ALA Architects, a Helsinki-based firm, supported by Arup Ireland, was announced the winner of the international design competition for a new library. This is a new benchmark for energy consumption in a modern high-technology library facility as the 16,000 m² building will consist almost entirely of public spaces and will serve as the new focal point for the city and Finland’s impressive public library network. It has been estimated that the library will attract 5,000 visitors per day and 1.5 million visitors per year. Read the rest of this entry »

The new Crystal World, designed by studio Asymptote Architecture, is rooted in the spectacular geological conditions of the site of the Changsha EcoTech Resort City in China. The powerful assemblage of the crystalline forms is taking advantage of the unique natural setting, by leaving it as it is. The resort is floating above a new Crystal Mirror lake surrounded by cafes and restaurant along a waterside promenade.

The Waterworld Park houses various programs –swimming pools together with whirl and tiodal pools hang suspended in the vast interior of the park. The environment is highly dynamic due to structures such as water slides and recreational amenities that move through the space.

The contents are facilitated within the geometric volumes; therefore the ones requiring bigger space are housed in joined, contiguous space, as it is the case with Water World. The layering of different program elements creates a microcosm of unique interior environments, ranging from leisure and recreational to​athletic and educational.​ The main attraction of the structure is the multi-story lobby, celebrating snow, ice and water. Each hotel room is a state off the art technological space with custom control of all aspects of the guest’s environment. One of the most spectacular structures of the Crystal World is the indoor ski hill, which intersects the Snow and Ice World and spans the breadth of the quarry. As one looks through the entire building it becomes evident that the interplay of volumes and functions is very dynamic and amusing. The entire structure is carefully placed to minimally impact the surrounding natural condition of the site. Read the rest of this entry »

Aedas designed the 100,000-square-meter Bravo Pazhou mixed-use tower, located in the western portion of Pazhou’s central business district in Guangzhou, China with restaurants and a boutique hotel at the lower levels and office space at the upper floors.

The extraordinary thing about this development is its design to cater two owners in one unified composition. This special request from the clients provides opportunities to explore creative ways to amalgamate specific masses in a single iconic composition.  As a result, the distinction between the functions is visible on the elevation. The whole composition is unified by a semi controlled random fenestration using vertical fins at regular intervals. The top portion of the tower uses a simple but effective gesture that combines observation points with the utility nodes. Read the rest of this entry »

Set to become of Asia’s tallest buildings, new 550m skyscraper is designed by Asymptote Architecture, for Millennium Tower Business Center (WBCB), through the Busan International Architectural Cultural Festival (BIACF), and sponsored by the municipality of Busan City and the Solomon Group. It clearly shows how the once monoform typology of skyscrapers deviated into pluralism and branching structures.

Designed as three independent towers, breaking apart from its unified base, the structure provides strong identity, forming one of the most striking lobbies, looking up at three towering columns to the sky. The independent volumes grow from the tapering form of the base, yet in rigid and defined manner. This landmark piece of architecture however sets new standards regarding aesthetics and high-rise typology.

The towers could also be read as three distinct forms, set against Busan’s dramatic natural surroundings of sea and mountains. The very base of these very tall towers negotiates the site at the ground level while from the top of the midsection the slender towers rise above the sky-lobby level, tapering upwards around a spectacular central void. Read the rest of this entry »

Avoiding Figuration is a final thesis project of Jacques Lesec and Sean Markle, developed at SCI-Arc. In words of the authors, it investigates the perception of figuration and void within a complex field condition. Employed strategies oscillate between 2D and 3D, as a means of augmenting the legibility of volume and other times subverting this perceptual reading.

The aim of the project is to challenge conventional understanding of mass and void within the urban context. The design tries to disrupt current condition within which we tend to perceive the city as a collection of individual instances and iconographic volumes, without further integration. This thesis investigates the possibility to generate visual synthesis across adjacent facades, therefore bringing perceptual integration back into Manhattan’s commercial skyline. It introduces new layers of mass-void relationship.

Starting from the interest in developing a complex field of information, two architects developed a catalogue of perceptual devices, derived from a series of analytic drawings and models. Different techniques proved useful along the process, such as masking, expanding and highlighting, both subverting and confounding diverse perceptual readings, ranging from clear volumetric legibility to the complete erasure of volume. Read the rest of this entry »

The Air Garden for Bradley West Terminal of the Los Angeles International Airport, by design and fabrication studio Ball Nogues, aims to embody the qualities of light and space, unique to Los Angeles. It is without the beginning or the end, like the city itself, it doesn’t even have an inside or an outside, or a back or front. The Air Garden is designed as a serene moment which should be in contrast with the hectic action and movement within the airport space and it is both an object and the atmosphere. Its presence is highly dynamic – it is in constant change as the quality of north and south light changes during the day.

It is impossible to capture this garden from a single point – it is designed to be comprehended by participation of the passengers. In the words of its architects, the components of the assemblage are made of gestural volumes of color hovering within an immense array of catenaries.

The garden is a suspended cloud, inside the north and south light wells, due to its solid particles almost evenly dispersed within in it. The structure is, however, transparent; therefore it doesn’t block viewer’s perspective. While the environment is interspersed with the metallic bead chain catenaries, it is also constructed from the negative space between the catenaries – sight extends into and throughout the building. Read the rest of this entry »

Plasma Studio was invited to contribute to a radical new design concept centered on the question of what would a hotel, where each floor was designed by a different firm, look like? Their answer is the fourth floor of the Hotel Puerta America in Madrid, Spain where the fragmentation of space evolves as guests move through it.

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Aedas recently won a competition to design a bay front, mixed-use development in Wu Yuan Wan, Xiamen, China.

The mixed-use development is composed of a shopping mall, a five-star hotel and two SOHO towers with a total gross floor area of 175,000 square meters. With an aim to become the center piece of a new master plan, it will be a new retail landmark and an integrated complex responding to its surrounding waters. Read the rest of this entry »