It has been recently announced that Sou Fujimoto, together with French practices Nicolas Laisné Associés (NL*A) and Manal Rachdi Oxo Architects, has been chosen to construct the second architectural folly of the 21^st century. The first one was designed by Farshid Moussavi. The spectacle will be located in Montpellier, France.

The new multipurpose tower is called Arbre Blanc (White Tree)and mixed-use – designed for housing, a restaurant, an art gallery, offices, a bar with a panoramic view and a common area. From the project’s conceptual phase, the architects were heavily inspired by Montpellier’s tradition of outdoor living. The tower is strategically located between the city center and the newly developed districts of Port Marianne and Odysseum, midway between the “old” and the new Montpellier. Read the rest of this entry »

Collection Building by MVRDV is a reflective-skin art depot open to the public. The Dutch architectural practice won the competition to construct the art depot, expected to be completed in 2017. A public route zigzags through the building, from the lobby on the ground floor where a café can be found up to an exhibition space, sculpture garden and restaurant on the roof. On the way up the route passes along and through art depots and restoration workshops. In depots visible from the route, the exhibition can be changed on a daily basis by simply moving storage racks so each visit to the building can offer a unique experience.

The building – which will store the precious art collection of Rotterdam – will also have spaces not accessible to the general public. Logistics, quarantine and room for private art collections whose owners can visit their art and even enjoy it in private spaces comparable to the art-equivalent of a sky box. This is a new commercial service offered by the museum. The roof featuring a restaurant, sculpture garden and exhibition space offers wide views over Rotterdam and will be the new home for the Futuro, the ufo-shaped house of Finish architect Matti Suuronen. Read the rest of this entry »

Take the mundane out of your workspace with the innovative Tetra Light designed by Brooks Atwood of POD design. Inspired by the highly stylized retro-futurism of Bladerunner, this geometric neon desk lamp features a brilliant daylight-inspired glow and a dimmer function that helps to enhance any type of mood.

I think the balance between ‘craft’ and machined parts is very beautiful. It creates intrigue and mystery. I want to elevate the mundane into something magical. Traditional neon signs are everywhere. They seem to procreate like rabbits. Neon signs seem to have lost their own beauty because they are used for mundane announcements like “open” or “beer.” I love re-seeing what you take for granted all around you. Neon is so exciting because it’s mysterious and mundane at the same time. I want to take the ordinary desk light and transcend that function into one that has impact not through excess but through subtraction. It’s the ultimate minimum, the reduction to zero. Read the rest of this entry »

Amanda Levete Architects designed a major retail and hotel complex in central Bangkok, Thailand. Central Embassy, located on Bangkok’s primary commercial artery Ploen Chit Road, will be a new architectural landmark for the city and region and it near its completion. The 145,000 sqm project occupies the former gardens of the British Embassy in Nai Lert Park, and consists of a 7-storey retail podium and a 30-storey 6-star hotel tower.

The unique design of a mixed-use complex merges the distinct features of a podium and tower into a sinuous and continuously twisting coil. The form wraps around two vertical light wells in the retail podium and at the same time encloses and exposes a series of exterior courtyards and roof gardens for the hotel. Internal spaces break apart to reveal stepped terraces and vertical gardens.

Drawing on motifs and patterns found in traditional Thai architecture, the facade of the building is composed of a dynamic and fluid three-dimensional array of ceramic tiles. Read the rest of this entry »

The CasArts by Christian Portzamparc is the winning proposal of the international architectural competition where the challenge was to breathe life into the vast institutional square and give a contemporary twist to its classical composition. This winning project gives the impression of being composed of several detached houses, like a medina in the city. Instead of an autonomous architectural object, heroic and unambiguous, this fluid ensemble defies symmetry without opposing it, inviting visitors to enter the shadow of another interior universe through several slim, appealing gaps and entrances leading to a vast and lofty cross-cutting public gallery composed of curved red staffs.

Outside, the gaps in the pure whiteness of the architecture draw visitors into the shady interior, the twilight of the passage and its entry point, where one comes to sit in cafés refreshed by natural ventilation. A moucharaby terracotta and resin shear wall floats along the square’s buildings. At the center, one of the houses forms a large entrance, an exceptional entry point and a shelter from the sun. It is also an outdoor theater: when the doors open, the stage appears and the public in the square becomes the audience. CasArts is a transformable urban scenographic device. The facade is already a stage. Read the rest of this entry »

IO Design envisioned KL Gateway to be a peaceful green oasis mixed residential and retail development in the heart of Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. The heart of the project is an outdoor courtyard surrounded by a series of garden spaces. The courtyard is designed to be a public room attracting people from the surrounding neighborhood and city. The ring binds the courtyard to a surrounding retail mall and becomes a gathering spot for the entire mixed use complex. The roof of the ring becomes an outdoor jogging trail and garden for the surrounding residential towers.

Using the latest technology in sustainability, the Corporate Office Towers will be covered in a nano-coating of Titanium Dioxide. This is a photo-catalytic coating that will remove dirt, bacteria and pollution triggered by light. KL Gateway takes bold, responsible steps to be one of the First towers in Malaysia using this green technology. As a green building, it is structured to be environmentally responsible and resource-efficient throughout its life-cycle, hence able to save energy and resources as well as harmonize with the local climate, traditions, culture and the surrounding environment. KL Gateway acts as one of the climate saviors with environmental-friendly features. Read the rest of this entry »

Zhuhai, China, will host one of the world’s largest retail developments when built by late 2014 – Summer International Retail and Center and Mixed Use Development.  This major destination, designed by 10 Design, contains 360,000 sqm leasable retail space together with commercial, hotel serviced apartment and residential spaces totaling 510,000 sqm of accommodation.  The site of the development is unique in this important growing city, as it is the meeting point between the grid of the city and the natural topography of the surrounding hill range. Read the rest of this entry »

Hidden Wonder is a Hotel and Office Complex in Fort Mc Murray, Alberta, Canada. Designed by David Clovers, this mega structure offers a feeling of an indigenous forest draping over the top of an urban hub, in the center of Fort Mc Murray. On further inspection, one discovers that the forest blossoms into a vertical garden of exotic plants, housed in a green house – atrium. The design is a new hybrid of tower and a podium, landscape and architecture. It acts as an active and multidimensional vertical park that anchors the corner of the block and allows for a combination of urban indoor and outdoor activities.

In the podium, hotel guests have their own private balconies which are calmly nestled among the forest, while retail and gastronomical visitors get oblique glimpses of the landscape through the skylights. In the tower, office employees are engulfed in an enchanting environment of plants and rooms that capture the beauty of the merging rivers beyond.

The materiality of the tower is contemporary – it uses a textured concrete and double glass skin to produce spectacular optical illusions. The sculptural massing appears and disappears by day and by night, reflecting the surroundings and glowing as a beacon in the Northern twilight. The textured double skin acts as a mechanical device, augmenting the building systems of the design by conserving heat through passive solar means and ventilating the building naturally. As additional sustainable feature, planted roof serves as an insulating blanket for both the podium and tower, as well as a device for gray water retention.

Expected completion of the complex is scheduled for late 2014.

Heatherwick Studio designed unique river boat as part of ‘Estuaire’ – an innovative project that has brought about the construction of major works of art along the banks of the River Loire, in France. The vessel will travel between the city of Nantes and the port town of Saint-Nazaire, reinforcing the connections between these towns and allowing up to 200 passengers to see the artworks from the river. The boat had to be designed for flexibility since it will be available for general hire, as well as organized art trips, and used as a venue for civic functions and meetings. It also seemed important to allow passengers to look in all directions, instead of facing forward as they do on a bus.

The boat takes the form of a catamaran, a shallow-draft boat with two hulls, which is stable and agile and travels comfortably at both high and low speed. Read the rest of this entry »

This museum, designed by Kyle Branchesi and Larisa Rus of the Southern California Insitute of Architecture examines interrelated systems which both modify the spatial structure of the building, and articulate expectations of the performance structurally, thermally, acoustically and environmentally. This project creates a contextualized assemblage of spaces for contemporary art to be explored. 
The interior is formed through a series of morphologies looking at the juxtaposition of larger and smaller galleries. The spaces formed between connecting galleries creates a surface which wraps through the museum. This gesture fades the transition between floor and wall. Circulation wraps into and out of the gallery spaces in a similar motion which can be observed in section.The continual motion expands to the facade of the building. A series of design explorations focus on the organization of splines. The facade couples and expands which creates surfaces aligning to interior conditions.
The facade is comprised of multi-layered ETFE panels that are coated and pumped with air. The panels expand both inwards and outwards; filtering sunlight and act in relation to seasonal weather patterns to allow natural ventilation.