The Palace of Justice in Amsterdam, Netherlands, by Claus en Kaan Architecten is designed to be autonomous complex, recognizable in its presence. The exterior walls of this landmark piece are light, almost abstract, therefore adding universal and timeless quality to this massive architectural monument. The Magistrates Court and the Public Prosecutor co-habit in the Western IJ-dock complex, but clearly organized – each function is accommodated in separate volume and connected with one another by the walkway on the central fifth floor.

The abstract character of the façade is efficiently activated by applying very bright materials, white or light grey – natural stone, ceramic elements, whitewashed concrete, powder-coated steel plate and glazed brick. The glass openings, providing great panoramic views over the city and the docks are placed at the same plane as the outer walls, so the transition from one material to another is smooth and seamless.

The design is actually a compromise with the master plan of the area, done by Van Gameren and Mastenbroek, the given spatial envelope and the budget limitations. However, the architects managed to overcome the strict conditions and to provide the design they aimed for. Read the rest of this entry »

1 Park Avenue is a 550-meter, 116-story tower in Dubai, designed by Adrian Smith and Gordon Gill Architecture. The development, with a trio of podium buildings as a base, is a signature design for Dubai’s Jumeira Gardens. Undulating sculptural form of the skyscraper, as a string of pearls – traditionally harvested and traded in Dubai for generations – ensures poetic and evocative appearance of this landmark architecture.

1 Park Avenue is also a representative example of cutting-edge sustainable design. The transparent skin of the skyscraper features a high-performance exterior wall, controlling the heat transfer and light from outside, with the combination of the high-tech system of light shelves and light-sensor-activated shades. Shading fins jut out above each floor, shading the glass beneath, which allows for a more transparent curtain wall and adds visual texture to the building skin. The façade comes with the integrated photo voltaic cells, which harvest solar energy.

The complex houses premium office space, condominiums and service apartments, along with high luxury hotel, on 600,000-square-meters of space. Three podium buildings, whose form complements the form of the tower, facilitate offices and support for the hotel. Read the rest of this entry »

The apocalyptic-ally looking project, done at SCI-Arc, by Austin Samson and Danny Karas, is an investigation on manipulation of the three dimensional space, by two-dimensional drawings or images. Conventional drawing techniques were used as tools, such as hatching to present shade and shadow. The primary aim of the project was to explore the new ways of understanding how designers create and read projects – through orthographic images and the two dimensional projection of three dimensional objects. The whole project is about the drawing and its successful and possible translation into other mediums.

Projection in orthographic view is one of the standard techniques used in as a tool for creating imagery. Animated projection was also used – the authors were projecting animated shadow movements onto a sectional relief model in order to produce an object whose depth is continuously changing and being altered.

The geometry of the project was created first from the outside, and the inside came as a secondary process. The exterior geometry is designed as convex, multi-sided object, which has been smoothed in order to remove the hard edges. Instances of shadow were interpreted and painted on the outside so the levels of ambiguity within the object would be produced, moments where the author is not sure if the geometry extends into darkness or brightness or if it stops short. The inside of the object is clearly separated from the outside – the squares are intersected by sphere, allowing us to understand the difference between a hard and soft. Read the rest of this entry »

Sériès et Sérièes, French-Californian practice, in successful collaboration with engineering partner Buro Happold did a proposal for Taiwan’s Taichung City Cultural Center. The project is rooted in architects’ vision of how the urban interventions of new age have to be – they have to have minimal environmental impact and very high visibility, in order to have the strength and power to shift the perceptions of a neighborhood and to change the common thought into the realm of what is possible to be done but has never been done before.

Due to the fact that the authors from Sériès et Sérièes believe in a fact that the success of the cultural center lies in the ability of the built environment to actually inspire the residents to look beyond the common and expected, materialistic and the easily consumed, in favor of the stimulating and daring. The the Taichung Fine Arts Museum and Library is designed to become a sustainable landmark.

In order to become a landmark, the form of the project resists easy classification – it avoids the association with successive symbols of the industrial, the abstract, the utilitarian and the poetic. It is done in mixing maximum efficiency with maximum artistry. The building takes a geometrical stand in relation to the surroundings and creates a microcosm of the natural environment within public space, as a reference to the natural landscape of Taiwan, known for its various altitudes and diverse microclimates. Read the rest of this entry »

This year’s Serpentine Gallery Pavilion is designed by multi award-winning Japanese architect Sou Fujimoto. He is the youngest, at 41, to accept the invitation to design one of the most famous temporary structures worldwide – the Sepentine’s annual Pavilion commission is one of the most important events on the cultural calendar.

Architect stated that he tried to create something – of course really artificial – but nicely melding together with the surrounding, in order to create a nice mixture of nature and architecture. The grid is artificial and sharp, transparent, but the atmosphere created is blurring and ambiguous, cloud-like. Therefore beautiful duality is created – artificial order and natural order.

The white, cloud-like, blurry structure of the Serpentine Gallery in Kensington Gardens is made in white lattice of steel poles. As the grid varies in density, it sometimes frames while sometimes obscures the surrounding park, depending on the visitors moving around it. Transparent polycarbonate enables the structure to act like a shelter from the rain, while creating a reflecting layer for the sunlight.

Technical drawings and technical designed services for 2013 Pavilion is provided by AECOM – David Glover, AECOM’s global chief executive has worked on the design of many previous structures for the Serpentine Gallery. Read the rest of this entry »

Sweden based studio Belatchew Arkitekter proposed a concept for the transformation of the Stockholm skyscraper into a wind farm. The aim was to covering the building in thousands of electricity-generating bristles – the plastic straws would generate electric energy using piezoelectric effect.

Söder Torn on Södermalm in Stockholm is a 26-story high-rise, initially designed to be 14 floors higher. Therefore, the architects at Belatchew Arkitekter wanted to restore the building’s original proportions and proposed the extension, while exploring the new techniques for creating the urban wind farm. Covering the façade in thin straws can produce energy through movements, generated by wind. The success of this concept would open up the possibility of widely applying this kind of technique and would change the way we think of ways the buildings can actually produce energy, itself.

The architects were additionally interested in transforming the common notion about the facades, as static building elements, by proposing a moving spectacle, an undulating landscape which also happens to be productive. The constant change of the façade is further reinforced during the night with the lighting in changing colors. Read the rest of this entry »

Designed by Adrian Smith and Gordon Gill Architecture, 505 Church Street in downtown Nashville, Tennessee, is going to be one of the most energy-efficient and sustainable mixed-use buildings in the world. This 605-feet-tall, 1.2 million-square-foot building is designed to achieve LEED Platinum rating and attracts tenants in search for high-performance, technologically advanced commercial, hotel and conference space with lowest energy costs and environmental impact. The design meets the aggressive energy use intensity goals of the 2030 Challenge – an internationally recognized challenge for architecture practices to design more energy efficient buildings in order to minimize energy consumption, moving towards zero fossil fuel usage by the year 2030.

Unique form of the building, environmentally strategic site orientation, along with double-skin façade, integrated photo voltaic panels, solar shading, under-floor air distribution, sky-gardens and wide range of cutting-edge building systems are working in synergy, ensuring great energy savings and one of the most technologically advanced building experiences.

The double skin of the high-rise, on the southwest façade, features internally ventilated cavity, which captures solar heat in warm months and exhausts it up and out of the building, reducing cooling loads for the interior and vice versa – in cold months, the warm air is collected inside the interstitial space. The south façade is designed with a self-shading, horizontally folding curtain wall with integrated photo voltaics, exposed to the sun. Read the rest of this entry »

The project of Eccentric Housing is done at SCI-Arc, as a research on an object integrated in a city block. The aim of the authors, Spike Liu and Mark A. Santa Ines was to develop a unit interlocking strategy which would integrate in section, composing neighborhoods within a hinged bar, but coming as a massing that would still remain undefined as a housing project.

In order to overcome standard issues of a typical bar-shaped building in a city block, the design promotes the dynamic and improved single massing that is contorted into the site in both plan and section. In plan, it contorts into a courtyard with one end of the bar penetrating it while in section it contorts over and below itself diagonally, producing an irregular mass that still manages to adhere to none of its edges. Therefore the access to light and air is enabled on the east and west.

The units of the proposed building are multi-leveled, allowing for circulation level with access throughout and another private one, therefore all the units are organized into at least two primary zones. The apartment units are designed as self-interlocking. Architects wanted to create a system in which the units would be wrapped around the infrastructure, allowing uniform access to utilities from every unit. Read the rest of this entry »

Tensioned Relaxations by Synthesis Design + Architecture (SDA) is a series of temporary deploy-able outdoor structures, that aim to reinvent the typical street fair tent through their combination of dynamic form, optical effects, aesthetics and variable configurations. Every structure has a uniquely sensual, continuous form made of a tensioned HDPE Mesh skin, overlapped with great artwork by urban artists at SA Studios / SA-UP Collective and a perimeter ring made of fiberglass rod.

Playful effect of the outdoor piece of art is conceived in synergy of structure’s organic form, perforated mesh and silk-screened skin. The structure is surely providing striking graphic identity to New York’s Street Fest – it enables numerous configurations to accommodate a multiplicity of activities, while encouraging visual and spatial interaction. The colorful urban attraction accommodates wide range of activities, from vendors, workshop areas, outdoor classrooms, demonstrations, installations, music to other performances and exhibitions. Read the rest of this entry »

The Music and Dance Center in Ashkelon, Israel, by is a two-purpose building – one wing of this assembly, resembling of stacked boxes one on top of another, is dedicated to dance and another to music. The two uses are separated by form – one volume is facilitating Music Conservatory, while another is a home to Ballet Academy and School of Dance. Moreover, the design hosts libraries, exhibition spaces, places for leisure and studios for dance and music students. However, both volumes share common function – each comprises a large theater. The stages of the theaters are designed for daily use – music and dance performances and rehearsals.

The spacious entrance hall, located between two main entrances, separates but also joins together the music and dance wings, constantly reminding of their fatal and eternal interconnection. The entrance lobby is acting as a reception area. The lobby also serves as an additional exhibition area for contemporary artists.

The functions are installed vertically – each is visible and is a part of sculptural assemblage. Rooftop gardens offer great panoramic views from this stacked tower, and serve also as relaxation areas. Read the rest of this entry »