doors enable performances for visitors located inside, outside or both simultaneously.

A second exterior gallery and entry portal is created by lifting the central portion of the building mass. This covered multipurpose space connects the East and West areas of the site, activating circulation around the building and framing the view to the canal. A linear lighting design integrated with the underside of the building to signal the entry and illuminate this area for evening events. The light beneath the form allows the building to stand as a beacon along the promenade. Read the rest of this entry »

The site of the museum is on the banks of the Rio de la Plata in Buenos Aires’ Puerto Madre, the area is a juxstaposition of industrial warehouses, shipping docks, commercial distirct and nearby nature reserves.

The museum’s design by Margot Krasojević attempts to choreograph images and views into the city to highlight the ever expanding definition of what is considered real, diluting the edges between the viewer, exhibits, city fabric and it’s immediate context. The form has no spatial hierarchy creating an ethereal precense, the antithesis of monumentality and the specificity of material place. The architectural gesture is that of a glimpse, a collage of superimposed spaces with no beginning or end, no defined boundary as they are experienced like an edited animation.

The structure consists of a single, laser cut aluminium, semi-monocoque shell, prefabricated off site.The aluminium shell is made up of 3 Meter wide sections welded together, sanded and spray painted white, it appears to float above the circulation giving the impression of weightlessness, the observatory museum’s sole support is the circulatory ramp shaft off which the structure is cantilevered and tied to the dock.

Window wall openings slide back into the shell giving boundless views into and through the museum, like an observatory. The city is brought into the museum. The windows walls are made from toughened laminated glass inclined by 25 degrees so as not to reflect sunlight and glare from the river.

The structure uses the same technology as boat manufacturers, the interior is free of columns providing unobstructed views. The ground floor plane restructures the embankment and dock by bringing the river partly into the design, using a series of locks which flood sunken platforms within the museum when needed. Ramps rise out of the water connecting the main gallery space with the rest of the site intervention. Read the rest of this entry »

Mixed-use vertical farm designed by Brandon Martella for the city of San Diego. The project is located next to the waterfront and the historical Gaslamp district.

Food as a resource is limited. Supply will soon not meet demand. With population growth, food production in the United States is reaching maximum capacity. Current trends in development create a struggle between farming and living. These two practices are modeled for their own benefit and are soon to clash in a disastrous agglomeration. According to the FDA, the average American alone consumes 707.7lbs of fruits and vegetables each year. With the majority of produce coming from the Imperial Valley, Central California Valley, neighboring states and other countries the 30,000 plus residents of San Diego’s central urban context consume 21,231,000 pounds of produce each year. Where will we get our food? Transparency in the food industry needs to occur and enlighten blinded consumers. Our city needs to handle this critical issue with an architecture that responds. Read the rest of this entry »

Along the bustling avenue paseo de la reforma in mexico city, the ‘portal of awareness’ by rojkind arquitectos is a public space that is experienced spatially and while in motion. One of eight projects commissioned by coffee maker nescafe, the basic requirement was to include a maximum of 1,500 metal cups and rebar. this structure attaches 1,497 handled mugs inside of a diagonal mesh of the steel rods, casting dynamic shadows on the sidewalk. Read the rest of this entry »

The Eli and Edythe Broad Art Museum, located at the northern edge of the Michigan State University campus designed by Zaha Hadid, is influenced by a set of movement paths that traverse and border the site. The vitality of street life on the northern side of Grand River Avenue and the historic heart of the university campus at the south side generate a network of paths and visual connections; some are part of the existing footpath layout, others create shortcuts between the city and the campus side of Grand River Avenue. Read the rest of this entry »

The construction of the Afghan museum by Matteo Cainer Architects celebrates the richness of Afghanistan’s cultural heritage and the spirit of its peoples. In a nation devastated by war, the wealth of its cultural background and the spirit of its peoples are embodied here. In spite of the years of conflict and turmoil, the underlying strengths of the country remain intact, embedded in the earth and rising from it.

The new National Museum of Afghanistan awakens the nation’s cultural heritage through powerful symbolic references, where physical fragments and traces inform us of its past. This concept is well illustrated in the “negative spaces” of the artist and sculptor Rachel Whiteread that highlight the memory of an object, rendering the invisible visible through a reversal of solid and void. Here this ‘absent presence’ is found in the day-lit foyer, a tranquil and serene space filled with water and greenery. Entering the main hall, each visitor defines their own experience of the museum, ascending the monumental stairs from the foyer at its heart, aware of the depth of knowledge expressed in the deep recesses of its masonry walls. Read the rest of this entry »

Zaha Hadid Architects has won the international competition to build the new National Stadium of Japan. The Practice, which produced the London Aquatics Centre for the 2012 Olympic Games, was selected ahead of 45 other international architecture firms for the US $1.62bn development.

The announcement was made in Tokyo by celebrated Japanese architect Tadao Ando, who chaired the judging panel. British architects Richard Rogers and Norman Foster were also judges. Making the announcement Mr Ando praised the fluidity and innovation of Hadid’s design and how it complements Tokyo’s landscape. “The entry’s dynamic and futuristic design embodies the messages Japan would like to convey to the rest of the world,” said Mr Ando at a press conference on Thursday. Read the rest of this entry »

X|Atelier is organizing an international intensive workshops of Advanced Architectural Design, part of an ongoing academic research, which introduces participants into contemporary discussions of formal exploration in Architecture and Art, through technical attainment of design and production. Omni(progra)chromatic by X|A is under the auspices of Benaki Museum, the Hellenic Institute of Architecture and the Athens School of Fine Arts. It is an opportunity for architects, students of Architecture and Art, professionals, designers and artists to challenge new territories.

The workshops led by Erick Carcamo and Nefeli Chatzimina -principals of X|A- will be held at the Benaki Museum in Athens 138 Pireos st, with daily meetings from 10am to 6pm.

Our goal is to explore innovative, potential architectural expressions of the current discourse around Form through computational tools (Autodesk MAYA). We will focus on technique elaboration, material intelligence, formal logic efficiencies and precision assemblies as an ultimate condition of design. The workshop will develop and investigate the notion of proficient geometric variations at a level of complexity, so that questions towards geometrical effectiveness, accuracy and performance can begin to be understood in a contemporary setting. The workshop is a discourse based in the use of multi-layered techniques and production processes that allow for control over intelligent geometries, calibration of parts, and behavioral taxonomies, normalizing an innovative held of predictability. We will focus simultaneously in the attempt to negotiate the question of topology vs. typology, odd genus (Greek.γένος) and species within the condition of space and how fragmented surface state emerges through, constituting a potential assembly of parts and quantified normalities. Within this context, our work will turn into design and production each student will operate within an expertise towards intuition by means of software and advancement of the discipline through a precise contemporary understanding of Architecture’s reliance on surface performance, unspecified systems, scale within the scale, mechanical parts and absurd precisions to expand its discourse. Read the rest of this entry »