SPF Architects, based in Culver City, California, have created an design for the Zhuhai Opera House in Guangdong Province, China. Learning from the traditional principles of the region, the opera house’s form gives the appearance of stacked pebbles. Such an idea was conceived as a way to create a visual balance based on the Chinese principle from the five element theory. The opera house has three stacked levels that provide varying programmatic activities, such as a 1500 seat auditorium, large plaza gathering space, rehearsal hall, restaurants and other public amenities. A forest behind the structure gives the impression of growth and sustainability.
Visiondivision shared with us their design for the Royal Elephant Pavilion which was rewarded an honorable mention in a not so ordinary competition. Recently, the Swedish King Carl XVI Gustav received two female elephants from the King and Queen of Thailand as a way to express their gratitude for the creation of a Buddhist pavilion in the north of Sweden. Stemming from this event, a competition was created to design the facilities for the two elephants.
With the city of Almere’s growth expected to require thousands of new residences, work places and related facilities, MVRDV was commissioned to collaborate with the city to design a concept structure vision to accommodate such drastic expansion. MVRDV’s Vision 2030 will create a framework to satisfy the growth for about 20 years. ”The structure vision for Almere is more than an urban master plan…” said Adri Duivesteijn, city councilor of Almere, “…it describes how the city can develop in economic, cultural and social terms. The expansion is not a quantitative effort. Even though the number of 60,000 new homes is impressive, the main objective is the addition of new qualities. Almere wants to serve the demand of the Randstad and at the same time needs the chance to develop into an ecologic, social and economically sustainable city”.
Cebra, a Danish architecture firm, will design a botanical garden for Aarhus University, Denmark’s second oldest and second largest university (after the University of Copenhagen). The botanical garden and greenhouse design will bring greenery to the campus by providing 29,600 sq feet of an expansive area of flora and fauna. The project was designed for a building competition that required the restoration of existing buildings and the creation of one new building.
WWA Architects have created a conceptual design for Shanghai Expo 2010. With the exhibition housing pavilions from countries all over the world, each pavilion must provide a strong aesthetic message to attract visitors and then provide insight to the country. WWA’s pavilion creates a distinct stylistic motif taken from the folk-art paper cut-out to create a “memorable cultural ideogram”. The intention was for “the structure décor to draw on and make reference to tradition, but ultimately to be that tradition’s contemporary reinterpretation, a creative extension into the present day by way of inspiration rather than replication,” explained the architects.
More images and more about the pavilion after the break.
After two years of construction, the Musée Hergé designed by Christian de Portzamparc is complete. Situated in a forest and connected by a footbridge to Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium, the museum is dedicated to Belgian artist and Tintin author Hergé. The museum highlights Hergé’s life and works through cultural facilities, permanent and temporary exhibition areas, and a video projection room.
Designed by ThreefoldArchitects, the Ladderstile House, an eco-friendly large residence in Richmond Park, London, is arranged around an internally landscape courtyard. The home’s volumes open to external areas creating a unified residence with the exterior and interior complimenting each other.
More images and more about the residence after the break.
The Netherlands-based Cepezed Architects were recently appointed by the offices of the Hague Capital of Culture to design a temporary theater. The city strives to be named the European Capital of Culture in 2018, so the architects have created a contemporary version of the Roman Colosseum to become an important icon for the area.
1:1 Architects shared their design idea for retro fitting high-rise buildings in Melbourne with a modular system of independent green roof structures. The new roof is designed to be installed, modified or even dismantled quite easily. “Our green roof concept is a flexible modular system, designed to adapt to varying scale rooftops and respond to differing site conditions and functional requirements,” explained the architects. The roof provides a new atmosphere for the existing buildings where a variety of activities, such as an informal meeting or a simple lunch break, can be held.
HOK‘s Los Angeles office, with Parsons Brinckerhoff, was just announced the winner for the ARTIC (Anaheim Regional Transportation Intermodal Center) in Anaheim, California. This new transit center, featuring a high-speed rail network, will update Anaheim’s public transportation system and ignite further development in the city. “We’re getting the critical infrastructure in place where you can actually envision a day in the future where you can reliably get around without a car,” added Todd Osborne, vice-president at HOK.
More about the ARTIC transit center after the break.
As we shared earlier this week, the Desiging in Teheran international competition urged designers to creatively rethink the potential a retail area can have upon an evolving metropolis (Grzegorz Witold Woronowicz‘s won as we reported earlier on AD). Giuseppe Iodice‘s proposal placed third as it aimed to create an architecture that ”would investigate a social, political, cultural function and become an element of dialogue between different cultures…thus assuming a role of balanced mediation between western and eastern culture without renouncing its expressive identity.”
With the combined effort of Ben van Berkel and Caroline Bos of UNStudio, the Retreat Exhibition will kick off on June 28th at KunstFort Asperen. The exhibit, which will feature the works of 12 artists, aims to reflect different points of view on their interpretations of ‘retreat’. The installation creates an atmosphere where “the functionality of the space is interrupted and reality is stretched.”
Located between Puerto Rico and the US Virgin Islands, the Island of Culebra is a popular vacation area thanks to its beautiful beaches and perfect weather. RSVP Architects have designed a simple vacation home which can provide for a variety of activities while occupied by its summer users.
More about the home and more images after the break.
HyBrid Architecture + Assembly‘s building system, coined “Cargotecture”, offers a sustainable, modular and affordable alternative to traditional construction methods. The Seattle-based architecture and general contracting firm recently created the first cargo container buildings for Seattle in the design district of the Georgetown area.
More images and more about the cargo buildings after the break.
Situated along the Moskva River in Moscow, Andrew Bedov’s Aqaulis Pier creates a dynamic infrastructure hub that provides an alternative circulation route for the users. The pier is designed to replace the 15 moorings in the city by creating one central unit with an efficient water bus transportation system to help commuters cross the river.
The smooth form creates a fluid continuity for both the exterior and interior spaces. Inside the structure, open spaces provide room to relax while resting upon countless sofas, dinning in a small café or reading in the library. On the exterior, a viewing platform extends allowing users to enjoy the natural beauty of the river.
The international competition Designing in Teheran seeks to modernize the Iranian city by fusing the existing cultural area with a more contemporary environment. Such an environment will include influence from the fashion world through the introduction of new retail areas. This competition is comprised of the design for two towers, Tower A and Tower B, which will provide retail space for the popular clothing store the United Colors of Benetton. The jury has selected three winners for each tower, and soon will narrow the selection to one winner per tower. The proposal by the team formed by Grzegorz Witold Woronowicz, Jakub Piotr Kalinowski, Piotr Kus and Krzysztof Rewski was selected as a winner for Tower A, attempting to create a new kind of shopping experience for users within the complex.
More sketches and more information about the winning proposal after the break.
Ginseng Chicken Architecture, a promising new firm, has proposed a design for the National Wildflower Center in Liverpool. The science center, which provides a variety of activities such as plant production areas and facilities for seed processing, “will inspire people to visit the center to learn about the relationship between nature, mathematics and physics…it will provide an operational hub for creative conservation, learning and innovation,” explained the architects.
More diagrams, images and information after the break.
The Re:Vision Dallas competition attracted hundreds of entries from the world’s top architecture firms from twenty six countries. ”The quality of the thought and effort of the design teams is astounding. It was very clear that a lot of people had put their hearts and souls into this competition,” said CDC Executive Director John Greenan. The latest proposal shared with us comes from DB +P/Fletcher Studio entitled XERO Project. This winning proposal, along with the other two winning proposals (Little and Atelier Data + MOOV previously featured on AD) has the opportunity to be selected for construction by the competition’s development partners.
