Completed in Septermber 2012, the 62,000-square-meter Star complex, designed by Andrew Bromberg of Aedas, houses the largest auditorium of its kind in Singapore. Comprising the Star Performing Arts Centre and STAR Vista, the complex provides a premier entertainment, lifestyle, and retail experience for the Singapore community.

The civic and public components of the Star are paramount and outwardly expressed. The south elevation is completely opened up, presenting the inner workings of the facility as a visible section. The mass of the theatre floating above is faceted, cut with glass and utilizes titanium cladding. All of these help dissolve and break down the mass, playing with a composition of positive and negative readings. Read the rest of this entry »

Aedas is the designer for the Mapletree Minhang Development Project, Mapletree Investments Pte Ltd’s largest single investment in China to date. A ground breaking ceremony was recently held to kick start construction.

The project involves two sites— Mapletree Business City and VivoCity, with a site area of approximately 119,000 square meters and a gross floor area of about 297,000 square meters in total. Read the rest of this entry »

Madrid based studio Herreros Arquitectos designed Headquarters and satellite control center for Hispasat – Spanish company in charge of managing communication satellites. The project is a renovation of an old building from the 1970’s and the architects had to deal with the complicated issue of overcoming the gaps in use and operation of an existing structure and the specific and demanding requirements of the new one, as well as to solve the internal problems of radiation and illumination, generated by the old façade.

The building had to be re-designed for the headquarters and that demanded re-use of the space and re-distribution of the operational areas, district offices as well as its institutional zones. The architects resolved the issue by using th glass screens which vary in opacity, colors and designs and the diversity creates a new artificial landscape of outer space, which is rendered differently from every zone. Read the rest of this entry »

The winners or international design competition in Brazil – [RIO DE JANEIRO] Symbolic World Cup Structure – have been recently announced – first prize went to Mekene Architecture for their Wing of Glory. The aim of the competition was to design a free standing World Cup Structure in Lapa square, in the very heart of Rio de Janeiro, during the 2014 FIFA World Cup. That will be the second time Brazil hosts the competition with the first being in 1950. The competition aimed to encourage the employment of sustainable design in all aspects of the proposal, research in respond to unique aspects of designing and to ingrate function, structure, details and the spirit of the World Cup.

The winning structure, in the words of its architects, doesn’t stand somewhere in the middle of the square. On contrary, it seeks to establish strong relationship with the structuring spine and main landmark of the site, the Arcos de Lapa. The aqueduct is the supporting structure for the wings and it shelters various spaces, defining the initial profile. The profiles of the wings vary from the regular and semi-circular to more freely shape. Read the rest of this entry »

This year’s Pratt Institute Graduate Architecture & Urban exhibition is showing the result of student work in a course taught by Michael Szivos, SoftLab principal. The work is grouped into clusters, based on the type of project, location, how it was conceived and the semester the work was produced in. The projects from Spring to Fall 20112 we arranged in a three dimensional grid – a large scale installation conceived in Robet H. Siegel gallery with the aim to explore digital fabrication methods while exhibiting their work.

Each project generated a cell, fitting into the grid which was dynamically adjusted into clusters. The whole concept provided a cloud like structure that seamed naturally grown rather than artificially conceived and strictly organized. The underside of the structure was clad with color coded images of the work and it created a landscape of images, explored by visitors like one is exploring the cave. Very porous structure appeared continuous and solid when looked from down under. The porosity allowed the artificial light to actually overcome the barrier and to enter the gallery. Read the rest of this entry »

Architects Łukasz Wawrzeńczyk, Frisly Colop Morales, Jason Easter, and Adrian Yau understand that the cultural importance of the public library lies within the inherent power of the knowledge which it holds. This knowledge can be a significant life-altering force for the patrons of the library and furthermore within the larger community which it serves. The methods by which this information is contained and transmitted are continually evolving, yet the correlation between access to such information and issues such as upward social mobility and increased life opportunity are evident. Read the rest of this entry »

“R+D Reaction & Diffusion” was presented at the 13th International Architecture Exhibition at the Slovenian Pavilion by ro[BO]tech team comprised of Giulia Bottura, Ilaria Fiorini, Pier Luigi Forte, and Lorenzo Natali. The current society researches a user’s interconnection even more globally and immediate. This is considerably influenced by economy: Kevin Kelly in 1998 essay “New Rules for the New Economy” introduced the concept of network economy in which each operator is connected with others. Information as the glue for connections needs to express and spatially define itself and architecture must consider this need. Read the rest of this entry »

Designed by Adrian Smith & Gordan Gill Architecture, Dancing Dragons is a pair of mixed-use towers, a new architecture landmark in the sky of , South Korea. It is a playful development, whose sharply angled mini-towers cantilever around the central core. Regarding the aesthetics, the architects aimed to find a compromise between two extremes – the contemporary language and the traditional Korean culture.

Yongsan, the name of the international business district, means “Dragon Hill” in Korean and the building’s skin further suggests the scales of fish and Korean mythical creatures – the dragons. The skin of these towers is active – it gaps between its overlapping panels just enough that the air can circulate making the façade breathable.

The two towers, 1 and 2, around 450 and 390 meters tall, are similar but not identical. In the tower 1, the massing cuts at the top and bottom of the mini-towers are V-shaped while in the other, 77 story one, the cuts move diagonally in a single line, arranged in a radial pattern around the core, visible as the visitors move around the tower. The “mini-tower” cuts are clad in glass, enabling dramatic skylights effects above the units and transparent floor beneath, which provides the opportunity for high-end, luxury penthouse duplex units. Read the rest of this entry »