Beijing: The Latest Architecture and News

Andrei Lucian Rusu shared with us his proposal for the AIM International Competition in Beijing, China. More images and architect’s description.

Back in 2008, we marveled at Australian architecture firm PTW’s Water Cube. With its iridescent cellular façade, the swimming facility played host to top notch swimming competitions within an energy efficient and dynamic piece of architecture. But, move over Michael Phelps – there are new swimmers in town! After a ten-month renovation, the facility will now house a 140,000-square-foot water park (Asia’s largest) designed by Toronto-based planning and design firm Forrec.

More images and more about the water park after the break.

The San Francisco office of Skidmore, Owings & Merrill LLP (SOM) has received a 2010 “Good Design is Good Business” China Award for the new U.S. Embassy Complex in Beijing, China. Architectural Record and McGraw-Hill Construction recognized 17 projects with their third bi-annual program. The awards celebrate projects that demonstrate the power of design in the advancement of business and civic objectives.

The U.S. Embassy in Beijing, which opened for the 2008 Beijing Olympics, received its award in the Best Public Project category. Working with the U.S. Department of State, SOM responded to the building’s diplomatic role by creating a space that is welcoming, secure, and respectful of local traditions. As a sovereign U.S. presence on Chinese soil, the Embassy reflects American cultural, social and political values while paying respect to the host country’s ancient and extraordinarily vibrant culture.

More images and information after the break.

KSP Jürgen Engel Architekten was awarded first prize for their proposal for the Beijing Patent Office. Located in downtown Beijing, the site is near a new subway line and sits opposite the entrance hall of Caishikou Station. The proposal integrates the Patent Office into the site’s sustainable traffic infrastructure. The building is divided into a central hall, towers, bridges, open spaces and spacious rooftop gardens that creates an interconnected, communicative structure. A surrounding strip embraces the individual parts of the building, extending from the roof to the façade, spanning open spaces, thereby giving the Beijing Patent Office a specific identity in the urban context.

More about the proposal and more images after the break.

The Chicago and Shanghai offices of Skidmore, Owings and Merrill (SOM) won the international design competition to expand the Beijing Central Business District (CBD). This project was also awarded an AIA Honor Award.

Basically, their plan proposes the creation of 3 new districts anchored by parks and green boulevards as you can see on the renderings. But the an important aspects of this project is on the small scale, a network of walkable blocks to offer pedestrian (and bike) friendly scale for development. Because sustainable doesn´t have to mean just “green”, but also to offer an environment on which people can actually establish social relations on a neighborhood scale.

The plan also proposes an express commuter rail service between the Beijing Capital International Airport, the CBD, and high speed rail service at Beijing South Station. A new streetcar system is proposed to conveniently link all areas of the CBD.

Sometimes, a good transportation system and focusing on the pedestrian scale sound obvious, but they are the foundations to establish neighborhoods that can bring life to parts of the city 24/7, instead of business districts that die at night with dormitory cities with a lack of services.

More images after the break.

The Mandarin Hotel, adjacent to the CCTV building and part of the project, just got on fire today. The project, designed by OMA with facade studies by FRONT, looks to be completly affected as you can see on the above video. This supossedly started after fireworks during the last day of Chinese new year.

The hotel was used during the Olympics, but wasn´t officially opened yet, but was supossed to during 2009. This will definetely push dates back, as it seems like a complete loss to me.

Photos of the fire by Reuters here (very impressive, but can´t put them here because of copyright). More videos after the break.

UPDATE 5: Added 4 more videos

UPDATE 4: Statement from the Mandarin Hotel Group after the break

UPDATE 3: I replaced the first video with actual footage of the hotel starting to burn after the fireworks

UPDATE 2: Wonitata and other chinese blogs have impressive photos of the fire. See some more after the break.

UPDATE 1: Beijing police says the building could collapse

UPDATE: We just got the following statement from OMA:

¿Remember GreenPix, the 2,200 sqm LED media wall powered by solar panels we featured some months ago? Alexandra Lerman published a documentary about the GreenPix on which Simon Giostra, founder of Simone Giostra & Partners. Giostra explains the challenge to design and build this gigantic media wall, with the help of engineering experts ARUP.