Conceived as an extension of the Austrian National Library, the Chris Prechteck’s design proposal contains a number of cultural and educational facilities. Situated in the baroque settings of Vienna, in the vicinity of the Hofburg Palace, the building attempts to blend into the surroundings by creating a single spiraling gesture. Straddling the border of a nearby park, it contributes to the continuity of open public spaces by housing much of its content underground. Public circulation is uninterrupted by the extension, as a curvilinear roof garden in created at the top. The main entrance is accessible by vehicles through a drop-off and fire emergency line placed under the arch. Gradually descending towards the entrance, visitors are intuitively directed to the foyer, and into the programs. The project offers 1,200 square meters of exhibition space as well as 600 square meters of multifunctional facilities, creative studios, restaurants and shops.

Its faceted façade is reminiscent of the decorative ornamentation of baroque architecture. The mosaic form of crystal-like openings allows natural lighting to filter through the interior, creating strong light-and-shade contrasts. The seamless structure of the extension generates a discreet curvature in the urban landscape, offering a different spatial experience from each perspective, whether from the interior or from the street level. Read the rest of this entry »

Between monument and building, the proposal for the Gdansk World War II Museum Competition by Mack Scogin Merrill Elam Architects attempts to translate notions of conflict and peace into the sensory language of masses and forms. In addition to offering the expected range of exhibition and educational spaces, it focuses on portraying the duality of human nature. The concept of contrasts is consistently expanded by opposite treatment of building and landscape.

Monumental threes surrounding the building are part of the Bialowieza forest, one of the remaining parts of the immense primeval forest which once spread across the European Plain. During the war it served as refuge for Polish and Soviet partisans.  It played a significant part in, as the architects state, “maintaining the continuity of Polish identity in times of political turmoil”. Flowing from below the hovering building, fractured paths extend towards the landscape and lead to small outdoor exhibits, as if discovering lost and found traces of the Great War. Read the rest of this entry »

Developed by the german architects stadiumconcept for the FIFA World Cup 2022 the Floating Off-Shore Stadium represents an extraordinary and ambitious concept – it can be regarded being the most sensational stadium solution since the emergence of modern sport arenas. The Floating OffShore Stadium is a swimming construction that can be relocated to seaside venues across the oceans.

Due to its global mobility it can be utilised by far more effectively as traditional stadiums as it could serve for more than one, for example, FIFA tournament. By shipping to the next venue this concept offers a visionary way to maximise the utilisation of long-term investments without sacrificing the efficient use of energy resources – the Floating OffShore Stadium is eco-efficiently powered by a blend of hybrid energies such as water, wind and solar power.

Its mobility and multi-decade utilisation and overall eco-efficiency bring significant advantages over traditional, on-shore stadium concepts. This concept consequently offers new ways for enjoying permanent financial profits for investors over a long period of time and public stakeholders alike – but at least it is created to enjoy the people around the world. Read the rest of this entry »

GSI Tower is designed by Sanzpont Arquitectura, and will be located in Cancun, Mexico. This 20-storey building will house a shopping mall, hotel and offices, and consists of 2 vertical bodies that meet at the top by 2 habitable bridges with an interior garden to form a large frame of the natural landscape.

The Building is protected from the sun on the western face with a ventilated façade made of alucobond in the form of fish scales, indirect natural light is filtered inside between the horizontal louvers of its perimeter. In the eastern façade, the building skin is designed with a set of serigraph, sandblasted and transparent glass that take advantage of the natural views of the Golf Course and the Caribbean Sea. It gives the city an elevated public square that generates an urban green balcony. As an added value, the building allows the public to continue to rise even more, because it has a restaurant lounge at the top level. With all this, the vertical infrastructure integrates with the city life and urban environment. Read the rest of this entry »

The Olympic Velodrome designed by Hopkins Architects, one of the four permanent venues on the Olympic Park and designed for the indoor track cycling events at the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games won the Architects’ Journal Building of the Year award. The facility was unilaterally agreed upon by judges for the prize due to its “near perfect synthesis of form and function”, as described by jury member Patrik Schumacher of Zaha Hadid Architects.

The jury, which also comprised Frank Duffy (DEGW) and Christine Murray (AJ editor), were particularly impressed by the beauty of the cedar cladding, the ingenious lightweight double cable-net roof, the dominance of natural light and the Velodrome’s beauty in section.

Last year, Hopkins’ Kroon Hall at Yale University received the Building of the Year award. Read the rest of this entry »

The stunning design by Japanese-based architects Kengo Kuma and Associates was selected by an international jury as the choice for the V&A at Dundee following an extensive process of consultation and evaluation, including meeting with all the architects and their teams, visiting their existing buildings, and establishing the feasibility of the project to meet the tight timescales and budget.

The public’s views were given serious attention in the process after thousands of individuals completed questionnaires and commented on the proposals. 15,000-plus people visited the exhibition and many more viewed it online.

Reaction to the six shortlisted proposals was not confined to the world of design but went right back to the man on the street – on the same day that Vogue.com ran an article on Kengo Kuma & Associates, the Dundee United Football Club supporters blog buzzed with positive opinion on the winning design.

The chosen design (which references the V&A at Dundee’s celebrated neighbour, the RRS Discovery) is a striking building that will come to represent Dundee and has the potential to be one of Europe’s most iconic buildings. Once built, the building itself will appear to ‘float’ on the water. Read the rest of this entry »

The Museum of Ocean and Turf designed by Steven Holl and Solange Fabiao is ready to open its doors in June 2011.

The building form derives from the spatial concept “under the sky”/“under the sea”. A concave “under the sky” shape forms the character of the main exterior space, the “Place de l’Océan.” The convex structural ceiling forms the “under the sea” exhibition spaces. The building’s spatial qualities are experienced already at the entrance where the lobby and ramps give a broad aerial view of the exhibition areas, as they pass along the dynamic curved surface that is animated by moving image and light.

The precise integration of concept and topography gives the building a unique profile. Towards the ocean, the concave form of the building plaza is extended through the landscape. With slightly cupped edges, the landscape, a mix of field and local vegetation, is a continuation of the building and will host festivals and daily events that are integrated with the museum facilities. Read the rest of this entry »

Winnipeg is a city of 600,000 residents located on the Canadian prairie. It is the coldest city of its size outside of Siberia. Winter can last six months. So learning to celebrate winter – learning to take advantage of the opportunities that winter provides – makes sense.

The Red and the Assiniboine Rivers meet in the centre of the city, and in winter, when plowed of snow, skating trails many miles long are created. But with temperatures that drop to minus 30 and 40 for long periods of time, and winds that can make minus 30 feel like minus 50, creating opportunities to find shelter from the wind greatly enhances the ability to use the river skating trails. Therefore, a program has developed to sponsor the design and construction of temporary shelters located along the skating trails. Our proposal consists of a cluster of intimate shelters, each accommodating only a few people at a time. They are grouped in a small ‘village’ (or ‘herd’, or ‘school’, or ’flock’, or ‘flotilla’) to form a collective … of ‘something’ … irreducible to a single interpretation. They stand with their backs to the wind like buffalo, seeming to have life and purpose as they huddle together shielding each other from the elements.

Each shelter designed by award-winning Patkau Architects is formed of thin, flexible plywood which is given both structure and spatial character through bending/deformation. Skins, made of 2 layers of 3/16th inch thick flexible plywood, are cut in patterns and attached to a timber armature which consists of a triangular base, and wedge shaped spine and ridge members (the ridge is a line to negate the gravity loads of snow). Experiments in our workshop with a full-scale prototype mapped the stresses of bending. Stress points were relieved by a series of cuts and openings. The form of the shelter is a resultant of this process of stressing/deforming and then releasing stress. Read the rest of this entry »

Proposal by Sanzpont Arquitectura for the Beton Hala Waterfront. Arches of the Belgrade Fortress have been reinterpreted to form a modern and iconic arcade linking the past with the present and future. The Green Slopes from Kalemegdan Park have been the main inspiration for creating a green building to expand the city’s natural landscape. Sava River Waveforms spread inland to create an elevated panoramic walkway integrated with the existing building.

Urban Design: A Park that brings together Visitors and Locals

Kalemegdan Park Expansion to the River Sava by a green roof building that extends the garden and recreational areas of the city. The green skin minimizes environmental impact, preserving the natural landscape of the site. Urban Connections to the City’s Past and Present where pedestrians can move freely in all directions without crossing with cars and trains. Through a central plaza, the project creates an urban node and a reference point that connects all the spaces. Scenic viewpoints at different levels that take advantage of views of the river and the city, making the journey a pleasant walk. Read the rest of this entry »

With a relaxed, yet stylish interior strategy for the Bella Sky Hotel’s rooms, reception and conference rooms, 3XNs design aims were to give guests the impression of arriving at a tasteful Scandinavian home.

The Best from Nordic traditions

‘Although Bella Sky is the Nordic region’s largest hotel, we have done everything to ensure that the hotel doesn’t give the typical impersonal and formal feeling that so often defines large hotels,’ says 3XN Architects’ founder and partner, Kim Herforth Nielsen. ‘Therefore, we decided to interpret the overall theme as New Nordic Cool. We looked at how Scandinavians approach the design of their homes, how they live – and then chose the best of our design tradition for the Bella Sky Hotel. Key words for us were simplicity, functionality and high quality, both in design and materials.’

Therefore anything synthetic was banned in the selection of materials for the hotel’s 814 rooms. Carpets are in wool, bed sheets in high thread count cottons, and there is a prevailing use of natural materials such as smoked oak and leather found throughout the décor. The smokey colour palette gives the rooms warmth and at the same time creates references to the Nordic nature, which is evident from the hotel views over the nature park, ‘Amager Common.’ Read the rest of this entry »