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MVRDV and Zhubo Architecture Design have won a competition to design the Xili Sports and Cultural Centre in Shenzhen, China. The new experience center will consist of four distinct volumes housing a theater, a basketball and badminton arena, a multi-function arena and a swimming pool, as it seeks to “transform the lives of the different generations of people living nearby, through offering a more humanistic model for sports and culture.”
As the fastest developing urban region in China, Shenzhen is currently undergoing a transformation from a production-based to a knowledge-driven economy. The resulting boom has already created high-density usage, and stadium-sized sports facilities for entertainment. But there remains a lack of recreational facilities for typical citizens.
“There is now a need for a more human-centred approach; the challenge was to go from bigness to compression through understanding urbanism,” explain the architects. “MVRDV’s design for the densification and development of a sports and cultural centre responds to the growing demand for fitness sports venues, with the intention of introducing a more fun, human, social and sustainable model that departs from populist Olympic-sized sports arenas.”
The complex will be located in a residential area along Shenzhen’s Dasha Green Corridor, which stretches between the Nanshan and Yangtai mountain parks. Program elements have been arranged to allow for flexible zones, where different sports and social activities can occur, blurring the boundaries between sports and culture to strengthen community interaction.
“We wanted to combine a large-scale sports stadium with a social aspect connecting it with the community. This was achieved by arranging different volumes on the site around a new diagonal (green) bridge linking the Chaguang metro station in the south, with the Tanglan mountains in the north, making this centre a stage for different users – nature, sports and culture”, says MVRDV founding partner, Jacob van Rijs.
The center’s total 105,000 square meters (1,130,000 square feet) includes a 20,000 square meter (215,000 square foot) theatre-amphitheatre, 15,000 square meter (161,000 square foot) Basketball- Badminton arena, 10,000 square meter (108,000 square foot) multifunctional arena and 6,000 square meter (65,000 square foot) swimming pool. The signature element of the complex is a special elevated running track that connects and weaves between the volumes, inviting visitors to “go for an exciting run around the complex, relax and socialise both inside and outside.”
MVRDV designed the project in collaboration with co-architects Zhubo Architecture Design, who are well-revered for their influential works in Shenzhen and throughout China, alongside adopting a humanistic approach to the effect of the design and construction process on health, well-being and fitness.
Xili Sports and Cultural Centre will be MVRDV’s first project under construction in Shenzhen. Construction is slated to begin in 2017.
Location: Xili, Nanshan, Shenzhen, Guangdong, China
Mvrdv Team: Winy Maas, Jacob van Rijs, Nathalie de Vries, Wenchian Shi, Gustavo van Staveren, Tiantian Zhang, Daehee Suk, Duong Vu Hong, Patryk Slusarski, Xiaoting Chen, Mikel Vazquez, Bowen Zhu
Plan, Sections: The Form of Form, Johnston Marklee, Office KGDVS, Nuno Brandão Costa, 2016. Image Courtesy of Lisbon Architecture Triennale
From the architects and curatorial team. One of architecture’s fundamental legacies is its own form. Not only is history built from its visual universe, but form is also a common language that brings together architects from all over the world in a collective conversation. In this exhibition, which proceeds from a potentially infinite repository, three architects—Johnston Marklee, Nuno Brandão Costa, and Office KGDVS—build a dialogue that challenges notions of authorship and the limits of form.
Mariabruna Fabrizi and Fosco Lucarelli were invited to reflect upon a selection of examples from their platform, Socks Studio. They highlight the permanence of form and its capacity to condense a set of values into any visible thing. The Socks format has evolved over the years from an online magazine to become a platform for speculation and discussion that also draws on Microcities’ own architectural projects.
Functioning as a “conversation,” the narrative of the exhibition has been developed around a number of spaces that are inspired by examples of architectural designs by the architects. Each of the spaces is designed to house content selected from the extensive Socks database.
The language of architecture is explored through a sample of construction drawings, landscape interventions, urban plans, artistic investigation, and other elements. Originating from different time periods and regions of the world, the content highlights what remains constant and what changes, as well as identifying analogies and affinities in the creation of the built environment. Organized along twelve interlinked spaces, with each space incorporating images related to a core element, the exhibition defines continuous seam of works that are directly inter-related, be it through affinity or opposition.
Reference: Map of the Neolithic settlement of «atalhˆy¸k (Turkey). Image Courtesy of Lisbon Architecture Triennale
Curated by Diogo Seixas Lopes, The Form of Form exhibition is also a process in itself. The ultimate aim is for it to become a “meeting space” that can demonstrate the meaning of form in architectural design – in the past, present and future.
French photographer Jonk drove over 5,000 kilometers through southeast Europe. His subject matter? Yugoslavian monuments, or “spomenik” in Serbian.
Built in the 1960s and 70s under former president Josep Broz Tito, these monuments commemorate the communist resistance during the German occupation. While their sculptors and architects vary (Vojin Bakic, Jordan and Iskra Grabul among others), all of the monuments memorialize WWII battle sites or former concentration camps. Although the monuments attracted a high rate of visitors in the 1980s, many of them have been abandoned or poorly preserved after Yugoslavia’s split. Jonk’s photographs illuminate both the decay and beauty of these sculptures.
Well-known architects are easy to admire or dismiss from afar, but up close, oddly humanizing habits often come to light. However, while we all have our quirks, most people’s humanizing habits don’t give an insight into how they became one of the most notable figures in their field of work. The following habits of several top architects reveal parts of their creative process, how they relax, or simply parts of their identity. Some are inspiring and some are surprising, but all give a small insight into the mental qualities that are required to be reach the peak of the architectural profession—from an exceptional work drive to an embrace of eccentricity (and a few more interesting qualities besides).
1. Playing With the Same Toy All Day (The Eameses)
Charles and Ray Eames were prolific in their work, producing over 900 multidisciplinary designs. The Musical Tower was one of these, a 5-meter high rearrangeable xylophone tower. For new staff members, the entire first day would be spent playing with this one toy. This creative initiation was important for the Eameses, who believed that spending a day listening to and observing someone’s musical experiments provided valuable insight to their personality.
“Architectural art cannot be created in an office-like environment”, Alvar Aalto once said. Taking this to extremes, Aalto was known to have “drank like a fish,” and boozing in the office was common—aiming, of course, for an artistic bohemian air rather than unproductive drunkenness. [1]
Climbing a Norwegian mountain may be considered an odd team building exercise for architectural firms, unless your firm is Snøhetta. For Snøhetta, whose founding inspiration and namesake is a mountain said to house Norse gods, an annual trip to climb that very mountain makes a lot more sense. The purpose of the trip has changed as the firm has grown: “We use the time to talk about what we’re doing and where we want to go,” says co-founder Craig Dykers. “We used to go just for the sake of climbing but now it’s got to have more meaning.”
There are many stories of Zaha Hadid that suggest the most important person in her life was herself. Examples include being several hours late for a Vogue photoshoot in her own home or only furnishing her apartment with objects she designed herself. While many of those in her inner circle have attested to her kind heart, this attitude of self-love was also also the heart of her headstrong philosophy; in her own words, “I never took no for an answer. I never sat back and said ‘walk all over me, it’s OK.’”
The inspirations behind Eileen Gray’s designs were often people she loved. The hallmark of this was perhaps the ill-fated E.1027, built originally for her then-lover Jean Badovici. Even the name itself was “code for an affair of the heart.” E stood for Eileen, while the numbers corresponded to letters in the alphabet for J, B and G, signifying Jean, Badovici and Gray—her name “holding his.”
7. Having Sex Several Times a Day, Even if You’re Eighty (Frank Lloyd Wright)
Image <a href='http://ift.tt/2dJpIXc Wikimedia</a> (public domain, photographer Al Ravenna)
Frank Lloyd Wright was said to have an “inexhaustible supply of creative energy” that allowed him to maintain a habit of only beginning drawings for clients a few hours before they were due to present. His wife also reported a similar inexhaustible supply, but one of sexual energy. She claimed that even at eighty-five, he could go at it twice or thrice a day. She even sought medical advice and was offered potassium nitrate, thought to decrease a man’s sex drive, but decided against it in the end. [2]
8. Creeping on Your Building Users (Denise Scott Brown)
When asked what part of her work brought her joy, Denise Scott Brown admitted to essentially creeping on people using her building. Visiting the Perelman Quadrangle at the University of Pennsylvania, she observed thirty or so students sitting on the rising steps “like bees in a hive,” just as she had envisioned. Taking her to be some “old lady in a skirt” who they did not know, they simply looked puzzled and could not understand why she was grinning broadly at them. [3]
9. Lying Quietly in the Dark, Deep in Thought (I.M. Pei)
I.M. Peihas noted how over his long career he has come to rely less on drawing on paper, and more on drawing in his mind. For Pei, much of his best thinking is done in bed at night with the lights out, sometimes with a trip to the bathroom to scribble ideas down. If it didn’t look as good on paper as in his mind, it would be back to bed to think some more. This nocturnal process meant that even for him it was hard to distinguish the sources of his ideas, which came to be increasingly dream-like.
You are what you eat, or so they say. So for an architect who championed color, it’s perhaps not surprising that Luis Barragánwas known to order entirely pink-colored meals, such as sherry-drizzled melon halves.
11. Taking Your Porsche out for a Spin (Ricardo Scofidio)
The City of Montreal has selected KANVA’s IMAGO as the winner of Vivre le Chantier Sainte-Cath, a competition seeking to maintain access to and usage of St. Catherine Street, downtown Montreal’s primary commercial artery, as it undergoes a four-year construction period. The construction includes infrastructure developments—enhancements to underground infrastructure, new public transit systems, and increased pedestrian access—and while segments of the street will be closed to car traffic, pedestrian paths and all businesses will remain open during construction.
Courtesy of KANVA
To mitigate the negative impact of construction on the street, the competition sought to alter perceptions of the construction, minimize disruptions of routine city operations, and inform users about this and future developments. In stark visual contrast to its surroundings and the adjacent construction work, IMAGO’s bold design reinforces St. Catherine Street as a destination in Montreal.
Courtesy of KANVA
The project is composed of a series of modular catenary arches formed by biomorphicinflatable structures anchored to concrete construction fences. Designed to reflect the growth of an organism beginning from an embryo, the structures shelter, animate, and integrate with the construction site. The intervention can adapt to the work being performed on each section of the site, serving as the liaison between pedestrians and the road, sidewalk, or underground construction.
Courtesy of KANVA
IMAGO’s design is evocative of the anatomy of a butterfly wing, a robust but flexible composite of many delicate parts. Diagonal members form diamond-shaped voids, some of which depict the transformation of St. Catherine Street with historical images, while the rest ventilate the installation. Due to IMAGO’s modularity, the final installation can be modified according to its budget by adjusting the number of components, while the inflatable modules can be easily handled and stored.
In this edition of Section D, Monocle 24’s weekly review of design, architecture and craft, the show explores how wood is being used creatively at every scale by designers and architects today. From the “timber terrazzo” of London-based designer Conor Taylor, to the four protected (yet threatened) wooden escalators at Sydney’s Wynyard Railway Station, the episode questions how innovative designers are, or need to be, with this age-old tried and tested material. Finally, the show visits Folkhem in Sweden – a construction company who believe wood “to be superior to conventional alternatives in almost every respect, from construction time to acoustic properties.”
Tham & Videgård's proposal for the former transport harbor of Loudden. Image Courtesy of Tham & Videgård Arkitekter
An ecological new solid wood structure (cross-laminated timber manufactured by KLH Austria) with flexible usage was to be built on a small plot with two old garages in a densely built up town centre.
The dream of the client was also to move his office back to where he lived and to nevertheless take advantage of all the urban possibilities of modern, contemporary work (co-working) in a small space and in a small village. In addition, the new structure was expected to offer cost security, also with a view to a potential later sale or a reduction in the size of the office. Sustainability was to be a key consideration in all areas.
The first step was to outline and discuss in detail the complex requirements of the client, as well as to meet the urban development and building code regulations and to make use of their potential.
Section
One requirement was that the new structure be built on the right boundary directly beside the neighbouring building in line with the housing row. To the rear, approval from the neighbours would have been required for the development on the boundaries.
The guiding principle for the design was flexibility and spatial relations both inside and out within a small space.
The building itself was to have the appearance of unobtrusive but carefully thought-out modern simplicity and a reduction of materials, allowing a versatile and flexible appearance. A form that is not abstract and that does not fight for attention, but meshes into the urban context.
The building was designed in such a way that public and private rooms were created. The heart of the building with its bookshelves filling a wall across three stories fulfilled building code regulations and provided a direct connection to the neighbouring building.
The building jumps back and creates a private, protected inner courtyard, which opens up the view when entering the building through the transparency of the floor-to-ceiling windows on the ground floor and offers unexpected sight lines.
The ground floor with its open areas, which can be divided with curtains, is used as a common area for meetings, a kitchen and workshops.
Ground Floor Plan
The first and second floors, on the other hand, offer the individual open offices a sense of intimacy and focus. The intermediate areas are used as communication areas, with the heart of the building with its communal storage area forming the central link.
From a long-term perspective, the interior with its separate cores is designed in such a way that the house could be easily transformed into a pure or partial residential building at any time.
1st Floor Plan
The deliberately exclusive use of wood as a construction, insulating and aesthetic material both inside and out was intended to meet the guiding principles of sustainability and simplicity.
RAI Amsterdam Exhibition and Convention Centre has a new, multifunctional car park. The building is 30 metres high and its eight floors offer parking space for about 1.000 cars. The car park is situated on the ring road A10 and the Zuidas, Amsterdam’s business district. What makes the building remarkable is the fact that the first floor is not just for parking cars, but can also be used as a flexible space for conventions and exhibitions. When the RAI does not need the car park, the building can function as a public parking space. Benthem Crouwel Architects has been supervisor of the entire RAI complex since 1989. After conference buildings Amtrium and Elicium, this car park is the third building Benthem Crouwel Architects has designed for the RAI.
Site Plan
Helixes
The building is characterized by a simple, rectangular shape. On the south side of the building, two remarkable helix-shaped towers spiral upwards: one gives access to the car park moving up, the other one is used by cars leaving the building going down. By separating the traffic flows, parking at this building is fast and efficient, which is very important to Amsterdam RAI. The towers consist of prefab concrete elements. Placed on top of each other, they form the driveways to enter or leave the parking floors. The iconic concrete helix-shaped towers are highly visible from the ring road A10, even more so at night when blue LED lights emphasize the elegant structures.
The car park is a stand-alone parking facility, and also a multifunctional building. The first floor is twice as high (7.2 meters) as the other parking levels, creating a large and spacious hall that can be used as an extra space for conventions and exhibitions. The hall measures about 2.800 m2 and has as few columns as possible, therefore it can be arranged in many different ways. The column structure stands on a grid of 7.5 meters. The building consists of three naves with a span of fifteen meters. The extension hall can be used independently for various events, but can also be connected – using sliding doors – to the main exhibition halls of the RAI. The uppermost parking level, the roof of the building, can also be exploited for all kinds of activities.
The parking floors are framed by vertical lamellae, used in many of the RAI buildings – thus pointing out the connection between the various buildings of the complex. The aluminium lamellae of the car park are spaced and therefore give the building an appearance that is both transparent and private. The RAI wanted a car park without mechanical ventilation; the spacing allows air to flow through. Because of the orientation of the lamellae, they also protect against rain.
Plan 4
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Twenty years as supervising architect
Originally founded in 1893 as a society for bicycle manufacturers, RAI Amsterdam has grown into one of the largest and busiest convention and exhibition centres of the world. Since RAI opened at its current location, in 1961, over a hundred million people visited the complex. Alexander Bodon was the supervising architect of the RAI from 1961 to 1989. As of 1989, Benthem Crouwel Architects is proud to have this honourable task. The past twenty years, Benthem Crouwel Architects has designed (among other projects) both the buildings Amtrium and Elicium for the RAI. The multifunctional car park is the latest addition to the RAI-complex.
The wooden stable is located in a countryside venue in the valued landscape of Northern Espoo. In addition to the stable space, the steep gabled roof also covers a free-range area, an equipment and supply space, and a manure storage area. The aim was to keep functions close to each other and ensure ease of use. All wood used in the building is unimpregnated conifer.
The building site is located in the valued landscape in rural Northern Espoo. Horse management is a significant part of the area’s agriculture. The area has many small stables and well-connected riding trails in the countryside. Horse keeping, for its part, allows for preservation of the fields’ current use for cultivation and grazing. Wood is a natural building material for the area.
The aim was to locate the building nesteled in a picturesquea great landscape; its long edge follows the direction of the forest slope and brings the building’s gable into the woods. In additional to landscape benefits, this created wind shelters in outdoor spaces to protect against the prevailing southwestern winds. Massing is based on the steep, acentric gabled roof, under which all central functions are located.
The functional planning of the building paid special attention to the ease of everyday activities and durability of building parts. In horse keeping everyday chores are repetitive; smooth organisation for feeding, cleaning and horse care is central. The free range area and stable are linked directly to the horses’ forest pasture, care locations are multifunctional and close by, the manure storage area opens out directly from the stalls and the free-range area, and the riding arena and connections to riding trails are located in the courtyard. The aim was to avoid unnecessary steps.
Courtesy of POOK
All horizontal structures and cladding were built with conifer. Sturdy floor planks were directly attached to a laminated timber floor structure. This achieved a simple structure, gave the room height, and provided natural stratification of warmth. The wooden- lattice structure ceiling is insulated with cellulose wool and ventilated from the gable. Sturdy tongue-and-groove spruce boards were used for the facade and interior cladding. Stalls and the free-range area that are exposed to direct wear from use by horses are primarily steel or concrete.
Unimpregnated wood was also used liberally in interior cladding because of the wood’s hygroscopic characteristics. The management of fluctuations in humidity and ensuring functional ventilation in the stable area are important to the horses’ well-being. Ventilation is primarily pressure force ventilation, with an option to increase efficiency using mechanical venting. Heat generated from horses is used in the stable spaces to supplement heating generated by hot air pumps, which are also used to decrease humidity as necessary.
Sig Nordal 