Furniture retail box unit explores display from an architectural perspective

WEDGE-1 is the latest of architectonic explorations by Collaborative Architecture in creating projects which are highly refined in architectural morphology and yet fulfilling the programmatic agenda of the brief.

The architectural intent was to dissect the simple ‘shoe box’ and manipulate the architectonic character of the box in the most economical way. (The project had a very stringent budget limit and delivery schedule)

The name WEDGE comes from the character of the spaces within the dissected box, which largely are trapezoidal. The space has been organized as centripetal, pinwheel form as the central gathering space holds the different wedges around it’s periphery with its undulating volumes and roofline.

The peripheral wall sets the tone for the exploration of exhibits with its unique cut-outs, which reveal and mask the displays simultaneously to lure the public in.

These two dimensional cut-outs on the skin, transform the project from a simple container of products to an architectural ensemble of multiple meanings and unparallel perceptual values.

WEDGE is painted white, including the exhibit floor to heighten the perception of encounter with the products.

The central gathering space has a series of light ‘vectors’ (1200 mm long T8 lamps), which form an enclosing canopy and fuse the space to complete the Box.

RenaltiSite.com

SHELL PROVIDES PERFECT HIDING PLACE

Kotaro Ide creates residential retreat in Karuizawa

Situated within a dense thickness of trees the Shell House by Kotaro Ide of Artechnic unravels itself displaying its contrasting underbelly to the private audience of its owners.

Brazen yet shy, the house’s open form hidden within the trees presents an honest display of relevance to its situation. The curved forms synonymous with the outer shell of a snail or sea-faring crustacean stand on a plinth of wood creating the illusion that the form floats above the forest bed.

Glazed at ends and with roof lights, an airy interior space is created with which to enjoy the surroundings in comfort and explore the curving concrete intricacies of an otherwise simplistic design. Unobtrusive landscaping ensures the structure can breath in the space whilst maintaining a rural aesthetic.

Artechnic

Image of this fabolous idea

24 City , Chengdu , China

Modern Chengdu development focuses on youth market

Just seven months ago 4.8 million residents in China were made homeless and more than 69,000 killed by the Sichuan earthquake which measured 7.9 on the Richter scale. Less than three months later this devastation was overshadowed by an international force as the Olympics came to Beijing. Now though, as the dust has settled on both the earthquake and the Games, the rebuilding of a region can start to be realised.

Chengdu was the worst hit city, being just 80 km away from the epicentre, but is now set to be the location of a new urban community, named 24 City, which will house 60,000 new residents. China Resources Land Limited as developer for the project have selected Callison to design phase one of the 3.3 million sq ft mixed-use project which will also include a 38-storey office tower and an indoor/outdoor retail center. In an effort to encourage and provide for young professionals moving into Chengdu, (Chengdu is host to 16 degree level universities), Callison’s design provides for a youthful and uplifting lifestyle. This is a design for living, not for relief. A hybrid retail complex modulates indoor/outdoor shopping and entertainment among lush landscaping and expansive view terraces. There is even an indoor skating rink, an 8-screen movie complex and a supermarket in the lower level of the office tower. Restaurants and the public garden will remain open after the center closes, offering public events and providing night-time entertainment for residents and visitors. While the complex will provide much needed housing in Chengdu and create a new wave of living quarter, it had been the subject of some controversy documented in a feature-length film by Chinese Director Jia Zhang Ke. ‘24 City’, a documentary-drama filmed before the earthquake struck, tells the story of the lives of those who worked in the factory which was demolished to make way for the complex. “420” factory was once a military aeroplane engine plant but in more recent, peaceful times produced consumer goods. Its closure left many who worked there for decades out of work. Despite the controversy the project is set to go ahead and design development will be completed by Callison before the Chinese New Year. Ground-breaking is scheduled for March 2009.

Niki May Young News Editor

Hadid with design for Library and Learning Centre in Vienna

a force to reckon with Zaha Hadid Architects have fended off competition from international rival firms Morphosis, Studio Massimiliano Fuksas, Kada Wittfeld Studio and Prof. Hans Hollein to win the design competition for the University of Economics & Business’s Library and Learning Centre (LLC) in Vienna.

A jury headed by Coop Himmelb(l)au’s Wolf Prix chose the deconstructivist design by Hadid and her counterpart Patrik Schumacher, to take central place in the new campus masterplan designed by BUSarchitecture. Described as a ‘polygonal block’ with ‘both inclined and straight edges’, ZHA’s design statement for the LLC reads: “The straight lines of the building’s exterior separate as they move inward, becoming curvilinear and fluid, generating a free-formed interior canyon that serves as the central public plaza. All the other facilities of the LLC are housed within a single volume that also divides, becoming two separate ribbons that wind around each other to enclose this glazed gathering space.”

The new 5-floor, 42,000 sq m LLC will house a learning centre as well as training rooms, admin offices, a library, clubroom, auditorium, book shop and ancillary service areas. Cornelius Schlotthauer of Zaha Hadid Architects will see the project through to completion which is due by the end of 2012.

Design for High School #9 realised as building completes

The design by Austrian architects Coop Himmelb(l)au for the Central Los Angeles Area High School #9 for the visual and performing arts has completed and will open in September 2009 for the new term.

Central to the building is the suitably dramatic theatre which holds just short of 1,000 audience members and will be open to the public as well as the 1,800 students providing a public space which was previously lacking in the Grand Avenue area.

Each student is matriculated within one of four academies representing each of the arts disciplines, accordingly there are 4 separate classroom buildings as well as the theatre, the library and the cafeteria making up the seven building campus.

Coop Himmelb(l)au’s design concept is to use architectural signs as symbols to communicate the commitment of the Los Angeles community to Art. Like chess figures three sculptural buildings, which relate to the context of downtown Los Angeles and the program, redefine spatially and energetically the otherwise orthogonal arrangement of the master plan.

A Tower figure with spiralling ramp in the shape of the number 9 located on top of the theater’s flyloft serves as a widely visible sign for the Arts in the city and a point of identification for the students.

Inside the tower, an event, conference and exhibition space with a view across the city is planned to be located.

Enjoy it…

RenaltiSite.com

World Architecture News House of  Year competition brings out strongest design talents

Last year, Marbach made its architectural ascent in status when the city’s Museum of Modern Literature, designed by David Chipperfield to reconnect Germany’s literature once separated by the East/West divide, won the Sterling Prize – a most coveted architecture award. This year, perched on 6900 m2 of land atop a hill facing the museum, a private house responds with originality and thoughtful design, elevating the bar in the region. 

Submitted for WAN’s House of the Year 2008, Dupli Casa displays sophisticated shape manipulation to transform a simplistic design into a complex yet comprehensible super-home.

“The geometry of the building is based on the footprint of the house that previously was located on the site,” say Dupli Casa’s designers J. Mayer H. Architects. “Originally built in 1984 and with many extensions and modifications since then, the new building echoes the ‘family archaeology’ by duplication and rotation. Lifted up, it creates a semi-public space on ground level between two layers of discretion.”

The design therefore reflects a family vernacular – the different levels of a family presenting as twisted versions of the next, performing different functions but communicating as a whole.

“The skin of the villa performs a sophisticated connection between inside and outside and offers spectacular views onto the old town of Marbach and the German national literature archive on the other side of the Neckar valley,” the architects explain. In such close proximity to Chipperfield’s masterpiece Dupli Casa’s design is able to feature the Museum of Modern Literature as an asset in its own design, responding to the simple lines and blanched colouring.

And just as RIBA, who deliver the annual Sterling Prize, commended Chipperfield for his “control and discrimination in the choice of materials” the same could be saluted in Dupli Casa’s design. Concrete walls and wooden floors are used creating a connection between the modern and the old, the natural and the man-made and the inside and outside, similarly achieved in Chipperfield’s columned design which integrates the indoors and out. While the three storey house holds a standing of its own, as a piece defining responsive architecture, its stature grows to reflect this

Niki May Young
News Editor

[View with PicLens]

-

RenaltiSite.com

Barbara Residence, Miami Beach, United States

New residential work from Beilinson Gomez Architects PA

This oceanfront house in the Altos Del Mar district of Miami Beach utilizes the full extents of its site by creating a site perimeter envelope at the lot setback lines and then organizing both exterior and interior spaces within that perimeter frame, creating semi-exterior spaces between the marked envelope and the interior spaces.

Programmatically, this creates a public zone to the East (on the ocean) and a private / bedroom zone to the west (on Atlantic Way), and provides all of the interior spaces with a dramatic adjacency to vertical spaces that are exterior, yet still within the perimeter frame of the site.

The amount of square footage that is removed at this second level is then stacked above as a third level penthouse. Beilinson Gomez Architects PA received the Merit Award in the “Unbuilt Work” category of the 2008 AIA Miami Chapter Design Awards for this project.

Beilinson Gomez Architects PAlinsonarchitectspa.com

[View with PicLens]

Ground breaks on third of trio of towers in Shanghai’s Luijiazui Finance and Trade Zon

A 632 m tower designed by Gensler breaks ground today in Shanghai to complete a trio of new super-tall towers revolutionising China’s architectural record. Shanghai Tower will join and rise above the recently appraised ‘Best Tall Building Overall’ by the CTBUH, Shanghai World Financial Center and the Jin Mao Tower in the Luijiazui Finance and Trade Zone as China’s first ever super-tall district.

The tower, commissioned by Shanghai Tower Construction and Development Co., Ltd, will be the tallest in China with the highest open air observation deck in the world. Consisting of office space, a luxury hotel, retail and cultural venues the building will also hold connections to the Shanghai Metro and three floors of parking below ground level.

Shanghai Tower is organized as nine cylindrical buildings stacked one atop another. The inner layer of the double-skin façade encloses the stacked buildings, while a triangular exterior layer creates the second skin, or building envelope, which gently rotates as it rises. The spaces between the two façade layers create nine atrium sky gardens.

“This tower is symbolic of a nation whose future is filled with limitless opportunities,” said Qingwei Kong, President of Shanghai Tower Construction & Development Co., Ltd. “With Shanghai Tower we celebrate not only China’s economic success and increasing connection to the global community, but also our company’s commitment to developing properties that demonstrate the highest, noblest and most exquisite design achievements possible.”

[View with PicLens]

Image Shanghai Tower

RenaltiSite.com

The original iconic building was designed by Frank Lloyd Wright with no joints, a circular entity free from the ties of structural boundaries. But over time it is this carefree intention which has encountered the need to renovate the exterior after expansion and contraction have taken their toll on the concrete encasement. WASA has been working on the restoration which includes the retrofit and analysis of the energy efficiency of windows and skylights in the building as well as sidewalk replacement.

As the concrete is being poured for the final sidewalk replacements the building has taken form and the Guggenheim is effectively restored. The levels of circular concrete exterior offer the Museum a distinctive perspective in bustling Manhattan and encourage the eye upward. The Museum remained open during its semi-centennial renovation but soon the building can reopen as a whole, free, once again from the constraints of structural boundaries.

Niki May Young
News Editor

[View with PicLens]

Google is not a conventional company, nor does it intend to become one. This is readily apparent in their new offices for Google’s EMEA Engineering Hub in Zurich, Switzerland, where the design cultivates an energized and inspiring work environment that is relaxed but focused, and buzzing with activities.

The new Google office is about functionality and flexibility in the personal workspace and choice and diversity in the community areas, creating an environment that holistically supports the ‘Zooglers’ in their work and well-being. The research undertaken by the architects extended beyond purely functional aspects, and provided information about the Zooglers personality types, representational systems, values and motivational factors. This ensured that the design process was sharply focused on aspects of the environment that mattered most to the Zooglers in their working lives.

The concept of the communal areas like the Library or the Games Room relates directly to the project research conclusions and wider research that indicates relaxation to be crucial to innovation and stimulating original thought. Work and play are not mutually exclusive, or as Google puts it: “it is possible to code and pass the puck at the same time”.

The completed Google building is a true reflection of a forward-thinking company that was prepared to adopt innovative approaches proposed by the architectural team to determine the optimal design concept to nurture the talent and creativity of their Zurich employees.

[View with PicLens]

The latest design attempting to breach the dizzying heights of the Burj Dubai has been revealed as the multibillion dollar Nakheel Tower.

Designed by the developments wing of major investment company Nakheel, the tower will be more than a kilometre high, covering a space of around 270 hectares, and will become home to around 55,000 people, a workplace for 45,000, and is hoped will attract millions of visitors each year.

Nakheel Tower will comprise of four individual towers within a single structure, a distinctive crescent-shaped podium encircling the base and complementing the structure’s remarkable height. The multibillion dollar development, commissioned by Sultan Ahmed bin Sulayem, chairman of Dubai World, will also include 250,000 sq m of hotels and hospitality space, 100,000 sq m of retail space and huge expanses of green spaces, including canal walks, parks and landscaping.

The Tower itself, cited geographically central to Dubai at the intersection of Sheikh Zayed Road and the Arabian canal, will aim to complement surrounding developments, such as Jumeirah Park and Discovery Gardens.

In terms of design the architects have sought inspiration not just from Islamic design but also from the Islamic principles of inclusion, innovation, diversity, excellence, growth and progress: “These are the principles that have motivated and guided Islamic culture throughout history. Now they are shaping the cities of the future,” explained Sultan Bin Sulayem. To this end, the architects have sought inspiration and incorporated elements from the great Islamic cities of the past such as the gardens of Alhambra in Spain, the harbour of Alexandria in Egypt, and the bridges of Isfahan in Iran.

Sustainability and safety will be key to the development of the tower, with the latest standards and technology incorporated in its development, Sultan Bin Sulayem believes it will “send another message to the world that Dubai has a vision like no other place on earth.”

John Edwards
Reporter

[View with PicLens]

VTI2 to transform lifeless Victoria Street in Latest regeneration scheme

For several years, Transport for London have been undergoing a series of advancements in London’s famous underground system to ease congestion, particularly prevalent in central London, and to make travelling in Europe’s largest city as comfortable as possible.

But surrounding the internal developments of the labyrinthine underground network are those cropping up more visibly in the streets of London. A landmark design for Blackfriars Station which will once again abridge the station at either side of the Thames was revealed in September, similarly other stations including Shepherd’s Bush have been remodelled to accommodate the ever increasing stream of travellers through the bustling city.

But the latest developments in London’s travel lifeline are issued not in transport itself but in a trend for regeneration through transport. Part of the London Plan, developed under former Mayor Ken Livingstone in 2001, is the encouragement of high density building around transport nodes in the city. The concept is to reduce further travel horizontally and instead encourage those working and living in the city to climb vertically in commercial and residential towers based around key central stations, developed to cope with capacity travel. The latest of these to be revealed is the Victoria Transport Interchange, aka VTI 2.

A development by investors Land Securities, VTI 2 will occupy a 2.5 hectare site close to Victoria Station, the capital’s busiest transport hub with approximately 115 million passengers each year. Upon planning approval, a development of six buildings with office space, private and affordable housing, retail and leisure units will be created.

Richard Coleman, townscape advisor for the project said it will be a massive transformation for an important area close to Victoria Station: “Currently the interior of the site is dormant and of no urban value. The existing streets are underused because they go nowhere. The recasting of the area, with streets following desire lines, and very high quality architecture will serve people’s needs and pave the way for redistributing the bus station uses presently cluttering up the forecourt of the station which has more people using it than heathrow airport. The heights of the buildings are very carefully calculated, in consultation with the city council, to respect the setting of Belgravia, Buckingham Palace and views from the Royal Parks.”

The plans represent a similar regeneration to those presented in Renzo Piano’s London Bridge Tower, aka Shard of Glass. These schemes offer particular regenerative efforts due to a legal agreement, Section 106, which is created to protect areas where larger developments are planned. It allows additional development to adjacent areas which may be affected by the larger scheme. This system runs side by side with the London Plan in encouraging regeneration of facilities creating a balance between public and corporate benefits.

The VTI 2 development is a collaboration between world-renowned Kohn Pedersen Fox and the less known Benson and Forsyth and Lynch Architects who will design the residential aspects of the project. If planning approval is granted construction could begin in 2010. Land Securities plans for Victoria will continue with the submission of plans for approval at Selborne House on Victoria Street and Wellington House in Buckingham Gate in the coming weeks.

[View with PicLens]

London’s transformation by transport

Niki May Young
News Editor