Aedas has unveiled the plans for its Chongqing Xinhua Bookstore Group Jiefangbei Book City mixed-use project, a complex of retail, residential, office, and hotel space with a Xinhua Bookstore at its core. Based on an ancient Chinese prose that states “knowledge brings wealth,” the project aims to integrate the concept of a book with the cultural elements of Chongqing to create an interactive commercial space.
Courtesy of Aedas
Inspired by the form of a rolled book scroll, the central building in the project appears to unfold through stepped terraces, “implying the spirit of wisdom and knowledge.” These stepped terraces furthermore reflect the landscape of Chongqing, which is called the “Mountain City.”
Courtesy of Aedas
Courtesy of Aedas
The complex will additionally feature three themed plazas: The inclined rooftop and cultural plaza at the podium become a new cultural destination for lifestyle and entertainment activities, while the sky cultural plaza enriches and extends the civic space of Jiefangbei Plaza to provide a refreshing and tranquil environment in this business center for users to relax and enjoy.
Courtesy of Aedas
Courtesy of Aedas
Expected completion of the complex is set for 2020.
A cookbook by El Bulli chef Ferran Adrià played a key role in determining architecture firm Woods Bagot‘s design for its new Melbourne studio (+ slideshow). (more…)
Visiting Wortham Fellow at the Rice School of ArchitectureMichelle Chang has created A,B 1:2, a twisted “half house” installation in the university’s jury room. Built at a half scale, the project superimposes and bisects two simple cubes, playing with light and shade through skewed windows in order to demonstrate how architects and artists think about space, as well as how drawings and renderings translate into physical constructions.
I don’t want to get overly technical, says Chang. I just want people to see it and understand there’s something kind of weird going on in a couple of places and image what that does. A lot of my work is based in optics and perspectives, how changing certain assumptions of our representational conventions can lead to new ways of seeing. What’s interesting about doing these installations is they’re always so incredibly different from what I imagined them to be, working digitally.
With sunlight filtering through the high windows on three sides of the exhibit’s room, the interior character of the installation is expected to change throughout the day, influencing the interpreted locations of typical “bedroom” or “living room” spaces.
The spaces are defined more by the angular interior and play of light, rather than boundaries according to elements like walls, windows, or objects.
Rusted iron panels screen the most private rooms of this house in the Argentinian city of Córdoba, but are perforated with an intricate pattern that evokes the dappled shadows cast by trees (+ slideshow). (more…)
From the architect. The RTC’s new Mobility Training Center is designed to increase mobility among Southern Nevadans, especially senior residents and persons with disabilities, by equipping them with the skills and knowledge necessary to use public transportation throughout Clark County in Southern Nevada.
Floor Plan
This new facility consolidates transit mobility training and Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) Paratransit certification under one roof. The Mobility Training Center includes these key elements:
Mobility Training Facility The interior design of the 14,500 sq. ft. Mobility Training Facility includes two full-sized city buses situated on a fictitious exterior streetscape encompassing a transit shelter and stop, paved roads, curb cut outs, ADA-compliant ramps and sidewalk, and a functional assessment course with various surfaces and terrain obstacles.
The space also includes additional parking, direct front door access for city buses, a new bus stop, and an exterior dog relief area.
Courtesy of Gensler
Blindconnect’s Angela’s House This unique feature of the facility is a simulated, typical Las Vegas, two-bedroom, 1,200 sq. ft. residence. This fully equipped mock residence will be used by the vision impaired for learning critical living skills. Angela’s House is the only blindness skills training facility in Nevada.
Courtesy of Gensler
PRINCIPAL FEATURES Gensler designed the exterior of the facility to work in harmony with the existing maintenance facility and present a friendly desert-inspired aesthetic.
The architectural inspiration is derived from the mountains of Red Rock Canyon National Conservation Area that can be seen in the distance from the west side of the site. The dynamic red and orange color of the building’s cladding systems is symbolic of Red Rock. The protruding glazed volume to the northwest is in reference of the desert sky. Finally, the elongated entry volume wrapped with perforated panels in reference to the “canyon” concept is embedded into a mountain-scape.
Courtesy of Gensler
Color is used to enliven the large entry signage to the public entranceway and to welcome the mobility and visually impaired patrons into the building. The design team at Gensler introduced a lime-green feature wall to create a “spark” to energize the entry zone. The patterned perforations to the canopy create a 4d entry experience via the ever-shifting casting of light and shadow effects scattered throughout the area and the unseen light sensations felt within this space.
Courtesy of Gensler
The building serves as the new terminus for the RTC fixed bus route, Route 103 – Decatur. The project was designed with an onsite bus turn around loop drive, a separate bus turn off, and a bus stop which helps to free up roadway space on Hauck Street.
Courtesy of Gensler
The new training center is intended for public access and use, so it is important that the training center be recognizable to the public and be differentiated from the existing non-public RTC maintenance facility adjacent to it. The building’s fenestration located in the upper northeast corner, serves as a beacon or lantern at night and is clearly visible from the I-215 freeway.
At just 1,310 feet (400 meters) across at its widest point, Fire Island, a barrier island to the south of Long Island in New York, may not seem like an ideal place to host a community. Nonetheless, the island is home to a number of small villages, whose seclusion and proximity to the ocean make them popular getaway locations. With its beach atmosphere (the community is only accessible by ferry) and its growing reputation from the 1960s onward as a safe space for the gay community, Fire Island Pines is one such popular summer destination. As the village grew in the post-war years, the care-free recreational lifestyle encouraged by Fire Island Pines’ setting was an ideal proving ground for many of the ideals of mid-century modernist house design, with architects such as the prolific Horace Gifford—who designed 40 homes in Fire Island Pines alone—answering the call.
Sadly though, after a steep population decline in recent decades, many of the modernist homes in Fire Island Pines are now at risk, with owners unaware of the historical and architectural significance of their properties. In response to this, Christopher Rawlins, a principle at Rawlins Design and author of the book Fire Island Modernist: Horace Gifford and the Architecture of Seduction, has created Pines Modern, a website dedicated to cataloging and disseminating information on the architectural heritage of Fire Island Pines.
Pines Modern catalogs 45 buildings in the small community, with each documented through photographs (both contemporary and from when the building was in its prime) drawings, and a short description available in both textual and audio formats. In the words of Chris Rawlins, the website “is a call to action that aims to unlock our history, rethink our priorities, and honor the homeowners who have maintained the integrity of their vintage properties.”
Check out all of Fire Island Pines’ impressive architectural heritage at Pines Modern here.
A team comprised of Chinese architects Hang Guo and Shanshan Li have used the history of theatre and circus to drive their proposal for a new Moscow Circus School. The design, dubbed Dome and Circus, was developed for the recent Architectural Competition Concours d’Architecture (AC-CA) competition, which encouraged participants to consider the ways in which their design could generate discussion about the relationship between architecture and culture.
Dome and Circus respond to this criteria by reinterpreting ancient theatrical spaces, such as the Pantheon or ancient Greek outdoor theatres, into a contemporary cultural arena. The “theme and prototype” of the project became the dome, and it is deployed across the project in “multiple and continuous” ways.
Courtesy of Hang Guo and Shanshan Li
By interlacing the once separate domes, a sequence of spaces was created with blurred boundaries to one another. Above the domes lies a space described by the competition team as resembling “undulating waves,” accommodating a vibrant mix of public program.
Courtesy of Hang Guo and Shanshan Li
The roof plane is based upon the continuous Greek outdoor theatre and references the Moscow Hermitage Garden, a popular cultural destination nearby. The spaces between each of the demarcated programmatic zones are filled “rhythmically” with spheres, which have the dual function of public space and structure.
Courtesy of Hang Guo and Shanshan Li
The architects said in their design statement: When the sun goes down, the light projects shadow through the hole of the roof, indicating the coming of night. The hustle and bustle began to play at the circus. This is the miracle show time of the Moscow Circus School.
Courtesy of Hang Guo and Shanshan Li
Dome and Circus was awarded an honorable mention. For more information, including all of the published award winners, head over to the competition website.
Illustration duo Mrzyk & Moriceau’s music video for The Avalanches’ track Subways features a collection of colourful characters embarking on a surreal underground journey (+ movie). (more…)
From the architect. This building meets the increasing educational demand of the city of Vitoria, in a neighborhood that concentrates the biggest extension of collective dwelling during these last years, and where most of the childhood population live.
The plot is surrounded by a group of large size towers, in a green area crossed by the Zarauna creek. The building is planned as a low rise construction that tries to oxygenate the area and work as an inner courtyard.
After evaluation of the functionality of the programme, the topography, the orientation, the surroundings and the roadways around the plot, an L shape building was proposed, opened towards the sunniest orientations and most protected from the usual winds, so that the playground could be placed on the most favourable position.
Plan 0
The building, with a capacity for 693 pupils, houses the classrooms for the stages of primary school (6 to 12 years) and pre-school education (2 to 5 years), each of the levels being on each side of the L shape.
Both parts have been configured as two intersected prisms, defining the common spaces, complementary uses, and the main entrance to the school in their merging area.
The gable roofs respond to the surrounding, leaning themselves towards the playground, offering their most urban façade towards the outside and the human scale to the inside.
From the point of view of functionality, it has been sought for the most appropriate location for each of the uses, so that the connections among them could be clear and effective, reducing the circulation spaces; but respecting and discriminating the requirements and specific flows of each usage.
It has been used a precast construction solution, standardized and with regular geometries, avoiding façade developments larger than necessary, to reduce the perimeter of the building. The concept design follows the principles mentioned before, but keeping always in mind the volumes, composition, and proportion of the facades and interior spaces, conditioning the constructive solutions and material choosing.
In the playground, three sport courts have been projected (one of them covered). They have been adapted to the topography defining three different platforms; the first one, at ground floor level, and the other two, with a difference of 1m height. They are placed close to the gym, with a direct and covered access with exterior ramps.
During the design of the building bioclimatic strategies have been considered, such as orientation and protection of the classrooms from the sunlight, the design of installation systems and air circulation conditions, the choosing of the construction solutions and their isolating conditions, the supplying distances of each material etc. The standardization has supposed a reduction on the costs and working schedules. It has also been a challenge to propose construction systems with minimum maintenance.
The design of the interiors has been specially careful with accessibility and adaptation to the users, also while studying the chromatical compositions and signalization, in order to favor functionality and provide clear circulations.
