Germany

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Berlin-based Laboratory for Visionary Architecture (LAVA) has designed a 180-room hostel for the Bavarian Youth Hostel Association in Bayreuth, Germany. Designed for the sociable Generation Y traveler, the hostel offers an abundance of flexible public spaces featuring bright colours and soaring windows overlooking the Bavarian landscape. Touted by the firm as a "yardstick for the sports hostel of the future," the futuristic building includes modular furniture and universal step-free access throughout all facilities, grounds, and sports fields. Circulation for the design centres on a Y-shaped plan designed to maximize natural light light while providing ample opportunities for athletic engagement.

Find out more about Bayreuth's futuristic Youth Hostel after the break 

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Designing an architectural homage to someone like Ludwig Van Beethoven is no easy feat. Yet that’s exactly what architecture firm Jahn has attempted to do. Their design is a submission for a privately-funded competition being held for Bonn, Germany’s new “Beethoven Festspielhaus.” Chosen from a group of over 50 candidates, Jahn’s project was among ten advanced to the second round of consideration. The proposal, a glass exterior encapsulating a concrete interior, exhibits “Beethoven’s own dual character which is described as both extroverted and introverted,” as described by the firm. Learn more about this inventive design, and the competition, after the break.

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MVRDV, together with Munich-based morePlatz, have been selected among seven teams in an international competition to design two office buildings in Mainz, Germany. The five- and eleven-story “Hafenspitze” structures are expected to spearhead the transformation of the former Zollhafen industrial harbor, which plans to become a new mixed-use city quarter over the coming decades.

More about the towers' design, after the break.

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