© Cosmin Dragomir

• Architects: Square One
• Location: Strada Lipscani 55, București, Romania
• Architects In Charge: Adrian Cancer-Zeana, Sabin Dumitriu
• Design Team: Ioan Vladescu, Vlad Cretu, Andrei Palita
• Area: 1000.0 sqm
• Project Year: 2015
• Photographs: Cosmin Dragomir

• Restoration : Capitel Avangarde
• Structure : Pop & Asociatii

© Cosmin Dragomir

The building is located in the old city center of Bucharest and has had a long and intricate history. Built in the 19th century, it started out as a bank and then it became a clothing shop between the `50s and the `90s. In the past 20 years, after the clothing shop closed, the building became slowly a ruin, before it regained life as a bookstore. We saw it as a permanent shell and our intervention as a fragment in its history. Pieces of recent restorations were kept visible in our final design, the concrete walls in the basement and several components of outline beams, as an expression of the building’s continuous metamorphosis.

© Cosmin Dragomir

Being a retail space, the main functional component is the furniture. The height of the floors made possible the addition of intermediary platforms, serving as the stylistic elements that define and shape the space.

Section

We had to play with the existing elements and find ways to create visual impact and sculptural value, while empowering the classical elements of the building. We created an organic fluid form that winds through the existing structural elements, sometimes withdrawn behind the existing pillars and other times emerging in the spaces between them. The platforms have a railing composed of equally spaced metal rods that follows the form and is both opaque and transparent, depending on the angle of view and the curvature of the shape.

© Cosmin Dragomir

We opted for a punctual lighting system with a warm spectrum. Seemingly random, the arrangement of luminaries has been calculated to fulfill the illumination needs of various products. The photometric calculations resulted a number of bodies in the proximity of the furniture and above circulations – purely functional light – and another number of bodies that give the ambient light. The image that inspired the artificial lighting design is that of a starry sky, like the one seen through the central skylight at night.

© Cosmin Dragomir

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© Margarita Fedina

• Architects: SPEECH
• Location: Novodanilovskaya nab., 6, Moskva, Russia, 117105
• Project Authors: Sergei Tchoban, Sergei Kuznetsov
• Principal Project Architect: Igor Chlenov
• Architect In Charge: Evgeny Lyashkov
• Area: 39385.0 sqm
• Project Year: 2016
• Photographs: Margarita Fedina, Alexey Naroditsky

• Client: MR Group
• Principal Project Engineer: Igor Osokin
• Site Area: 0.53 hectares

© Alexey Naroditsky

Danilov Plaza is a multifunctional complex situated on the first line of buildings on Novodanilovskaya Embankment in Moscow. This area, which was until recently considered lacking in prestige due to its numerous disused industrial buildings, is currently undergoing a transformation into a modern business district. The main driving force in this change of image is the construction of several business complexes designed by leading Moscow architects along the River Moskva.

© Margarita Fedina

Plan

© Margarita Fedina

Danilov Plaza consists of two 13-storey blocks linked by glass passageways. The two-part volumetric composition is reflected in the design of the buildings: the façade of the building which stands closer to the river is clad with unpainted aluminium composite panels, while its sister building is faced in panels with a gold-coloured coating. In addition to using visually striking materials, the complex’s façades employ the kind of ornamental motifs which are characteristic of SPEECH. The frames of the square window apertures – which, thanks to the additional relief contours, resemble perspectival portals – form an unusual geometrical pattern covering the larger part of the buildings. The displacement of the axis of the portals relative to the axis of the windows creates a changing play of light and shadow on the façades and produces the impression of a moving, ‘living’ membrane –a kind of scintillating suit of ‘chainmail’ worn over the powerful ‘torsos’ of the blocks.

© Alexey Naroditsky

Section

© Alexey Naroditsky

The façade theme changes twice: the two bottom and two top storeys of the buildings are of a different design. The bottom part of each building is mostly of glass, making the buildings seem to float above the ground. The top floors differ from the main façade pattern in having taller window apertures, the upper parts of which are additionally divided into three narrow panes. Thus the classical technique for decorating the attic floor of a building works perfectly well in modern architecture too, making the building seem lighter, harmonizing its proportions, and accentuating the cornice.

© Alexey Naroditsky

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Courtesy of EMBT

• Architects: Miralles Tagliabue EMBT
• Location: Neijiang, Sichuan, China
• Architect In Charge: Benedetta Tagliabue / EMBT
• Project Year: 2016
• Photographs: Courtesy of EMBT

• Design Phase: Daniel Rosselló (Project director) Francesca Origa, Gabriele Rotelli, Verena Vogler, Vaiva Simoliunaite, Susana Oses, Davis Gertners, Ana Isabel Fernandes, Vincenzo Messina, Javier Rivero Carnota, David Mas Trigueros, David Ricardo Ramírez, Evangelia Anamourlogluo, Maria Ioanna Barka, Fabian Vargas, Pauline Suhr, Enrique Franco, Claudia Paola Martinez, Dean Mapeso, Rebeca Pérez Casterà (Collaborators)
• Construction Phase: Elena Nedelcu (Project director) Wang Lingzhe, Marzia Faranda, Ana Otelea (Collaborators)
• Embt Shangai Team: Igor Peraza (Project Director) Qiwei Hu, Chen Hao, Dee Liu, Pey Lung, Kathrine E. Thoen, Wei Song, Lorenzo Trucato (Collaborators)
• Clients: Shen Zhen Excellence Kang He Investment and Development Pty., Ltd

Courtesy of EMBT

The construction of Zhang Daqian museum, a project designed by Benedetta Tagliabue / EMBT, has begun a few months ago in Neijiang, China. 

Panels

Zhang Daqian was one of the best-known and most prodigious Chinese artists of the 20th century. Originally known as a guohua painter, by the 1960s he was also renowned as a modern impressionist and expressionist painter.

Courtesy of EMBT

On April 2010, Excellence Group invited EMBT to design Zhang Daqian’s museum in Neijang city, the painter’s hometown. In 1956 Zhang Daqian and Pablo Picasso met in Paris, where they exchanged ideas on art and initiated their friendship.

Courtesy of EMBT

Neijiang city would like to continue this friendship between the two artists, and moreover between the two cities where they were born, Neijing and Malaga.

Panels

The design philosophy behind the museum was to integrate the cultural essence of East and West and build expressing the past and the future. The museum should grow from the existing tea house and extend its pavilions over and around a garden that moves topographically on different levels, enclosing some of the old trees within its scheme.

Courtesy of EMBT

The motives and gestures extracted from Zhang Daqian’s painting will shape the ribs of the vertical structure, while the interpretation that the Chinese painter did of Picasso’s face will informs the geometries of the plan. 

Courtesy of EMBT

The site is located at the peak of Dong Tong Lu, Yuan Mountain, west of Xi Lin monastery, south of the Tuo River. The museum will be the landmark of the city.

Courtesy of EMBT

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• Architects: Cong Sinh Architects
• Location: Huế, Thua Thien Hue, Vietnam
• Architect In Charge: Vo Quang Thi
• Project Architects: Vo Quang Thi, Nguyen Thi Nha Van, Phung Kim Phuoc, Tran Ngoc Hung, Vo Thi Kim Khanh, Tran Ngo Chi Mai, Le Thien Trieu, Do Truong Nguyen, Nguyen Manh Liem, Vu Hoang Phi Long, Tran Le Quyen.
• Project Year: 2016
• Photographs: Hiroyuki Oki

• Contractor: Thanh An Interior & Construction Co.,Ltd

© Hiroyuki Oki

From the architect. Hue, the ancient capital of Vietnam, has been honored as the National Green City by the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF). The city is divided into Northern and Southern regions by the beautiful Huong River.

Diagram

In the Northern region where the old citadel is located, construction is strictly managed by the local authority. Constructions with high density and large scale are greatly restricted, which gives more space for plants and helps create a green and harmonious area. However, in the Southern region, urbanization takes place faster and there is less and less green space.

© Hiroyuki Oki

The building is an office which is located on a beautiful street running along the bank of a small river in the Southern region. This is one of the greenest streets that remain in this area. Despite this, in recent years, the street still cannot protect itself from the impacts of the rapid urbanization. Along the street, there have been constructions with very high density, which affects the overall landscape. Likewise, before renovation, the original building was also built with 100% density. Therefore, after buying this property, the architect had a simple idea for turning it into an office: creating an architectural form that appears friendly and harmonious, and that has a symbiotic relationship with the surroundings.

© Hiroyuki Oki

The building helps heal the wounds caused by the urbanization process on the street.
The solution is as follows: First, we replace the front half of the building with an area for plants and a vine trellis. The aim is to help the office completely blend in with the landscape around it and let nature cover and protect the space for use. This area is used for reception. Then, at the remaining area behind, we put another floor on top. The ground floor is a model studio and the first floor is the office for the architects. Both of the spaces are completely open to the front space that is covered by the plants and vine trellis. People in the building will feel like the space for use is doubled.

© Hiroyuki Oki

The people, the plants and the building have a symbiotic relationship with each other and they become a single unit. Every day, people take care of the plants and the building. On the stormy days in Hue city every year, the building covers and protects the plants and people. And on summer days with high temperature, the plants provide shade for the building and the people below.

© Hiroyuki Oki

The architects hope that this is a simple and effective solution which can be applied for every building with high density in order to bring back the original greenness to the street.

© Hiroyuki Oki

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© Spaceshift Studio

• Architects: SOOK Architects
• Location: Soi Phetchaburi 47 – Soi Phetchaburi Tut mai 47, Lane 3, Khwaeng Bang Kapi, Khet Huai Khwang, Krung Thep Maha Nakhon 10310, Thailand
• Area: 261.0 sqm
• Project Year: 2016
• Photographs: Spaceshift Studio

• Client: Nuntaporn Leelaryonkul
• Structural Engineer: Pakanut Siriprasopsothron
• System Engineer : Eakachai Hamhomvong

© Spaceshift Studio

O-ART-IM HOUSE located in Sri Nakorn housing estate, which had been established since 1969. Nuntaporn has been living in this house with her family since she was young, later on her dad bought her adjacent land for a new house after marriage. 

© Spaceshift Studio

Even the road in this village is only 4.5 m. wide which limited an one way transportation, every house was built with 8-10m. setback in the front ,for being a yard and growing a big tree for shading, as a green corridor. This characteristic of this village was always used as a place where neighbors are gathering and the kids are playing under a big tree.

Designing phase started when the owner decided to keep an open space in the front, to be a green area. So the whole setback area was designed as a multipurpose area which can be used for parking up to 4 cars. Grass pave was installed for the floor to absorb the rain water. Next to the parking, sliding lath fence is constructed, invites a friendly atmosphere, as well as an eyes on street while people from inside and outside can see each other through the fence which makes a whole community become more livable.

© Spaceshift Studio

First floor of the house will be used for food designing studio, consists of a big kitchen, baking area, and multipurpose area for teaching a cooking class. Most of the areas were placed to the north so the southern part of the house can be used for growing organics plants.

© Spaceshift Studio

Plan

© Spaceshift Studio

Second and third floor are designed following the idea of one bedroom unit in condominium, by having living-bedroom with closet and bathroom , supporting an extension of the family in future when her little girl grows up.

© Spaceshift Studio

Form and features of O-ART-IM House are simply, while a gable roof and wooden wall are designed imitate the old house’s style. The technique of Overlapping each floor one by one, giving a sense of widen space from a setback rule. A Overlapping part can be used to protect a lower floor from the rain, also used as a terrace for an upper floor.

Elevations

Steel structure and most of materials are dry system. Renewable materials such as Fiber Cement Board were applied, for adaptive purposes and also to be capable for reusing process rather than wasting.

© Spaceshift Studio

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© Yoshiro Masuda

• Architects: Sides Core
• Location: Hagoromo, Takaishi, Osaka Prefecture 592-0002, Japan
• Area: 90.9 sqm
• Project Year: 2016
• Photographs: Yoshiro Masuda

• Designer: Sohei Arao
• Construction Company: UEMOTO KOUMUTEN

© Yoshiro Masuda

This is a relocation project for a salon we designed previously. This is the youngest and most lively of the salon’s locations. The staff has curated a collection of books to showcase their ideas and personalities.  

© Yoshiro Masuda

Plan

© Yoshiro Masuda

The name “vinyl’s mix” reflects the owner’s idea of integrating music, art and other forms of cultural expression into a hair salon. The library represents this ideal. 

© Yoshiro Masuda

The premises have a narrow façade flanked by utility meters, and windows facing the cement block wall of the adjacent property. Rough surroundings reflect the raw, unpolished charm and undiscovered potential of the staff. We chose to make use of those features rather than hide them for an energetic vibe. 

© Yoshiro Masuda

Steel beams crisscrossing the ceiling became a grid for lighting fixtures. Water pipes running just below the ceiling are repurposed as supports for a bar to hang garments on. The redesigned interior has plenty of textured materials to harmonize with the existing rough, unfinished space, expressing the essence of the salon. 

© Yoshiro Masuda

To emphasize the depth of the space, the entrance is a glass sliding door with large, unobstructed panes. Dividers inside are high enough that customers do not feel prying eyes from outside, while still sharing the energy of the space with passersby.

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Interior View of the Vessel. Image Courtesy of Forbes Massie-Heatherwick Studio

Thomas Heatherwick is bringing a new public monument to New York City. Today, Heatherwick Studio revealed the first renderings of “Vessel,” a 15-story tall occupiable sculpture comprised of 154 intricately interconnecting flights of stairs that will serve as the centerpiece of the new Hudson Yards development in west Manhattan.

View of the Public Square and Gardens Looking South from 33rd St.. Image Courtesy of Forbes Massie-Heatherwick Studio

Inspired by the mesmerizing geometries of Indian stepwells, Vessel’s lattice calls to mind a beehive or jungle gym – and will indeed offer a workout to visitors game enough to climb the almost 2,500 individual steps within the structure, nearly a mile’s worth of vertical pathways.

The object’s form takes on a conical shape, widening from 50 feet at the base to 150 feet at the top. And if the geometries alone weren’t eye catching enough, the steel structural frame has been clad in a polished copper-colored steel skin, which will provide warped reflections of the plaza below.

Upper Level View Through the Vessel. Image Courtesy of Forbes Massie-Heatherwick Studio

“We had to think of what could act as the role of a landmarker,” said Thomas Heatherwick. “Something that could help give character and particularity to the space.”

The structure will be located in the central plaza of Hudson Yards, where it will be surrounded by native perennial gardens and a canopy of native trees, as well as a variety of seating options where visitors to the nearby Culture Shed or High Line can rest their feet.

View of the Special Events Plaza. Image Courtesy of VisualHouse-NelsonByrdWoltz

The plaza platform itself constitutes quite the technical innovation, as it acts as a ventilating cover for the rail yards while also serving as a reservoir for site drainage and storm-water management.

View of the Pavilion Grove. Image Courtesy of VisualHouse-NelsonByrdWoltz

The cost of “Vessel” is estimated at $150 million, double the original budget of $75 million.

Read more about the unveiling, here.

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The After Belonging Agency: Carlos Minguez Carrasco, Ignacio Galán, Alejandra Navarrese Llopis, Lluís Alexandre Casanovas Blanco and Marina Otero Verzier. Image Courtesy of Oslo Architecture Triennale

“Belonging,” the curatorial quintet of the 2016 Oslo Architecture Triennale, After Belonging, argue, “is no longer something bound to one’s own space of residence, or to the territory of a nation.” For this group of Spanish-born architects, academics and theorists—Lluís Alexandre Casanovas Blanco, Ignacio Galán, Carlos Minguez Carrasco, Alejandra Navarrese Llopis and Marina Otero Verzier—the very notion of our belongings and what it means to belong is becoming increasingly unstable.

After Belonging is the sixth incarnation of the Triennale and the first one in which a single curatorial thread has woven all of the festival’s activities together, including the international conference. The goal of the two primary exhibitions—On Residence and In Residence, including a series of Intervention Strategies—is to develop platforms with the aim of “rehearsing research strategies,” providing new ways for architects to engage with “contemporary changing realities.”

While the European Union and the Schengen Area (the first successful transnational non-federal agreement for free movement of people) is becoming increasingly strained by nationalist rhetoric and a growing fear of open borders, development of an all-African passport will, in the words of After Belonging’s curators, “allow many to expand the territories they can call home.” As such, being “at home” today has different definitions. The ways and places in which we reside—be it a rural farmstead, a studio apartment, or simply a room—are changing, and rapidly so. Our relationship to the objects that we “produce, own, share and exchange” is fundamentally tied to the question: “where do we belong?”

"In Residence" Exhibition (National Museum – Architecture, Oslo). Image Courtesy of Oslo Architecture Triennale

"On Residence" Exhibition (DogA, Oslo). Image Courtesy of Oslo Architecture Triennale

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The After Belonging Conference

On September 9th, 2016, Snøhetta’s National Opera and Ballet in Oslo hosted the After Belonging conference, bringing together a wide collection of architects, thinkers, decision-makers, and local experts tasked with dissecting “the architectures entangled in the contemporary reconfiguration of belonging.” Topics addressing architecture’s relation to refugeeism, migration and homelessness were discussed, alongside new mediated forms of domesticity and foreignness, environmental displacements, tourism, and the technologies and economies of sharing.

During the course of the conference ArchDaily broadcast live discussions with a selection of the speakers in order to hear their take on the Triennale theme. You can watch them all again, here.

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Courtesy of Oslo Architecture Triennale

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© Lars R. Mortensen

• Architects: Gottlieb Paludan Architects
• Location: Odense, Denmark
• Es Consult: Niras A/S, Bartenbach,Anita Jørgensen
• Area: 8000.0 sqm
• Project Year: 2015
• Photographs: Lars R. Mortensen, Gottlieb Paludan Architects

© Lars R. Mortensen

The Foot and Cycle bridge, named Byens Bro(The City’s Bridge), provides a link between Central Odense and the new urban developments by the harbor. The bridge provides better access to the platforms of the railway station, while it at the same time creates a magnificent new landmark for Odense, Denmark’s third-largest city.

© Lars R. Mortensen

The new foot and cycle bridge gives shape to Odense Municipality’s vision of a transport link for cyclists and pedestrians across the railway, using simple and effective architectural tools. The bridge is a dynamic and spectacular extension of the existing urban space of Odense, as it connects the urban quarters north and south of the railway. It has become a beautiful, practical and organic part of Odense’s urban space, and easy to use for all pedestrians and cyclists and for the many people travelling to and from Odense by train every day. This basic functional quality translates into a bridge that blurs the boundaries between architecture and engineering artistry and gives Odense an inspirational and efficient traffic solution as well as a striking landmark that will stand the test of time. 

Plan

The bridge is devised as an extension of Odense’s existing infrastructural grid and therefore it is actually two bridges in one: a cycle bridge designed to cater for cyclists’ traffic needs and a foot bridge providing the very best access conditions for pedestrians. For comfort and safety reasons, the two functions are segregated but visually and architecturally, they are brought together in one bridge. 

© Lars R. Mortensen

A prominent feature of the bridge and the city is the 30-metre pylon in mirror-finished steel carrying the longest span of the bridge and marking its roots in the city. The lighting of the pylon follows the same principles as that of the rest of the construction and reflects dynamically what it is all about, namely the motion of people and cyclists crossing the bridge. The bridge is designed through the natural traffic patterns and creates a beacon for Odense and a celebration of non-motorized traffic.

Plan

The bridge enriches the urban space of Odense with two new attractive squares — one in the centre of the city and the other near a new adult education center. The squares serve as meeting points and arrival areas for train passengers and provide room for some 1,400 bicycle parking spaces. The stairs can be used as seats when events take place on the squares and in King’s Garden — the park across the street.

© Lars R. Mortensen

© Lars R. Mortensen

Gottlieb Paludan Architects has acted as design architect and lead consultant on the project with subconsultants ES-Consult, NIRAS, Bartenbach and lighting-design artist Anita Jørgensen. The construction project has been carried out by Bladt Industries A/S. The bridge opened in the summer of 2015. Since the bridge has received a European Steel Design Award of Merit in 2015 and a prize for ‘beautiful buildings and structures’ from the city of Odense.

© Lars R. Mortensen

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via Malcolm Reading Consultants

The UK Government and Malcolm Reading Consultants have announced today an international competition for the design of a new National Memorial to commemorate the events of the Holocaust.

To be located next to Parliament in Victoria Tower Gardens in London, the new national landmark will “demonstrate the UK’s commitment to honouring the victims and survivors of the Holocaust, providing a place for quiet reflection as well as large-scale national commemorations.” The competition brief also calls for the design of a potential below-ground learning center to accompany the memorial, which would provide visitors with the opportunity to learn more about the history of the Holocaust and the context of the memorial itself.

From the Competition Organizers: 

Envisaged as a place for everyone to come to remember the Holocaust, as well as a focal point for annual national commemorations, the Memorial will affirm the United Kingdom’s commitment to stand up against prejudice and hatred.  It is intended to inspire reflection and compassion, and encourage present and future generations to respect and embrace difference. In parallel, a new Learning Centre is planned, subject to technical, financial, planning or other constraints, which will advance Holocaust education across the United Kingdom and help visitors develop a deeper understanding of how societal breakdown can, in the worst cases, lead to genocide.

The Memorial’s site, alongside the Houses of Parliament at the heart of Britain’s democracy, is in Victoria Tower Gardens adjacent to the River Thames. The Gardens already has a memorial-narrative inspired by democratic values, which aligns with the project. Three prominent monuments, dating from the mid-to-late nineteenth and early twentieth century, commemorate the expansion of suffrage, the abolition of slavery and civic sacrifice.

The design challenge is to create an outstanding and sensitively-designed Memorial and Learning Centre that is emotionally powerful while offering visitors an opportunity to deepen their understanding of humanity’s darkest hour.  For some survivors – and those whose lives were affected by the Holocaust – survival stories can reveal glimmers of hope about human nature; for others, to perceive this moment in history as anything but unbearable is to compromise the Holocaust’s implacability.

This is a two-stage international design competition and is being run in accordance with EU procurement guidelines and the Public Contracts Regulations 2015. This competition has been advertised in the Official Journal of the European Union (OJEU). 

No design is required at the first stage. Initially, competitors are invited to submit an Expression of Interest – the deadline for this is: 14:00 BST Monday 17 October 2016. 

An exhibition of the finalist teams’ concept designs will be held in a central London location in January 2017.

More information about the competition, including a full project brief, can be found on the competition website, here.

• Title: Malcolm Reading Consultants Announces UK Holocaust Memorial International Design Competition
• Type: Competition Announcement (Built Projects & Masterplans)
• Website: http://ift.tt/2cO0THr
• Organizers: Malcolm Reading Consultants, United Kingdom Holocaust Memorial Foundation
• Registration Deadline: 17/10/2016 14:00
• Address: Victoria Tower Gardens, Millbank, Westminster, London SW1P 3JA, UK

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