Interior Rendered View. Image Courtesy of Andrea Maffei Architects
Andrea Maffei Architects has unveiled their entry for the Redemptoris Mater Church competition to design a new church complex in Cinisi, Italy. Influenced heavily by religious iconography, their design makes use of liturgical concepts to organize its spaces. Read more about the entry after the break.
Aerial Rendered View. Image Courtesy of Vo Trong Nghia Architects
Known for their work in adding greenery to the cities of Vietnam, Vo Trong Nghia Architects have unveiled their latest set of condominiums for Ho Chi Minh City – three towers covered in bamboo. Located 3.5km from the centre of Ho Chi Minh City, their project “Diamond Lotus” has enough units for 720 families, with a total floor space of 67,240 square meters across its three buildings. Read more about this project after the break.
“I’ve always been fascinated by the High Line and its possibilities for the city. Decades ago, I used to visit the galleries in the area and consider how to build along the route. It's very exciting to be building there now,” said Zaha Hadid. “The design engages with the city while concepts of fluid spatial flow create a dynamic new living environment.”
Wiel Arets Architects (WAA) has revealed plans for a mixed-use "Bahrain Bay Tower" in Manama. Reaching heights up to 170-meters, the project is comprised of two residential towers connected by a plinth of retail, office, parking and public park space.
"The plinth’s ground floor is publicly accessible and is mostly composed of retail and public lobby space," says WAA. "Due to a division of these ground floor spaces, along the site’s southern edge, a breezeway was created that allows the public to traverse the tower’s entire site - without entering its interior - which serves to infuse the tower’s immediate context with pedestrian life. In this way, the ground level frontages of the tower’s retail spaces are maximized."
Herzog & de Meuron have unveiled plans for a new Vancouver Art Gallery. Aiming to become a "vibrant new cultural destination" that utilizes the last vacant lot in the City's downtown, the new 230-foot-tall facility will serve the Gallery's expanding collection, featuring work from local and international contemporary artists.
Designed as a stacked wooden structure whose bulk is lifted high above the street, the building is comprised of seven public levels that offer a range of uniquely sized galleries. Setbacks and overhangs respond directly to the context, framing views of the city and North Shore Mountains, while allowing light to filter down to the open-air courtyard below.
Kéré Architecture has designed a $12 million "Legacy Campus" in Kenya for the Mama Sarah Obama Foundation (MSOF) - the foundation of the sole living grandparent of president Barack Obama whose mission is to feed and educate children and impoverished families. Planned for Kogelo, Kenya (the birthplace of President Barack Obama’s father), the phased plan is to build an early childhood development center, a primary and secondary school, a vocational training school and eventually a hospital all within a single campus.
"The goal of the project is to promote a sustainable approach to community-strengthening and education," says Kéré.
Following a turnkey competition, NORD Architects was awarded the contract for their design of the new FuresøCity Hall in Denmark. The project, consisting of 2,000 square meters of renovation and 3,400 square meters of new space, is set to finish by 2017 and will house 300 employees. Driven by sustainable and democratic design, the new city hall is estimated to reduce annual operating costs by 8 million DKK for the Furesø government. Read more about this upcoming project after the break.
Building Facade Exterior Rendered View. Image Courtesy of Guerra De Rossa Arquitectos + Pedro Livni Arquitecto
Replicating the corner of Friedrichstrabe and Kavalierstrabe, Guerra De Rossa Arquitectos and Pedro Livni Arquitecto's entry for the DessauBauhausMuseum is organized as an L, suspended above ground to create a passage and meeting space in the park in which it’s situated. The monolithic volume, built in reinforced concrete, acts as a single gesture, emphasizing its weight. Read more about this entry after the break.
Barcelona-based Vilalta Studio has unveiled the designs for the Ebenezer Chapel, a granite excavated chapel in Raleigh, North Carolina. Upon completion, the chapel will be excavated 15 meters below ground in a sloped forest terrain next to Richland Creek, and will be built completely from the natural granite on the site.
From the lowest point of the site at the creek, a continuous ramp will slope down around the chapel, and into the foyer, as the main entrance to the space, all of which provides natural light and ventilation in addition to chapel access.
London-based British practice Jonathan Tuckey Design (JTD) have created a series of residential interiors for the 'Gasholder Triplets' in London's formerly industrial King's Cross district. 145 individual apartments have been designed inside these mid-nineteenth century structures, within which Wilkinson Eyre Architects have created the "architectural insertions" (the buildings themselves).
o2a Studio has unveiled their proposal for the Lorry I. Lokey School of Management at Tel AvivUniversity. Part of an invited competition, the design brief required a two-phase proposal sited at the focal point of the Tel Aviv University Campus: an initial 3,500 square metres of classrooms, offices and an auditorium and a future 1,500 square metres of extra classes and offices. Though not selected for the final design of the school, the o2a Studio proposal for the Lorry I. Lokey School of Management encompasses contextual, programmatic and climatic concerns in an elegant solution. Read more about this proposal after the break.
Penda's proposal for the New Bauhaus Museum competition features a transformable design that serves as an “extension of the city on one hand and as a connector to the surrounding park on the other.” The design features two rotating platforms that can open to connect the museum to the sculpture park during the day and close at night. Although not selected as the winning design, Penda's "Flexible Bauhaus" proposal was one of the finalists selected to participate in the second stage of the competition. Read more about their proposal after the break.
Courtesy of HAEAHN Architecture and H Architecture
South KoreanHaeahn Architecture, in collaboration with New-York-based H Architecture, has won a competition to design the Smart Work Center and Press Center at the historic site of the National Assembly Complex in Yeoido, which is the largest island in the Han River in Seoul.
The 23,750-square-meter building will be flexible in its uses and support "legislative functions of the National Assembly." Overall it will “house five distinctive programs: a press center with a briefing room alongside a small broadcast facility with a workplace for reporters; a highly-equipped smart work center which serves as a remote workplace for commuting officers and Ministers for the government; supplementary office spaces; underground parking; and welfare facilities which will include a restaurant, a banquet hall, and a retail component that will be accessible to both government workers and the general public.”
London firm, Amos Goldreich Architecture and Israel firm Jacobs-Yaniv Architects have come together to design a new shelter for the No to Violence Against Women charity, which helps domestic abuse victims in Israel. This will be the charity’s first purpose-built shelter, replacing an overcrowded, makeshift building.
Located in a quiet neighbourhood, the site is surrounded by a mix of private homes and townhouses and is within reach of community resources like stores, jobs, clinics, schools, parks, counseling centres and recreational facilities. The shelter will include independent living quarters for up to 12 families, communal areas, a kindergarten, a computer room, laundry facilities, kitchens, a refectory as well as staff accommodation and office areas.
Exterior Rendered View. Image Courtesy of WVA Architects
WVA's “Zhuhai JIANFENG Bridge East Square Landscape Tower” proposal received third place in the Zhuhai Doumen Observation Tower Competition, held in July 2014. Their project began with a rigorous analysis of the surrounding geographical, cultural and socio-political context. Located at the junction of two rivers in Zhuhai, China, the Zhuhai Observation Tower is sited in an intersection of neighbourhoods: a place of destination and circulation for locals and tourists.
London-based Feilden Fowles has been selected to design a new visitor center for the Yorkshire Sculpture Park (YSP). To be located on the southern entrance of the park on a hillside that used to be part of a quarry, the rammed-earth building will arise from the ground. The center aims to increase the park’s capacity, which currently receives over 400,000 visitors every year, and will include a 140-square-meter restaurant, a 125-square-meter gallery space, an 80-square-meter public foyer and a 50-square-meter shop.
Image from inside Old Trafford Cricket Ground, with the new Old Trafford Lodge on the right and "The Point" conference facilities on the left. Image Courtesy of ICA
Glasgow-based firm ICA has secured planning permission to redesign the Old Trafford Lodge hotel at Manchester's famed Old Trafford Cricket Ground, creating a larger, 150-bedroom hotel and completing the recent transformation of England's second oldest cricket ground.
Danish practice aarhus arkitekterne has won a competition to design the new Proton Therapy Centre for advanced cancer treatment in Aarhus, Denmark. As “the most advanced radiation center to date and the only one of its kind in Denmark,” as well as one of only a few in the world, the Centre will undoubtedly become a pioneer in cancer treatment.
Designed from the inside out, the building’s façades are meant to convey the function of the interior, “and tell the story of precision, which is they key component of proton therapy as a form of treatment,” according to the architects. Thus, the atrium of the building becomes central to its orientation, providing not only an axis, but also a source of natural lighting.
MAD Architects has proposed a futuristic model for housing in Los Angeles, as part of the ongoing “Shelter: Rethinking How We Live in Los Angeles” exhibition at the A+D Museum. Dubbed the "Cloud Corridor," the concept is based on Ma Yansong’s “Shanshui City” philosophy for architecture to "manifest the spiritual essence between people and nature." The vision is the opposite of sprawl, proposing a high-density vertical village made up of nine interconnected residential towers.
New York-based SO-IL has unveiled plans for a new Brooklyn art gallery, dubbed Artes Amant. The 1,320-square-meter building will house the production, display and storage of art in a four-story "concrete mass" that is "spatially marked by its industrial past."
"This arts’ building is an exploration in soft form, where a cluster of shells acts to diffuse an exterior presence and shape the building’s interior," says SO-IL.
London-based Serie Architects, in collaboration with Multiply Architects of Singapore, has unveiled its winning design for a Neighbourhood Centre and Polyclinic in Punggol, Singapore. Called Oasis Terrace, the project will become the new center for public amenities for Singapore’s Housing & Development Board in Punggol.
The design spans 27,400 square meters, of which 9,400 square meters will be comprised of healthcare facilities, while the rest will include “communal gardens, play spaces, gyms, retail spaces, dining, [and] learning spaces,” all of which is expected to come together into “a new generation of integrated development.”
Ganti + Asociates (GA) Design has won an international ideas competition with a radical shipping container skyscraper that was envisioned to provide temporary housing in Mumbai's overpopulated Dharavi Slum. Taking in consideration that steel shipping containers can be stacked up to 10 stories high without any additional support, GA's winning scheme calls for a 100-meter-tall highrise comprised of a series of self supported container clusters divided by steel girders placed every 8 stories.