Designed by Lava – Laboratory for Visionary Architecture, the Michael Schumacher Tower is developed as a prototypical design translating brand values into iconic architecture. Also called Snowflake Tower, this skyscraper for Abu Dhabi, UAE, is the first in a series of towers located at strategically chosen locations around the world. The tower marks a departure from traditional architectural thinking and design takes the initiative. The development comprises executive residential suites, luxury amenities, and a marina.

Inspired by the geometrical order of a snowflake and the aerodynamics of a Formula 1 racing car, the tower encapsulates speed, fluid dynamics, future technology and natural patterns of organization. Rather than purely mimicking shapes in nature Lava has learned from nature’s own geometrical orders creating highly efficient structures and intriguing spaces. The design of the tower unfolded as a result of the project’s needs: optimal natural light and air distribution, maximum views, minimal structure, user comfort and a water experience. Read the rest of this entry »

33-35 Hoxton Square is an exciting addition to the eclectic character of this London square. Designed by Zaha Hadid Architects, the concept is based on the idea of a prism. The building seeks to respond to and manipulate daylight and views while the form is composed of interwoven planes that respect neighbor’s need for access to natural light, controlling light and views between the interior and exterior.

The new structure replaces two existing buildings with 3000 sqm of new space that houses a two level gallery, commercial office spaces and eight residential flats on a site locate within the South Shoreditch Conservation Area. The form is playful and vivid, bringing new and fresh spirit to the neighborhood. The façade is clad in blasted aluminum and clear glass.

The building invites in – it creates a relationship between the ground floor gallery and Hoxton Square, therefore engaging the public. The frontage carves into the interior of the gallery, spatially connecting the ground floor, basement, lower front and upper front areas. The balustrade around the front area also serves as seating – an element that penetrates into the building itself and an amenity that invites and attracts the public inside. Read the rest of this entry »

The Breathing Shelter, by Rhina Portillo and Matthias Urschler was done at Vienna University of Applied Arts, Energy and Design Strategies Department. The designed structure is a pavilion designed to adjust to different climate conditions. It is conceived with a different approach, not knowing its site; its main feature is flexibility to its environment. The formal language used for this project is a form-finding process looking for suitable configurations that allow the building itself to be a kinetic model.

Its genesis is in the movement of three modules that are able to breathe independently, reacting according to interior needs. This movement allows air flow that is able to balance the interior temperatures. The model also changes its basic position depending on the season. Therefore, it interacts with airflow and has both a summer and winter mode. The summer position is when the folds are relaxed, and the opposite situation the winter shape, were the body is completely contracted to reduce the volume of space in the building, helping to keep the temperature as high as possible. In addition, when the shape is contracted the skin allows any snow to slide off of the structure. Read the rest of this entry »

Loop_3 is a project conceived and realized by Loop_3 design team, a group of students form Architectural Design 3 course at the Faculty of Engineering, Università di Bologna, for an installation on invitation by the 1st Architectural Biennale of Thessaloniki – “Architecture and the City in South-Eastern Europe”.

Loop_3 is a self-standing installation that uses mathematical trigonometric functions (explored through parametric design software) as a mean of aesthetic device, exploring a use of rationality in complex shapes that merges user spatial interaction, curvature as a structural and expressive strategy (the voluptuous ripples also strengthen the overall shape) and form as a sorting device to deploy functions (carrying 3D models, showing pictures from various projects as well as a pad to interactively explore design strategies).

Architects use mathematics as a privileged tool for tracing systematic paths as well as enhancing their expressive language, as it provides an underlying layer for the description of reality’s inner complexity in terms of computation as well as the tools to enhance and intensify research and expression, elegantly and seamlessly linking science, art, economy, philosophy and other disciplines, merging them into force fields of a unified yet topographically differentiated territory. Architects use mathematics as a privileged tool for tracing systematic paths as well as enhancing their expressive language. Read the rest of this entry »

Jeffrey Lee, Rui Liu, and Tina Qiu are authors of Vertical Central Park. As they state, Manhattan is filled with skyscrapers and the only significant green area on the island is Central Park, situated in the heart of the city. Almost two million people live on the island with an area of 23 square miles–that is about 70,000 people per square mile. It’s no wonder then that new commercial and residential construction has looked skyward instead of building horizontally.

The example of Central Park is crucial for Manhattan planning, as an attempt to conserve outdoor greenery. The authors of Vertical Central Park elevated the existing one, altogether with its grid, road penetrations, programs and features, and rotated it 90 degrees so it became the section for the future intervention of the skyscraper. At the point where skyscrapers require an atrium void, they inserted a green one. Mimicking the insertion of Central Park within its rectangular city grid, the central atrium of the skyscraper becomes the park area, whilst its adjacent access routes become the slab set for the high-rise. Read the rest of this entry »

The Haikou Towers by Henn Architects are designed to become the heart of the new Central Business District of Haikou, the capital city of Hainan. The master plan comprises an ensemble of 10 towers ranging from 150 to 450m height with an overall building area of 1.5 million square meters. The proposal’s centerpiece is the 450metre high middle tower. Form and structure have been directly influenced by the program requirements and the drive for a highly efficient structural scheme. The occupant’s needs for large and flexible office spaces on the lower floors and an unobstructed view from the hotel rooms on the upper levels have led to a shift of the cross-bracing system at the boundary between the two functions.

The shift in systems occurs at the hotel lobby area in the form of a large outrigger truss. This truss is purposefully exposed and integrated into the architecture to articulate a multistory high atrium on the upper floors and to provide a clear distinction between functions and structural systems. Read the rest of this entry »

The Showroom for Nanotechnology is part of HENN’s Nanopolis Masterplan in Suzhou, China. Visitors and employees to the Technology Park can explore the different areas of application of nanotechnology over 1300 m² of exhibition space. Standing on a central square and characterized by its dynamic shape, the pavilion creates an intentional contrast to the otherwise strongly right-angled articulation and design of the surrounding architecture.

The layout of the curved building follows the classical inner courtyard typology and its form makes reference to the interplay of three ellipses. The largest ellipse defines the external size of the building, the smallest, the inner courtyard and the middle, the roof edge. At the lowest point, the pronounced slope of the annular allows a second access across the inner courtyard and opens the building to the forecourt opposite and the city. At the same time, the building rises from this point and terminates in the glass facade, which extends over the full height of the building and faces toward the water-scape. Read the rest of this entry »

Code [9] is situated within Patrik Schumacher’s agenda for a Semiological Campus. ­Due to that fact, the architecture is seen as a frame to order and adapt society, while pursuing architectural distinctions and differentiation to have cognitive intelligibility embedded within the proposal.

Designed by George Kontalonis, Jared Ramsdell, Nassim Eshaghi and Rana Zureikat, Code [9] is therefore challenging the traditional campus typology that exists today, by taking a good look into education, society, environment and networks. Designed for New York, the project deals with a proto-campus that is not site specific but context specific and it is dealing with urban sites that have embedded culture and activities, relationship on the micro and macro level, social behavior and architectural typology. The design proposes a deploy-able system that can reconfigure into any environment and function as a flexible and interconnected campus. The synthesis is a new definition of a campus, one that is set within today’s environment and society. Read the rest of this entry »

Commercial Office Towers for Zhengzhou, China, is one of the most recent projects by Asymptote Architecture. These two towers aim to have a powerful presence and stature in the overall master plan as envisioned by Arata Isosaki and his planning team. The design for two new commercial office towers, for a new central business district Longhu in China, draw inspiration from a variety of historic Chinese architectural references and the rich tradition of ceramic art in the region.  The main design features for both these towers consist of cylindrical towers placed within circular plinths that in turn provide each tower with large interior atriums and foyers. These large volumes spaces are highly accessible to the public and serve both as entryways as well as multi-use commercial space.

From these central spaces the main core elements in each tower extend upwards into a cruciform cantilevered office component. These suspended office spaces house new trading floors and other high volume programs high above and open void below while located at the base of the cylindrical towers above. Read the rest of this entry »

GRAFT, German office for architecture is eager to explore territories of design offered by a new awareness of and open-mindednes to sustainable design, converting energy-saving requirements into poetic design solutions which are not only environmentally friendly and efficient, but provide a new interpretation of the spaces we live in.

This structure in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia – a Birds Island – along these lines, presents a cost-saving response to warm climate habitation. Its living quarters provide an expansive shaded and ventilated outdoor living deck, while living space is primarily concentrated in a cooler interior core. A surrounding silicon glass skin structure provides a multi-functional translucent shell which casts subtle shadows and allows changing view patterns, hence freeing the space from the bonds of traditional walls. Curtains serve to enclose living spaces, therefore creating privacy.

This strategy is geared to cut waste and eliminate redundant energy systems. The optimized building skin doubles as a frame while implementing rainwater and solar heat collection systems, acting as wind flow conductor and distributing rainwater. Read the rest of this entry »