The AA Visiting School is a worldwide network of design workshops and other programmes organised by the Architectural Association School of Architecture. The event will take place in Bilbao from July 23rd to August 5th, focusing on new lectures over territorial macro and micro scales.

We have 20 scholarships for our readers interested on this activity, you just need to send us your CV/portfolio and a statement explaining why you would like to participate in this event. For more details read below.

The workshop will explore the question of ‘place’ or ‘topos’ and its radical transformation in the recent years due to the proliferation and availability of environmental parameters. Departing from the notion of ‘computing,’ understood as information processing, strategies of ‘data mining’ and ‘indexing’ will be proposed as sensible readings of the site and the territory.

The breeding of local environmental parameters will generate new forms of architectural agency and expression. Diverse mechanisms will be used to materialize ‘invisible’ information such as environmental and social conditions, users’ preferences, digital information, etc. The capture of ‘local’ data will be done through the use of sensors, site specific simulations and rss feeds which will be used to capture information in the ‘network’. The workshop will provide the students with technical support to use microprocessors and sensing technologies. Each team will be looking at one main environmental parameter, in its broader sense, such as sun light, programmatic densification, urban flux, users’ data collected from urban behavioural patterns, potential energetic consumption/production, etc to synthesize ‘Datascapes’ that will feed into the projects. These ‘Datascapes’ will be built from the following devices, software and strategies. Read the rest of this entry »

Mecanoo Architecten won second prize in a competition to design a theater and performing arts center in West Kowloon, Hong Kong. Kowloon is an old city district in Hong Kong with a history that dates back to the Southern Sung Dynasty. Located opposite Victoria Harbor, the district has retained an urban quality that is distinct. It is an energetic, dynamic place where improvisation supersedes planning. The stacked and partly cantilevered form of the theater complex is integrated into this dynamic urban fabric on different levels by blending city and building in an innovative way.  At 20 meters above street level, New Temple Square provides a space for community events that promote the experience of Chinese opera.  The double-height transparent foyer on the ground floor also draws connections by revealing the life of the facility.

Xiqu Center is organized into two distinct parts with the professional theater program located on the lower levels and on the higher levels the educational program including a lobby, a flexible black box theater, two tea house dinner theaters that overlook the skyline of Hong Kong, catering and commercial shops. New Temple Square is located between the professional and educational functions and is connected to the adjacent buildings via a ramping system. By stacking the professional and educational programs there is both a clear organizational separation and simultaneous stimulation of exchanges and encounters.

The façade enhances the appearance of the complex with its vibrant display of alternating lines of glass and steel with engraved images of Chinese Opera. The fly tower of the main hall is surrounded by a media façade that enlivens the elevated square. The square is 12 meters in elevation, with columns sized to increase available space in the square – large enough to accommodate a traditional bamboo theater, normally found in squares around West Kowloon.

The main theater has a proscenium with uncompromising sight-lines for all visitors and is designed for non-amplified performances. The balconies provide an intimate atmosphere for viewing. The black box theater is located in the upper levels of the building supporting the educational program located here. Due to its high degree of flexibility many layouts are possible that support a wide range of styles and programming. Read the rest of this entry »

During the time of Chinese traditional Lantern Festival, people offer good wishes and pray for blessing in the coming New Year. To celebrate properly, J.J.Pan and Partners’ proposal for the “Ring of Celestial Bliss” is based on the Chinese saying of “Blessing as high as the sky”. The design is therefore suggesting the immense happiness brought on by the ideal combination of the pragmatic and idealistic sides of technology.

Seen from the outside, the lantern appears as a glowing object, hovering in the night, supported by the specially designed steel structure. From inside, one finds himself surrounded by a ring of ever-moving projected images produced by the latest projection technology and LED lighting, which serve as a metaphor for nature’s endless cycle of life and inspires prayers for the future. Furthermore, the shifting inclination of the screen leads to a more dynamic viewing experience and is the culmination of determination and ingenuity when faced with a complex design challenge.

The choice of form and materials for the lantern is inspired by the historical and cultural characteristics of Hsinchu, whose ancient name was “City of Bamboo Walls”. While reusable steel is utilized as the primary structural material, the outer cladding is consisted of bamboo trunks. The inner projection screen is made of recycled materials and bamboo sections are used as a permeable flooring material. The locally sourced construction materials have the additional benefit of being environment-friendly with a reduced transportation carbon footprint.

“Ring of Celestial Bliss” is highly inspired by local characteristics and realized with Taiwanese technology and design. Read the rest of this entry »

Mecanoo designed a 260,000 m² ecological urban building complex at China’s first special economic zone of Shenzhen. Situated at the foot of the beautiful Tanglang Hills, Tanglang Towers are perfectly placed to capture the busy flows streaming along the number 5 Huan Zhong metro line and major new roads circling downtown Shenzhen. Together, the four towers differing in heights form a noble and elegant composition that will become the landmark of city. Tanglang Towers center is also a world within itself in which the individual programmatic elements – hotel, commercial center, offices, residences and underground parking – work harmoniously and synergistically. A series of stunning atria, a striking sky lobby, a rich green roof garden, and a spectacular central patio will turn Tanglang Towers into more than just a rest-stop along the Huan Zhong metro line or a local center for the surrounding neighborhoods.

The entire complex is based on an 8.4m square grid enriched by a series of circular spaces which create the entrances, atria and patios. The Metal Patio forms the vibrant heart of the Tanglang Towers complex. The patio is gently inclined to create a natural amphitheater, much the same as with the Piazza del Campo in Siena, Italy. This provides the setting for a myriad of activities; from dance performances to public celebrations. The shopping mall consists of anchor stores, retail stores, cafes, restaurants, a cinema and a supermarket.

The facade concept of the towers is based on a pixel pattern which gently fades from more closed to more open on the higher levels. This matches the distribution of increasingly luxurious housing categories on the higher levels of the towers. The pixels are made from panels of four different materials: glass, concrete, metal – solid and perforated, and photovoltaic cells. The combination of these materials creates a rich and glittering impression. Tanglang Towers aims for a 3-Star Chinese Green Building Evaluation Label, and includes measure like photovoltaic cells integrated on south facade, green roof gardens for water retention, cleaning air and creating biodiversity and concrete mass activation. Read the rest of this entry »

World’s tallest skyscrapers could be built in Wuhan, China. British architectural practice Chetwoods proposed Phoenix Towers – iconic landmark within an ambitious environmental master plan for the capital of central China. At one kilometer high the Phoenix Towers will be the tallest pair of buildings in the world. Arching bridge-like over the surrounding boulevards, each tower will have a unique personality and attributes: the Feng tower will lean towards the commercial zone, the Huang tower towards the cultural and recreational zone.

The project’s key emphasis is on the harmonious combination of 21st century Western technological know-how and experience with Chinese tradition and culture. In response to the Client’s wish to develop a new style of architecture that emphasizes Chinese identity, the use of a pair of towers reflects the dualist elements of Chinese culture in contrast to a more Western monolithic form.

The scheme will provide the environmental catalyst to re-invigorate the city, actively avoiding the disastrous consequences of developments elsewhere in China. It will form the nucleus of a wider green strategy linking Wuhan’s lakes environmentally and socially with the region’s landmark destinations and lake district along a 20 kilometers Green Wall of China to a new lakeside cultural tourist destination. Environmental features used in design include lightweight photo-voltaic cladding; thermal chimneys; suspended air gardens; wind turbines; water harvesting/recycling; waste recycling via biomass boilers; hydrogen fuel cells at ground level. The towers will generate their own power requirement while contributing to the surrounding district. Read the rest of this entry »

Barkow Leibinger’s “Kinetic Wall” is a prototype created for the 14th International Architecture Biennale „Fundamentals“ in Venice. The installation revisits the utopian dream of an architecture that can move, kinetically, first realized in the 20th century through modernism. This addition culminates an historical evolution of wall making – stone, brick, wood, glass partition, in the context of the Wall Room at the „Elements of Architecture“exhibition.

Surface – the wall – movement is activated by a series of motorized points which extend and retract that transform an elastic translucent synthetic fabric into a topographical section of peaks and valleys. This movement transforms the exhibition visitor’s corridor between the “Kinetic Wall” and the adjacent glass partition wall into a differentiated arch-like space. The limited and changing width of the passage ensures an immediate, intimate, and corporal relationship with the viewer-visitor. A digitally controlled choreography enables endless surface patterns, which emerge slowly then recede and change. This visual- surface effect is further enhanced by the two layers of grid fabric which when shifted over each other produce a moiré effect, a second scale of movement that is translucent and ephemeral.

This surface supported by a space frame containing a mechanical plenum produces a new kind of malleable poché – a material thickness. The lightweight laminated timber scaffolding – space frame is an anchoring framework for the fabric and houses the mechanisms that activate the surface. The wall has an apparent front and back but one where both sides of the skin are visible simultaneously. A “Kinetic Wall” offers an alternative future, an architecture that is materially and spatially dynamic of both natural and synthetic and recycled materials. Read the rest of this entry »

Dutch practice Mecanoo Architecten worked together with Delhi’s Archohm, in order to design pavilions for the design campus at the Design Village in Delhi, India. The idea was that The Design Village would be generated along a central spine called the Ducth path, where pavilions will be placed with the aim of creating social catalysts by solving the daily needs of the users this campus.

One of the focus points of the Dutch path pavilions is to analyze and criticize their conventional program and function and reinvent them in a new innovative point of view to the typical functions required in a university campus. This way the designers would influence the future designers and show them that design can be a tool to solve people’s primary needs, and innovation is a continuous process for progress.

Rather than simply addressing the typical function of a convenience store – buying and selling, the pavilion aims at creating social encounters around it. Reinventing the conventional Indian “kinara store” by the opposition to the concept of closed introvert convenience store, exposing its most primary function to the exterior, it becomes the shopping social center of the Dutch path that is a magnet to attract interaction and enable chance of encounters.

The pavilion design and concept is based on modesty, openness, transparency and sustainability by using the natural resources that provides its surroundings, academic architecture principles and local construction system. With the motto that form follows anything, it criticizes the current trending of irresponsible iconic architecture. It solves first issues of shelter, shield, light, ventilation, function, structure, construction, etc. Form will come, it will follow its principles, avoiding pretentious forms and making it typical it will become special. The project pretends to be an example of simplicity and architecture principles, serving as a learning experience for the future students of the Design Village which will be the users of this building. Read the rest of this entry »

Zaha Hadid Architects competed 3,000 square-foot Stuart Weitzman Flagship store in Milan. It is created in playful dialogue of geometries which further create a rhythm of folds and recesses, shaped by functional considerations. Central design pieces and display units have been designed to showcase the collection while also providing seating. The design creates interior landscape, rooted in monochromatic palette. An intricate combination of materials and construction technologies has defined the spatial experience in the store. The modular seating and display elements have been constructed in fiberglass, dipped in rose gold.

The store walls and ceilings are made in glass-reinforced concrete, which shows solidity together with precision of complex curvatures, which generate focal points and areas for display. The design concept of the store is divided into variant and adaptive elements. Enabling the design to establish unique relationship within each world-ride location, the space had to be recognized at the same time as Stuart Weitzman store. Additional flagship stores are planned to be strategically located around the world – starting from Hong Kong, Rome and New York.

This vivid interior, chic and joyful but shaped after ergonomic needs is a statement design,which offers breathtaking experience to the customer, due to both fashion and architectural pieces. At Stuart Weitzman they state that this was a major new initiative that will help achieve the next phase of growth and raise brand recognition worldwide. They believe that the marriage of Zaha Hadid’s architecture and the very collection will create one-of-a-kind retail experience. Read the rest of this entry »

LAVA– Laboratory for Visionary Architecture designed Jeju Hills Hotel Resort for Korea – the island will house a luxurious hotel designed as another landform. JeJu is a mountainous volcanic landform located in the south east of South Korea. The island acts as a major holiday destination for South Koreans, as well as the Chinese and Japanese, as a result of its unique location between the three East Asian nations. The beautiful natural landscape and its seasonal variation attracts locals and holidaymakers alike. The island is home to the world heritage Hallasan volcano and lava tubes, a national icon and tourist destination.

The hotel is designed as a landform. ‘Valleys and canyons’, generated as a topological structure, form 2000 rooms around a terracing facade and internal courtyard rooms around interconnected open atrium spaces. These spaces connect to form a continuous green landscape throughout the interior of the hotel creating a natural atmosphere. This landscape continues to the canyon between the two sinuous residential zones, accentuating the connection with the beachfront forest over which they look. The whole development forms continuous landscape, within and out. The hotel also houses a cinema, restaurants, aquarium, waterfront promenade and marina seamlessly interact with a continuous shopping and retail experience. These activities seamlessly interact with the natural beauty of JeJu.

The development is 600,000 square meters in total, with the highest volumes reaching 77 meters. Organic in form, it represents the perfect continuation of the natural landscape of the island, minimizing visual impact. Read the rest of this entry »

BIG’s addition to the Maison des Fondateurs will be located among of the historical complex of workshops and factories in Le Brassus, Switzerland, in the heart of La Vallée de Joux. Its organization and architecture embodies the core values of Audemars Piguet. It had to be characterized by the independent spirit of the family owned company that has retained autonomy over the years, making it a game changing innovator in a field governed by rules and traditions.

This spiral proposal is rooted in the heritage of watch-making in La Vallée de Joux that goes back centuries and is nested in the nature and culture of the place and the people of the valley. And finally it had to incorporate the inner tension that characterizes Audemars Piguet and resonates throughout the brand, the craft and the designs as captured in the motto – to break the rules you must first master them. La Maison des Fondateurs is conceived as an oxymoron, striking but subtle, contemporary yet timeless. Functional and sculptural. Floating yet rooted. Local presence with a global resonance.

The spiral landmark is seamlessly integrated in the local landscape. The architecture aimed to be contemporary yet timeless in order to blend with the historical buildings and to create an intuitive sequence of spaces – old and new. A pavilion for the art and science of watch making is conceived as storyline for the visitors – every element governed by the functional requirements of the exhibition, appears as a striking sculpture conceived in a single gesture. Read the rest of this entry »