BIG + Paris-based architects OFF, engineers Buro Happold, consultants Michel Forgue and environmental engineer Franck Boutte is the winning team to design the new 15.000 m2 research centre for Sorbonne’s Scientific university Université Pierre et Marie Curie in Paris.

The new multidisciplinary research centre, Paris PARC, located between Jean Nouvel’s Institut du Monde Arabe and the open green park of the Jussieu Campus will become a significant addition to the campus, strengthening the international appeal and openness of the leading French University for Science and Medicine. The facility will bring together academic scholars and the business community, while re-connecting the university physically and visually with the city of Paris. The winning team was honored as the best design among proposals from MVRDV, Lipsky Rollet, Mario Cucinella and Peripherique.

Paris PARC is located in the visual axis of the Notre Dame Cathedral in a dense context of university buildings from different historical periods. BIG proposes a building geometry that adapts to the specific conditions of all adjoining sides, optimized for daylight, views and accessibility. The three-dimensional envelope retracts from the neighboring facades, opens up towards the square of Institut du Monde Arabe and the park, and folds into a publicly accessible rooftop landscape, resulting in an adapted sculptural building volume situated between the emblematic architectural monuments of the university. Read the rest of this entry »

This project was designed for Cheraga, Algeria by Barcelona-based DNA Architects. Le Far du Grand Vent adapts itself to the surroundings. It follows the forms of the urban surface given by the road passing by and the built areas around. The building itself reminds of a ship due to the angular basis which is considerably bigger than the upper part of the construction. It could also remind of melting ice, backed by the presence of the sea nearby. The floors are separated on the exterior, with angular edges, giving the impression of fragility and that the huge integrating parts could fall apart.

Due to the used materials, such as the glass, Le far has a sophisticated and light air, contrasting the huge dimensions making it eye-catching, becoming a landmark at the city-skyline even more at night. Read the rest of this entry »

The project is located in Xiaguan District, Nanjing, China. The site is on the south side of Jianning Road, in this urban area which is traditional and historical. The architects are required to design a big complexity including entertaining, sport, commercial and administration offices. Hence the major concern of the design is how to merge this “huge complex” into the existing beautiful nature landscape scenery and get a brilliantly transitional connection with the landscape there.

The distribution of architectural volumes in this design follows the idea of traditional Chinese Gardens, which transforming the elements of water, stones, hills, bridges and flowers into significant urban shapes animating and vitalizing the daily life of the entire district. As the site is in the traditional area, which is very sensitive to avant-garde architecture, this drives us to control the upground mass of the highrise. The proposal therefore lifts up the ground surface and transforms it into a flexible and lively vertical highrise with landscape integrating all the service and leisure facilities to provide an attractive and continuously active support for this traditional and cultural site. Read the rest of this entry »

By playing with reflections and their impact on the experience of a space, Arnaud Lapierre’s installation changes the rhythm and urban flow of Place Vendôme in Paris. Created for the FIAC 2011 Conference, sponsored by Audi, a reflective cylinder composed of mirrored blocks stacked in a variegated fashion is placed on a public surface, surrounded by classical buildings. Read the rest of this entry »

An interesting Studio Project program was introduced for the spring semester 2011 at University of Applied Arts Vienna, titled-Vertical Mass, Neither One nor Many. The idea was to propose large scale urban developments as an alternative to a collection of towers resting on a retail and public plinth.  The designs would have to reinterpret notions of skyline voids and spaces within masses, putting the emphasis on the urban void instead of a tower of any kind. Read the rest of this entry »

Off Architecture, in partnership with Duncan Lewis Scape Architecture, has proposed a series of low rise apartment complexes that becomes virtual urban green belts in Anglet, France. The design is for two developments with differing egress and layouts. The buildings themselves are somewhat conventional, sitting two to four stories tall with standard floor plans and patios. They are set on a tiered landscape and follow the ground, stepping down a story at a time.

Site One stands at it tallest four stories with a passage at the ground floor in the middle of the complex, allowing access to the inner courtyards. Tucked under parking along the length of the project eliminates adjacent hardscapes. Site Two is a low set series of apartments placed on a slope with individual walkouts above the next unit. Read the rest of this entry »

Union Panorama

The Jangir Maddadi Design Bureau, a Sweden-based furniture design studio, has established a line of luxury benches, lamps and planters for interior and exterior spaces that are clean, aesthetically beautiful and utilitarian.

All of the company’s products are crafted locally; using Swedish artisans to design and craft their benches, planters and lamps is a point of pride for the Jangir Maddadi Design Bureau. The company strives to compliment their prioritization of regional artisans and materials with designs that are organic and earthy. Innovation, they stress, and forward-thinking configurations and aesthetics are also vital in their products’ designs, though.

Their pieces are grouped into three categories. The first, the “Union Family” is a line that uses large circles singularly or grouped to create both benches and planters. The planters, available in poured concrete or fiberglass, are large circles that slope proportionally to the ground. The benches are more complex; they are available in a variety of one, two and three- seat configurations. The “Panorama” bench design aligns two or three of the circular seats linearly, but also allows the option for one of the circles to be used as a planter. This design is ideal for hallways and corridors, can seat up to 12, and is, says the company, “inspired by the natural curves of people in movement.” The other possible configuration for benches creates a new type of tripod: three seats are connected in a triangle configuration that allows for both privacy, letting strangers comfortably cohabitate, and also intimacy, allowing a close space for friends to huddle to converse. The bases of the customizable benches are made of fiberglass; the moulds are poured by expert yacht makers on the country’s east coast. The circular seat cushions can be made in a variety of colors from felt, hand-sewn leather made on the Swedish island of Öland, or, in the “yacht” design, teak wood. Read the rest of this entry »

Awarded the Red Dot Best of Best Concept Award 2011, Flowall is a wall lamp designed by the Korean designer Jeil Park. It provides light through a curtain of mobile elements, reacting differently, depending on the interaction with the user.

Jeil Park’s work explores the relationship established between objects and users in a physical and phenomenological manner. “Objects designed with materials, colors and specific shapes will quite possibly get different meanings, depending on context and situation around them, despite being the same design,” says Park. Flowall drafts present a series of slats that hang vertically from the wall and bend at different heights. When one of the blades is pressed, a motion sensor receives the signal and the structure is bent up to form an obtuse angle. The module pulls neighboring slats, creating an undulating surface and progressive rhythmic repetitions. LED lighting installed in the interior of each board affects differently depending on the angle of the bend of each piece of the screen. Read the rest of this entry »

Pupa is a habitat by Liam Hopkins of Lazerian within Bloomberg’s London headquarters made from reclaimed cardboard and pallets.

The form and aesthetics are inspired by natural habitats – cocoons, bee hives, spiders nests and weaver birds nests. The ceiling assumes the appearance of a shelter; snug and cave like, but also references the vaulted ceilings of church naves.

The numbers which can be extrapolated from Pupa reflect the almost Sisyphean task faced, whether by human, bird or insect, to create these sort of  structures:

• 3,972 triangular cardboard borders make up frame
• 3,972 triangle inners fill the exoskeleton providing the cover
• 180 wooden pallets taken apart for chair frame and legs
• 11,000 nails removed from wooden pallets
• 252 leather offcuts from make up the chair seats
  

Constructed in triangular sections Pupa utilises the structural and acoustic properties of cardboard. Computer design techniques were used to generate the form and the individual components were then extracted from the virtual model to create flat layouts that are glued together by hand.The original Bloomberg cardboard arrived in damp bales so was pulped and re-constituted at a John Hargreaves factory in Stalybridge using machinery originally installed in 1910.

“Commissioned for Bloomberg Philanthropy by art and design agency Arts Co, ‘Waste Not, Want It’ is a series of specially commissioned art and design projects made almost entirely out of Bloomberg’s waste.”

The project is designed by Boston based PRAUD Studio as a competition proposal for the music-themed hotel in Jurmala, Latvia. The main idea was to take a more aggressive stand and focus on creating a unique experience of a “music park”. Creating an urban landscape, equivalent to the hotel’s natural surroundings resulted in an architecturally strong statement. An elevated structure  facilitating the new hotel was introduced to the site, achieving widely open public space on the ground level, and a better view of the Baltic Sea from the hotel rooms. Every room in the new mass has direct view towards the sea and has access to the balcony on the roof. Read the rest of this entry »