Dongdeamun Design Plaza by Zaha Hadid Architects opened 21 March 2014 by hosting Seoul Fashion Week. DDP also hosted five separate design and art exhibitions featuring works by modern designers as well as the prized collection of traditional Korean art of the Kansong Art Museum. The Design Plaza has been designed as a cultural hub at the very center of Dongdaemun – an historic district of Seoul. DDP is a catalyst for the instigation and exchange of ideas and for new technologies and media to be explored. It has been designed as an architectural landscape that revolves around the ancient city wall and cultural artefacts discovered during archaeological excavations, preceding DDP’s construction.

The design of the development is a very specific result of how the context, local culture, programmatic requirements and innovative engineering come together – the whole new civic space is created allowing the architecture, city and landscape to combine in both form and spatial experience.

It is place for leisure, relaxation and refuge – a new green oasis within the busy urban surroundings of Dongdaemun. The design integrates the park and plaza seamlessly as one, blurring the boundary between architecture and nature in a continuous, fluid landscape.

Dongdeamun Design Plaza’s design and construction sets many new standards of innovation. It is the first public project in Korea to implement advanced 3-dimensional digital construction services that ensure the highest quality and cost controls. These innovations have enabled the team building DDP to control the construction with much greater precision than conventional processes and improve efficiency. Implementing such construction technologies make the development one of Korea’s most innovative and technological advanced constructions to date. Read the rest of this entry »

Nanjing Culture and Conference Center by Zaha Hadid Architects is under construction. The center’s master plan expresses continuity, fluidity and connectivity between the urban environment of hexi New Town, the agricultural farmland along the Yangtze River and the rural landscapes. The development consists of two towers – the taller is 68 floors high while the shorter one is 59 floors in height. The towers share a five-level, mixed-use podium.

The towers create rather dynamic transition from the vertical urban topography to the horizontal one of the river. The natural landscapes of the river are connected to the urban streetscape of the new center through the fluid architectural language of the mixed-use podium and conference center. At the interface between the tower and the podium, the glass façade slowly transforms into a grid of rhomboid fiber-concrete panels, therefore giving the large surfaces of podium and conference center almost sculptural appearance which underlines the dynamic character of the form and providing daylight to the building’s interior. Read the rest of this entry »

Messner Mountain Museum Corones by Zaha Hadid Architects is under construction. Located in Kronplatz, South Tyrol, Italy, this museum is the final piece in the series of mountain museums. The museum is dedicated to the great rock faces of the work, and will focus on the discipline of mountaineering. This unique composition of fluid, interconnected volumes, is carved within the mountain and informed by the geology and topography of its context. A sharp glass canopy resembling a fragment of glacial ice, rises from the rock to mark and protects the entrance to the museum.

A cascading ramp connects the exhibition spaces and creates dynamic volumes of circulation throughout three levels of temporary exhibitions, presentation areas and an auditorium, enabling the museum to showcase its permanent exhibition together with objects and images from Messner’s archive. 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 »

It is finally revealed that Dubai has been chosen to host the 2020 World Expo. HOK, teamed with Populous and Arup, has developed the master plan for the expo and more then 25 million visitors are expected to be drawn from October 2020 through April 2021. The plan is futuristic but it also pays homage to Emirati heritage and culture. Dubai will become the first Middle Eastern city to host this event in its 150-year long history.

HOK’s plan reflects great qualities of the city and the form and spirit of a World Expo, with its mixture of education, innovation and entertainment. The site is on the southwestern edge of Dubai in Jebel Ali, near Dubai’s new Al Maktoum International Airport and Jebel Ali Port. Read the rest of this entry »

BBK Bank Headquarters in Bilbao, Spain, by Zaha Hadid Architects is under construction. This 25,000 square meter tower represents the future headquarters for a socially-conscious savings bank and it will be sited at the south-eastern end point of Zorrotzaurre peninsula, facing central Bilbao, offering wide views onto the river and the famous Guggenheim Museum. At Zaha Hadid Architects, they consider this project eventual continuation of what they have started while ago with their master plan for Zorrotzaurre.

The tower will contain office support spaces – shared meeting rooms and seminar rooms, amenities, charitable activities space and an auditorium, in addition to their own office facilities. As the site called for strong architectural statement, the proposal set out very sculptural form derived from two star-shaped plans rotated 45 degrees from each other, at the top and the bottom of the tower. The outcome of their merger is the profile that changes as the view angle changes.

The very visible structural exo-skeleton serves both as primary structure and the sub-structure for the curtain wall. Together with structural core it acts as the only structure needed – interior columns are completely eliminated. Read the rest of this entry »

Shell & Shadow by Zaha Hadid Architects, a project for Nordpark Railway Stations in Innsbuck, Austria, is a unique architectural statement which is inspired, in its fluidity, by natural ice formations. The roof structures are lightweight and organic in its form, as they float on concrete plinths forming a soft artificial landscape that aims to describe the movement and circulation within. The brief required the design of four stations leading to Innsbruck’s chain of mountains and the team thoughtfully studied natural phenomena as glacial moraines and ice movements in order to develop a language fluid enough, like a frozen stream.

As each station in the chain has its unique context, topography and altitude, it was necessary to adapt to these specific site conditions, while still maintaining a unifying overall architectural language. High degree of flexibility was required in order to adjust the shell structures to the variable parameters of each station. Read the rest of this entry »

The Liquid Glacial Table, made in clear polished Plexiglas is Zaha Hadid’s newest product design, exhibited at David Gill Galleries in London, UK. The design unites complexity and refraction of surfaces and powerful and seductive fluid-like dynamics. The basic geometry of the flat table top appears transformed from static plane to fluid by the waves and ripples which are evident below the surface, while the legs of the table seem to pour from horizontal in an intense vortex of water frozen in time.

The depth and complexity are highlighted due to using the transparent acrylic material which provides infinite kaleidoscopic refractions. The result is very playful and wonderful surface dynamics that inherits a myriad of colors from its context and continually adapts with the ever-changing viewpoint of the user.

The form of the table doesn’t compromise functionality or ergonomic requirements and a coherent evolution or Hadid’s architectural narrative. Zaha Hadid stated that she has always been interested in the concept of fluidity, which is at least very obvious, knowing her work both in fields of architecture and design. Due to advances in design, material and construction technologies, greater results are now highly achievable. Read the rest of this entry »

What happens to be an outcome of not so rare marriage of architecture and fashion? This latest joined venture of two famous architects – Zaha Hadid and Dutch Rem D Koolhaas, has resulted with the NOVA shoe, for United Nude – it is limited edition haute couture experimental piece which combines innovative material and ergonomic consideration with the striking dynamism of their architectural language and expressive sense of movement.

Koolhaas stated that he couldn’t resist working with Zaha and that they gave themselves the greatest degree of experimentation while using the latest digital design and manufacturing technologies in order to create one of the most innovative shoes ever produced. On the other hand, his collaborator Zaha confessed that she always appreciated those who dared to experiment with materials and proportions and that she understands their collaboration with United Nude as a request to reinterpret the classic shoe typology by pushing the boundaries of the possible, without compromising the integrity. Read the rest of this entry »

Zaha Hadid Architects participated in an international competition in Astana, Kazakhstan, to design the facilities for the international exhibition, scheduled for 2017. The theme of the expo aims to raise awareness of energy resources, energy efficiency and environmental protection as well as to seek innovative engineering and architectural solutions to critical global issues. The symbol of EXPO-2017 will be the monument which will outlive the exhibition and will be immediate landmark of Astana.

Zaha Hadid Architect’s proposal for EXPO-2017 Astana placed energy efficiency, renewable energy technologies and sustainability at the forefront of the design. The result of the process, which consisted of thoughtful analysis of cultural and physical landscape of Kazakhstan, traditional patterns and ornaments, is informal fluid interface of urban pattern, landform and architecture inspired by combination of local culture and renewable technologies.

The proposed urban grid came logically and the urban morphology evolved forming a multiplicity of geometries and orientations that connect to adjacent areas. Building mass is fluid and the contour addresses the neighboring urban conditions, height regulations and importance of adjoining streets. Read the rest of this entry »