Following the long tradition of exquisite Indian Architecture, architects from Dubai based WS Atkins aimed to design a building that would stand as a landmark structure for Mumbai – Namaste Tower represents burgeoning economic and cultural significance of great India. This 62-story, 300m high, newest addition to W Hotel franchise, currently under construction, will include a hotel, office and retail space. The very form of the building is inspired by traditional Indian greeting of “Namaste”, where the hands are clasped together. Reflecting ancient Indian expression, position of two hotel wings represents ultimate symbol of hospitality, welcoming its guests.

Ultra high, the tower will be seen from great distance, therefore the visual appearance of the project is of great importance to the city of Mumbai. The orientation and massing of this skyscraper were designed to benefit from visual relations with the Indian Ocean, Mumbai Peninsula and to adjacent towers, currently constructed.

Guided by the imperative to design the circulation areas of the hotel as impressive as the rooms itself, architects created internal gardens, bringing the greenery into the corridors and atrium spaces. On corridor ends an open spaces offer dramatic and framed view over the city.

As the tower has been designed to offer gala wedding space for Indian Mehndi ceremony, traditional Indian patterns appear as a theme on the building skin. The tower will be clad in fritted glazing, creating sense of transparency and depth to the building, while maintaining required thermal qualities. Regarding the energy efficiency, large scale canopies support solar thermal collectors, with the potential to provide 12% of the energy required to heat the hot water in the hotel. Read the rest of this entry »

The ProtoHouse project was initially developed by Softkill Design, in the Architectural Association School‘s Design Research Lab within the ‘behavioral matter’ studio of Robert Stuart-Smith. It investigated the architectural potential of the latest Selective Laser Sintering technologies, testing the boundaries of large scale 3D printing by designing with computer algorithms that micro-organize the printed material itself. Softkill is now announcing plans for the first actually printed plastic dwelling, which would be assembled in one day.

Market-friendly, one-storey ProtoHouse 2.0 will be eight meters high and fours meters long. This pioneering experiment will be printed in sections in a factory where the fabrication of all pieces will take three weeks. The parts will be small enough to be easily transported in vans and assembled in 24 hours, on site. Extremely light, they simply click together, therefore there’s no necessity for any other material or any bolting, screwing or welding on site.

Due to the ambitions to develop highly optimized prototype, micro-material algorithms were run on sections, in order to test out their performative aspects. The tests resulted with specific density of external branching, which can diffuse light, act as a rain screen or snow collector and insulator. Unlike its precedents in 3D printed structures, which used sand or concrete, Softkill collective insisted on lightweight materials, such as bio-plastics, enabling great level of detail and allows possibility of printing all architectural elements, down to stairs, façade and furniture. Read the rest of this entry »

Ma Yansong of Beijing-based MAD Architects designed latest architectural spectacle in China – the “Sheraton Huzhou Hot Spring Resort”, one of fifty new branches planned by Chinese-based Sheraton Hotel chain, as a part of their strategic aggressive expansion in 2013. Probably the most striking, Sheraton in Huzhou is an unforgettable, enormous ring-like structure, form of layered floors, rising from the south bank of Taihu Lake.

Over 100 meters high and 116 meters wide, this outstanding hotel experience covers an area of 75 acres, providing 321 rooms – 40 suites, 37 villas and presidential suites. The investment of 1.5 billion dollars shows the importance of this endeavor, resulting with total floor area of 95 000 square meters.

Thoughtfully designed, this impressive hotel represents the optimal response to the site parameters and the context in general. Fundamental to the logic of the unique shape of this impressive yet bold design is the idea that the building is comprised of hotel rooms that demand ample natural light and cross ventilation. Moreover, its horizontal section and form ensure view of the lake for every room, regardless of its position. The metal façade becomes live at night – LED light system on the envelope displays colorfully animated textures and patterns, further reflected on the lake surface, creating playful and aesthetically pleasant atmosphere. Read the rest of this entry »

Skidmore, Owings & Merrill’s Infinity Tower in Dubai began construction in 2006 and seven years later the works are almost complete. In architects’ own words, the design for the Tower exemplifies their belief that the exterior form of a high-rise should be a direct expression of its structural framework. In their understanding, great architecture must be more than skin deep and that is reflected as powerfully today in Infinity Tower as in such SOM 20th century landmark designs as Lever House, Sears Tower and John Hancock Center.

The building’s unique, elegant form is its most visually striking feature, reflecting ever-changing shapes of the deserts, winds, and seas that surround it. Positioned perpendicularly to the sea, the building gradually rotates 90 degrees – each floor is rotated 1.2˚ to create a full twist from bottom to top, while maintaining a consistent floor plate. The design had to overcome extreme climate conditions, by efficiently controlling intense desert heat and this winding shape protects interior from the sun, while helps providing excellent views for its residents. Metal panels and screens cladding ensures additional shade from the intense Arabic heat.

The structural system of this 73-storey high skyscraper is a high-strength reinforced concrete column superstructure, cast-in-place. The shape and size of the columns were determined by wind tunnel testing and three dimensional computer modeling to analyze the building’s stresses. Read the rest of this entry »

REX, Brooklyn based practice designed YIBD ‘Project R6’ – vertical residence complex for short-term young business professionals and foreign residents in Seoul, South Korea. In order to compensate for relatively small apartment units – between 40sqm and 60sqm – architects made an additional effort to engender strong sense of community, through the central courtyard and common roof terraces, and perfection in the interior – highest level of user comfort, great views and attractiveness. Moreover, the residences are highly sustainable, being provided the cross ventilation and maximized daylight.

A concrete-encased steel mega-brace, encircling the courtyard, supports shelf-like matrix of walls and floor slabs, defining each unit. The units are flexible – they are equipped with an inserted wooden shell containing a bathroom and a kitchen, while the movable wall can shift within the unit, defining the bedroom or the living room. The wall includes a bed, nightstands, couch, television unit, task lights and storage.

Expectedly, the building is enveloped in high-performance façade, composed of frameless IGUs, which emphasize the remarkable exterior views. The interior, floor to ceiling façade is composed of same IGUs, equipped with black-out and shade roller blinds, which ensure spatial relief and privacy while maintaining community spirit, generated by conversation / reading / play pods, extending into the courtyard. Read the rest of this entry »

This jewel-like building is a competition proposal by Manuelle Gautrand Architecture, for Louis Vuitton landmark boutique in Seoul, South Korea. As the design had to reflect world famous LV brand directly, the transparent sculpture is wrapped in filigree glass curvy panels, each having a pattern – different Louis Vuitton’s 3d monograms. The relation to the glass is rooted in the French tradition of crystal manufacture.

Aiming to create a spectacle experience, the architects thoughtfully studied the promenades, as they were designing a museum – they wanted to emphasize several different ways of cruising through this temple of fashion – regular or irregular, speedy or slowly, patiently or restlessly. Guests are invited into the building by its welcoming transparent presence and the exterior glass elevator can take them directly from the entrance to the café on the top. Read the rest of this entry »

The proposal for “Piraeus Cultural Coast – Museum of Underwater Antiquities” in Piraeus, the ancient Greek port city right outside of Athens, is an outcome of another successful collaboration between PAR Architects and ARUP. Conceived as a landmark, this iconic, world class museum’s openness activates the Cultural Coast District – the aim was to engage unexploited urban potential. In its interaction with the surrounding, the Museum offers robust public space at the rooftop, as an addition to the other buildings in the district and a continuation of plazas and pedestrian pathways. This essential component of the design visually connects Cultural Coast to Piraeus and Athens.

This unique space experience facilitates diverse exhibitions in a continuous loop, forming a spiral, from the lobby to the upper levels of public space. This organization of the exhibition venues offers great flexibility and adaptability to different requirements, leaving open possibilities for generating various contrasting atmospheres:  interior and exterior, covered and open, dark and light, intimate and public. Due to the fact that the large public voids enable antiquities to be viewed from different points forces and encourages interaction between the user and the building. Read the rest of this entry »

Steven Holl Architects has been commissioned to design the Ecology and Planning Museum in Tianjin, China –30 percent constructed, the new Eco City is a cooperation between governments of China and Singapore and is planned the to be the home to population of 500,000, when complete in 2020.

60,000 square meters in total, the museum structure will be the first in the cultural district. Planning museum is the “subtractive” space – the negative to the Ecology museum’s positive, together two museums make a complete box.

Marking the entrance to the Planning Museum, shared public plaza gathers the visitors around the large model of the eco-city and a temporary display area, further directed to the exquisite space experience of great interiors and program sequences, from multimedia system, through the theory and practice zones, to the interactive display on the third floor. The top storey facilitates the green architecture, landscape and water resources exhibits and the access to the vegetative rooftop, offering panoramic views to the future city. Read the rest of this entry »

The design concept for UN Studio’s proposal for National Art Museum in Beijing, China is based on the uniting dualities, complementing each other: day and night, inside and outside, past and future, calm and dynamic, large and small, individual and collective. Its formal expression references ancient Chinese ‘stone drums’, therefore the form of the museum highlights the identity of the country, its spirit and essence. However, wrapped in a contemporary media facade with illuminated art projections, the Museum represents modern interpretation of a precious piece of tradition.

The designers explain that while the architecture of the museum is represented by the ancient artifact of the stone drum, the art within represents its spirit, or its “essence” – in the same way that the agile strokes of ink in a Chinese painting give spirit to a blank piece of paper, the art collection gives spirit to the museum. Read the rest of this entry »

OMA’s entry for 425 Park Avenue competition, awarded to Foster and Partners, in their own words proposes one aesthetics, oscillating between nearly exhausted orthogonality and a still immature curvaceousness. Shohei Shigematsu, in charge of New York office, and Rem Koolhaas were project leaders for the competition that brought together international practices such as Atelier Christian de Portzamparc, Ateliers Jean Nouvel, Herzog & de Meuron, KPF, Maki and Associates, Renzo Piano Building Workshop, Richard Meier, Rogers Stirk Harbour + Partners and Zaha Hadid Architects.

The form of the high-rise was the response to Manhattan’s zoning laws for commercial buildings, requiring a silhouette from which it is almost impossible to escape. OMA’s interpretation was slightly different – the three cubes are connected by curved planes of the envelope, reflecting the city and the sky, and creating smooth transition from cubes of different sizes. Stacked, one on top of another, cubes alter in dimensions – the lowest one is a solid block on Park Avenue while the smallest one is on top, rotated 45 degrees. Read the rest of this entry »