Architects: Aicher Ziviltechniker GmbH
Location: Dornbirn, Austria
Area: 4,500 sqm
Year: 2010
Photographs: Norman A. Müller, Courtesy of Aicher ZT GmbH

Within the next years a high-quality work and living space is originates for about 50 companies with approx. 500 employees on the area of the former “Post Garagen Areal” in Dornbirn. The Campus Dornbirn II was set up in the first construction phase 2008/2009 as the head building of a future business park.

Even the close connection to the “Fachhochschule Vorarlberg” is useful to generate a new scientific and research environment, were young entrepreneurs can set up their first business in a highly flexible business park.

The form of the monolithic building with his sharp edged facades produces a strong dynamic, which stands in a positive tradition of the booming and flexible architectural language of Dornbirn. The strong raster of the facade with his large windows provides an open view inside.

The ground floor of the building can be used as meeting and event space. With the design forum Vienna a corporation was developed for different exhibitions, which will be hosted several times a year.

As an update to our recent post about the ‘Richard Meier – Architecture and Design’ Retrospective Exhibition currently taking place until July 28 at the Fondazione Bisazza in Vicenza, Italy, the first images have been shared with us. The exhibit includes several iconic, current and recently completed projects by Richard Meier & Partners, in celebration of the company’s 50th anniversary. Also being unveiled at this exhibition is a site-specific installation for the Foundation’s permanent collection. For more information about the exhibition, please visit here. More images after the break.

Architects: James Carpenter Design Associates
Location: Jerusalem, Israel
Production Architect: A. Lerman Architects Ltd
Area: 8820.0 sqm
Year: 2010
Photographs: Tim Hursley, Courtesy of James Carpenter Design Associates, Reid Freeman

Structural Engineers: J. Kahan & Partners
Lighting Designer: Tillotson Design Associates
Graphics: Kasher Visual Communications
Landscape Design: West End Architects and Environmental Planners
Project Management: Nizan-Inbar
General Contractor: Danya Sebus

James Carpenter Design Associates led the reorganization, expansion and new construction of The Israel Museum, Jerusalem, while Efrat-Kowalsky Architects was responsible for the renovation of the museum’s existing buildings. The expansion involves new construction (~95,000 sq. ft.), the reorganization of visitor circulation, Entrance Pavilions and a Gallery Entrance Pavilion improving visitor accessibility. The renovation of the existing museum galleries comprise of ~100,000 sq. ft. The particular quality of light in Jerusalem, a product of longitude and latitude, climate, geography and topography, is unique. We believe that integral to the experience of place, is the experience of light and, in view of its cultural history, the particularities of light in Jerusalem is evidently powerful. JCDA’s approach to the renovation and expansion of the Israel Museum was to merge our careful consideration of light in the landscape with a rigorous attention to the existing built environment. Initial visits to the museum established the need to re-connect the existing, and quite extraordinary, garden by Isamu Noguchi with Alfred Mansfeld’s regional interpretation of Modernist architecture. A guiding principal was to dissolve the barriers between the garden and the campus’ building interiors and to transform the problem for a museum of the intense light conditions of the Mediterranean, into an opportunity to integrate a sensory experience of light. Our design organizes and inserts light and light information into the new architecture. This light information specifically embodies the quality of light found within the campus landscape and is used to activate the Entrance Pavilions, the Gallery Entrance Pavilion and the major below ground passage connecting the two – the Route of Passage.

The experience of light is particularly powerful within thresholds, and JCDA’s strategies for light were deeply informed by the idea of separating the building envelopes into two components: enclosure and shade. These components support the experiential presentation of volumetric light and views while moderating the sun’s intensity. The relationships between these two components were also carefully modulated to create a sense of passage through the built architecture and across the campus. The shifts in the depth of facades are adjusted, even stretched to transform them into shaded exterior passages. The play of transparency and opacity responds to both north/south and east/west exposures and is sometimes interrupted to frame views of important elements in the landscape and campus. The spatial experience of the decentralized campus becomes simultaneously intuitive and sublime. Drawing from the encyclopedic nature of the institution’s collections, JCDA has created a journey through the museum’s public and interstitial spaces that progresses intuitively and creates a sense of discovery. Volumetric light is the organizing principal for this passage through the museum and articulates Mansfeld’s Mediterranean hilltop village ideal through selective transparency. JCDA has reinterpreted the sensuality of narrow alleys and sunken oases by creating a defined arrangement of spatial experiences animated by phenomenal light.

By carving out a vertical volume at the Gallery Entrance Pavilion, it was possible to create the Route of Passage below the existing Carter Promenade, which would lead visitors from the museum’s entrance complex to the Gallery Entrance Pavilion along a slightly inclined and comfortably conditioned space, and into the Gallery Entrance Pavilion’s lowest level. The original Carter Promenade was envisioned as a processional experience that would define the overall experience of the museum and the Route of Passage maintains the experiential sense of progression and arrival within the Museum’s heart. Despite being below the ground plane, the Route of Passage is a luminous and active experience. As in a sunken oasis, the passage is protected from the direct sun, but daylight filters into the space at intervals marking one’s passage along its length. The concept was to transpose a sense of depth within a luminous atmosphere. A sequence of narrow courtyards along the Carter Promenade above connect the promenade and Route of Passage. Plant walls above and plantings in the courtyards moderate the quality of light before it is captured by the slightly diffused glass of the passage. The dark surfaces of the terrazzo floor and cast ceramic wall panels reflect light generating subtle shades of grey, while the dramatically animated light captured by the acid-etched glass further gives a sense of repose and heightened observation preparing visitors for the experience of passage through the museum’s encyclopedic collections.

The water feature runs the length of the Carter Promenade. Cast glass with a prismatic profile creates enough turbulence to control the flow of water while directing kinetically animated light through the water feature and down into the slot between the Route of Passage’s diffused glass wall and the exterior retaining wall. The retaining wall is clad with matt white terracotta panels, reflecting light onto the diffused glass wall. The sound of the bubbling water also activates the tranquil spatial experience of the courtyards creating an aural connection between the below ground Route of Passage and the Noguchi Garden. The water feature follows the combination of steps and ramps of the Carter Promenade, resulting in sections of prismatic cast glass blocks and sections of cast glass steps that feature prismatic and clear areas to the casting. The water is controlled and activated by the cast glass profiles in both the stepped and level areas of cast glass. The water feature activates light as well as sound, marking the path from the museum entrance to the galleries both above ground and in the below ground Route of Passage.

The water feature follows the combination of steps and ramps of the Carter Promenade, resulting in sections of prismatic cast glass blocks and sections of cast glass steps that feature prismatic and clear areas to the casting. The water is controlled and activated by the cast glass profiles in both the stepped and level areas of cast glass. The water feature activates light as well as sound, marking the path from the museum entrance to the galleries both above ground and in the below ground Route of Passage. Starting from paper models and mock-ups to explore the idea of the louvers, research evolved to include daylighitng analysis and material production. The lamellas are produced from a custom extruded ceramic. Full scale mock-ups were fabricated to test and verify both the idea and the daylighting analysis.

JCDA sought to build upon the existing language, and reinforce it to improve the level of wayfinding and connection to the existing architecture, landscape and art embodied in the museum. With the experience of entering the museum, JCDA understood that not only was it important to revive the Carter Promenade, but it would be critical to extend it to the street and re-establish the unobstructed view from the street up the entire promenade. JCDA worked with the museum to remove the services (the ticketing, café and retail) previously at the center of the museum and locating them at the museum entrance. By using the method by which these new service buildings are articulated JCDA sought to create a powerful threshold experience. Above ground, the visitors’ needs for tickets/information, dining and shopping are articulated by three separate buildings, while below ground these three buildings consist of a single basement level for access, storage and support. By combining this now liberated space with an un-built module in this same area, it was possible to both expand gallery space and create the Gallery Entrance Pavilion in the heart of the existing complex. The Gallery Entrance Pavilion is the museum’s central organizing hub, allowing for the sequential exploration of the various museum departments. The sequence through which visitors are introduced to the various collections and temporary exhibitions is now clarified and choreographed, enriching the overall experience of each department.

Each of Mansfeld’s modular buildings consists of a solid concrete box covered by centrally supported hyperbolic paraboloid floating above it. Clearstory windows occupy the narrow space between box and roof. As a result, slivers of bright light occupy the relatively dark spaces. His work was focused on carving and linking the negative spaces created by his modular volumes. The spaces are self-contained and insulated from the wider campus. JCDA took a closely related, yet opposite approach by building all glass pavilions within tuned shading enclosures. The result is a sense of openness and connection with the campus. The museum’s idea for the renovation and expansion was to touch the museum’s existing architecture and landscape lightly and to preserve the museum’s architectural strengths. JCDA’s has interwoven the museum’s encyclopedic collections and its extraordinary campus, deploying light to articulate the visitors’ passage through the campus, heightening the experience and discovery of the ephemeral qualities of the Jerusalem’s light.

Wilkinson Eyre Architects has won an international competition to design “Sydney’s next masterpiece.” Selected over three other shortlisted firms – Renzo Piano, Adrian Smith + Gordon Gill, and KPF – the London-based practice will now be responsible for the design of a $1.5 billion sculptural icon to host a six-star Crown Sydney resort on a 6000-square-meter site in the inner-city waterfront precinct of Barangaroo.

Subject to approval, the 235-meter-tall skyscraper will provide 350 guest rooms and suites, along with four restaurants, a cafe, an ultra-lounge, day spa, roof top pool and luxury retail facilities.

On winning the design competition, Chris Wilkinson, Founding Director, Wilkinson Eyre Architects stated: “Sydney is one of the most beautiful cities in the world and it is a great privilege to design such a significant building on the waterfront. My ambition is to create a sculptural form that will rise up on the skyline like an inhabited artwork, with differing levels of transparency, striking a clear new image against the sky.”

Paul Baker, Director, Wilkinson Eyre Architects added: “The architecture takes its inspiration from nature, composed of organic forms that provide an abstract, sculptural shape; it does not try to mimic any particular plant or flower but is derived from the specificity of the site and the client brief. Its curved geometry emanates from three forms which twist and rise together. The first form peels off, spreading outward to form the main hotel room accommodation, with the remaining two twisting together toward the sky.”

Reference: Crown Hotel, Wilkinson Eyre Architects

Foster + Partners has been selected to developed a proposal for a low energy, high-density residential community in Islington, London.  The site is a 1980s business park that is to be regenerated into a residential zone of two towers and a landscaped park.  The project will incorporate the arera’s planned high-rise buildings and is ultimately set to provide a new landmark for the city.

The two residential towers at 250 City Road will provide the area with 800 new units.  At 36- and 42-stories, the two towers are taller than the surrounding buildings, but are stepped down in such a way as to blend with the existing low-rise architecture.

The site is designed to create a comfortable and healthy environment that provides outdoor spaces, amenities, transportation connections and protection against wind and noise in the open spaces.  The site is interconnected with pedestrian routes, connections to adjacent streets and transportation links and shops and cafes to establish an urban quarter.

The buildings are designed with a combined heat and power plant that can be connected to the local grid, photovoltaic panels, green roofs, and rain water collection systems.

Architects: TASH – Taller de Arquitectura Sánchez-Horneros
Location: Toledo, Spain
Design Team: Emilio Sánchez-Horneros, Antonio Sánchez-Horneros, Álvaro Cabrera
Area: 680 sqm
Project Year: 2009
Photographs: Miguel de Guzmán

Structural Engineer: Carlos Asensi, Antonio de Blas
Technical Engineer: Francisco Guadamillas, Ignacio de La Cal
Client: SHG society
Construction: Hospital General de Toledo UTE

Throughout history, large scale projects had auxiliary constructions to host the technical teams and in some cases, their families when they were remote places. Associates to dams, new cities, bridges or airports, architecture of great value emerged. Modern day society allows architecture and engineering to happen without the physical presence of those times. That’s why this Technical Construction Pavilion shows the vocation of making a slow and precise architecture. More than an architecture project, it’s a way of doing architecture.

The expiration of use in a building is normal and common but this must not confuse, nor lead us to design temporal buildings. Designing a building means an economic and environmental wear that shouldn’t be dissipated. Under a strict point of view, temporal architecture should only be associated with theatrical shows, so the wear is seen to achieve higher actions. With this building, we propose to state the temporality in relationship to its use, so it petrifies its character.

Since the Pavilion is the first finished element in the building, the first reference to a hostile environment, of great mountains of land excavation, material stockpiles, dust and noise, the implantation is made so it protects through a cloister structure fully closed in the exterior perimeter and open to the garden defined by the own building. The orthogonality of the building allows to control the space and define a reference for the rest of the project, so extensions can be incorporated for future uses.

The C-form open to the north and closed to the rest orientations benefits a low-rise office building and generates a microclimate in the inner patio that benefits the summer conditions.

The use of a self-ventilated clear brick allows a favorable behavior of the whole set with a well proportioned disbursement. This brick is a key element in the buildings’ expression, seeking an image that constitutes a novelty for this material.

Magma Architecture‘s Olympic and Paralympic Shooting Arenas have just been distinguished with a 2013 AIA UK Excellence in Design Award. Driven by the desire to evoke an experience of flow and precision inherent in the shooting sport through the dynamically curving space, the shooting arenas were the only buildings of the London 2012 Games to be selected. While all three ranges were configured in a crisp, white double curved membrane façade studded with vibrantly colored openings, the fresh and light appearance of the buildings truly enhanced the festive and celebratory character of the Olympic event. For more images and information on their award-winning project, please visit here.

Architecture for Humanity-Denver is seeking to raise money for the transformation of a museum parking lot into an outdoor classroom for children in need. The goal of Denver’s Museo de las Americas is to educate the community about the diversity of Latino Americano art and culture from ancient to contemporary through innovative exhibitions and programs, but the museum is lacking the necessary space for its increasingly popular youth summer camp.

Read more about the project and how you can help after the break.

Research shows that students exposed to arts education are 4 times as likely to succeed academically, but the reality is that 29,000 Denver youth have no access to such art programs. Because 85% of the disadvantaged youth in Denver are Latino and the dropout rate for Latino youth has reached a whopping 37%, the Museo de las Americas decided to create and host a summer camp to “teach art as a tool for fostering self-esteem in children and as a vehicle for encouraging understanding of Latino culture among all.” During the camp, children learn about and participate in dance, music, theatre and visual art activities that they then enjoy sharing with their community.

The parking lot is arguably the most attractive area of the museum, with its fresh air, openness to the sky and mountain views. Therefore the goal of the new design is simple: to construct a new permanent fence, gate and surface and a temporary overhead canopy for shading the classroom in the summertime. The space will be flexible enough to still accommodate parked cars when not being used as a classroom and will also be able to host other community events such as movie screenings.

The majority of the materials used for the outdoor classroom are salvaged from a building currently being demolished that would otherwise go to waste. Some of the necessary components, however, could not be repurposed and that’s where AfH-Denver needs YOUR help! Rewards for those who donate to the project are made from the same materials as the classroom, only in the form of earrings, bracelets, rings, necklaces and even fake mustaches – unique keepsakes to remind you of the gift you have given Denver and its disadvantaged youth.

To learn more about the campaign and to donate to the cause, click HERE.

References: Kickstarter, GOOD, AIA Colorado 

Architects: A-001 Taller de Arquitectura
Location: Tepoztlán, Morelos, Mexico
Architect In Charge: Eduardo Gorozpe Fernández
Project Year: 2013 
Area: 650 sqm
Photographs: Jaime Navarro

 “Casa del Viento” extends the realm of fiction and turns it into a resting and contemplation space. Inspired in the legend of the Tepozteco (A huge volcanic formation in the site), it opens the possibility that the rows of wind and water erosion, indeed where actually made by the people of the town trying to bring down the god of the winds (Ehécatl).

Three imaginary pieces of rock fallen from the volcanic formation and turned into walls; three lines that give place to a house opened to the winds, in a constant exchange with the environment for which it was conceived. Cantilevered structures create transitional spaces between the exterior and interior.

As a form of tribute, “Casa del Viento” faces north to the Tepozteco to fill every interior space with a 180 degrees view of a rock formation that changes personality as the sun journeys the sky. It´s slender form allow harnessing the natural lighting from the south and the view from the north, as well as creating cross ventilation in all the rooms.

A continuous contrast in the use of contemporary vs. regional materials, constructs a reflection of the cultural mix that characterizes Tepoztlan. Cast concrete used in the floors and limestone in the exterior and interior walls gives the house performance a thermal insulation and a low maintenance. The application of sustainability techniques as rainwater capture and use of solar heaters, support maximum energy and natural resources.

It´s architectural layout creates inhabitable spaces in welcoming environments opened to the experience of the country site. “Casa del Viento” hides intimacy corners through sustainable details: a meditation terrace, small balconies that protects the rooms from solar insulation and a pool that _____ day talk with a reflection of the Tepozteco.

Each room wraps the inhabitant in the landscape itself, from which, with his own presence becomes the new sculptor.

Taking place August 28-September 6, the University of Genoa’s San Rocco Summer School (SRSS) will teach you to design buildings by making drawings, copying precedents and talking about corner solutions. Each teacher, who is a member of the San Rocco editorial board, and some friends and colleagues, will participate for two days, taking over the work developed by the colleagues that preceded him in the days before. It is the students who will provide the SRSS with consistency, being the only constant. The building to be designed is the new mosque of Genoa. Applications must be submitted no later than 12:00 on June 10. For more information, please visit here.

Architects: LPzR architetti associati
Location: Andreoli 18, Milano, Italy
Architect In Charge: Gabriele Pranzo-Zaccaria
Design Team: Gabriele Pranzo-Zaccaria, Luca Gobbo, Chiara Pranzo-Zaccaria
Year: 2007
Photographs: Chiara Pranzo-Zaccaria, Gabriele Pranzo-Zaccaria

Construction Supervisor: Gabriele Pranzo-Zaccaria
Assistant To Construction: Chiara Pranzo-Zaccaria
Structural Engineering: Nicola Boreatti
Volume: 1,570 m3
Client: MD Group
Main Contractor: NICA costruzioni s.r.l.

Context
The building is located in Milan (Italy), inside the industrial Bovisa Quarter. Here new housing buildings coexist close to warehouses, gasometers, chimneys and workshops

Project
The project concerns the residential transformation of a warehouse. The client, a real estate developer, required a young and up-to-date look for his new apartments. The design made by LPzR architects keeps the former building perimeter and adds a new livable floor. Four apartments are placed at the ground floor and four at the first floor.

Architectural design
The main building volume is a simple red parallelepiped. An apparently random pattern of windows is applied, generating dynamic effects on the main façade. The asymmetries of the solid white frames give the façade a unique three-dimensional look.

The Baku White City Office Building Proposal by ADEC – Azerbaijan Development Company just received the awards for Office Architecture and Office Development at the Asia Pacific Property Awards event last week. A development of an international level, Baku White City Office Building features offices and commercial areas. A beautiful plaza is planned in front of the building where the foundation stone of Baku White City is situated, and which will become a beginning of a vibrant promenade along the Nobel Avenue. More images and information on the award-winning project after the break.

With 429 awards bestowed upon 260 companies from 23 countries in the region, it was the biggest International Property Awards regional event in the awards program’s 19-year history. Lord Bates from the House of Lords in British Parliament presented the winning companies with special plaques during awards presentations.

The smooth silhouette is achieved by means of modern materials. The design height of this 10-storey building occupying 2 hectares is 50 meters, total area – 20 thousand square meters. Baku White City Office Building provides an installation of high-speed elevators, as well as the use of double-façade sound and thermo-insulation. Baku White City Office Building includes underground and a guest parking estimated for up to 365 cars. Along with landscaping, installation of solar as an alternative energy solution indicates the project’s environmental sustainability.

At its initial design stage, Baku White City Office Building became well-known among architects on the international arena and was repeatedly nominated as ‘The Best Project of the Future’ at international exhibitions while the whole project was the winner MIPIM Asia Awards 2011 in the category “Best Project of the future of Central and West Asia” and also received the award for “Best Urban Project” at the exhibition Cityscape Global 2011.

As a result of the government’s initiative to improve environment in Azerbaijan and in the capital particularly, Baku White City project was initiated with sustainability as its core value, where phenomenal architecture was a bonus.

Construction of the building began in February 2012 and will last 32 months with completion planned for July 2014.

Projected onto the façade of the Musées d’art et d’histoire de Genève, Onionlab‘s ‘Evolucio’ is a piece that revolves around the graphic and sound abstraction of the concept it is named after: evolution. Created with 3D projection mapping techniques, It is construed as transformation, construction and alteration of reality through time; evolution as a discontinuous creation process as well. More images and architects’ description after the break.

Taking the evolution concept even further, Evolucio was conceived as an open transformation process so that it can also be adapted to different façades and projection surfaces, and so that it can continue its transformation process. Available for further projections, it can be adapted to various physical formats, e.g. indoor structures, or different façades.

Design and Production: Onionlab
Location: Geneva, Switzerland
Organized by: Mapping Festival and Les Musées d’art et d’histoire de la Ville de Genève
3D Artists / 2D Composing / Coding: Carles Munné, Mike van der Noordt, Pepe Vega, Natalia Reyes, Directed by: Aleix Fernández
Producer: Joel Mestre
Music and Sound Design: Leiko
Evolució Technical Direction: Jordi Pont
Mapping Festival Technical Direction: Adrien Boulanger
Technical Implementation: Lumens 8
Thanks to: Bordos (Bordos Artwork), Ana Ascensio (Mapping Festival), Linda Cavaliero and Co., Gregor (Sound engineering), David (Art and History Museum)

Click here to view the embedded video.

Architects: Patricio Cortese Opazo
Location: Maitencillo, Chile
Area: 250 sqm
Year: 2012
Photographs: Courtesy of Patricio Cortese Opazo

The work is emplaced in a hillside of strong slope and south orientation, in a hill located at the inside of Maitencillo locality. By one side, the site (place) have an spectacular view to the inner Puchuncavi Valley, and by the other side, it has many sunlight problems as a consequence of its orientation.

From this two premises (situations), the house raises as a volume that break away from the hill, creating an intermediate place between this and the work, which finality is to capture de northern sun as a passive thermic control system. This spot (space) against the hill establish a new transversal relation between the site borders, generating new flows and perspectives in the place.

The lower volume raises three recognizable situations. By one flank (broadside) it has a glazed circulation that captures the sun like a greenhouse. By the other, are located all the bedrooms with a privileged view to the inner valley. In its upper , it raises a great oriel (balcony, glazer) that open itself to the emptiness creating a relation between the work and the valley like a distant (faraway) context.

Architects: OMBRA Arquitectos
Location: Alboraya, Spain
Architects In Charge: Pablo Peñín Llobell, Diego Carratalá Collado, Francisco Miravete Martín y Carmen Mellado Vera
Area: 2,200 sqm
Year: 2008
Photographs: Courtesy of OMBRA Arquitectos

Construction Company: Secopsa Construcción S.A.
Property: EGUSA.S.L.
Budget: 2.580.863,00 €

The Emergency Station houses in a single building the Alboraya Emergency services (Police, Civil Protection and Ambulance service). The site is somewhat hidden, located between property walls of an industrial park – Polígono de la Mar – close to the city ring road. The proposal aims, therefore, to make the installation more visible while creating a small public space that provides it with identity, kindness, a “place”. On this basis, we configured a functional building with industrial aesthetics.

The large cantilevered volume marks the main access from the entrance square. On the ground floor the large glazed surface invites the user in to the reception area. The building is structured around an interior courtyard of 10 x 7 m which provides light and ventilation to the different spaces. The stairwell and wet areas are located to the sides, thus liberating the rest of the floor plan and allowing a flexible distribution with the use of screens.

The public scale is solved via the double façade. The large glazed windows are protected by a perforated steel sheet that enables the views from the inside out, while providing sun protection and a good degree of privacy from the exterior. This kind of façade turns the building into a giant lantern at night. The back façade, facing south, consists also of two layers, but in this case separated enough to form a patio between the façade itself, and the protection skin.

The Tel-Aviv White City Forum winning proposal by Kimmel Eshkolot Architects is an exhibition center, part of the huge Tel- Aviv wholesale market project currently under construction. Comprising thousands of apartment units, a mall, a school and a sports complex, the Forum will be a platform for genuine urban celebration. More images and architects’ description after the break.

The project is located in the city center, and is built on the grounds of the former market, recently removed to the outskirts. The architects hope to create a place that provides an exciting urban experience, attracting the public not only to exhibitions but also to its diverse and bustling urban space.

The neighboring residential project creates a unique urban situation of a park on the upper level, 8 meters above street level. This park is surrounded on all sides by buildings – a kind of hidden garden. The Forum develops this upper level as its’ main urban level and “pulls” the park to the front , thus enhancing its presence in relation to the city.In this way a comprehensive inviting urban space is created that can operate independently during 24 hours of the day as befits “the City that never sleeps”.

The chosen Architectural syntax is of a vertical large-scale White City, and is derived from the desire for a visual quiet environment that allows good neighborly relationship with the powerful presence of the Wholesale Market Project. In contradiction to the exhibition halls which require big windowless “black boxes”, the building’s circulation system is transparent and offers the vertical roaming space consisting of an escalator system, large viewing windows and balconies.

Visitors of the building will enjoy panoramic views of the city at 360 degrees and at different heights. In addition, there will be a roof- terrace cinema and bar, in the tradition of the Tel-Aviv open cinemas of the past.

All transparent parts of the building are protected by shading systems which contain arrangements of LEDs which project advertising on huge screens. The rest of the buildings’ envelope is made of double skin panels.

Architects: Mathias Klotz
Location: Patagonia, Argentina
Project Architect: Mathias Klotz (KLOTZ & asociados)
Area: 650 sqm
Photographs: Courtesy of Matías Klotz

Collaborators: Alejandro Beals
Structural Engineer: Luis Soubie
Surface: 9409 sqm

The Techos House is a vacation house located on the shore of the Nahuelhuapi Lake, south of Argentina, near Villa la Angostura. The land is a 200 year old bamboo stick forest next to the lake.

One of the issues we faced was how to fulfill a local standard, in which the roof had to have a minimum slope of 26ª, allow for the sun to come in and have views of the forest and the lake from inside the house.

The program consists in two floors, family in the main level leaving visits and services to the ground level.

The roof issue is solved starting from a series of small roofs according to the standard, allowing the entrance of the sun at the same time and with views to the lake and forest with a double bay scheme. A generous central circulation distributes a succession of patios to the enclosures located in both sides.

The pool has been located at the far east of the main level so it can guarantee the sun exposure and the views.

In the access zone, we designed the caretaker’s house (Techitos), as a prototype of the main house so the construction aspects were solved in a 1/1 model.

Concrete, wood and copper were used so the architecture was integrated with the context.

Architects: Meir Lobaton Corona, Ulli Heckmann
Location: Chaumont Sur Loire, France
Landscape Consultant: Julia Pankofer
Structure Consultant: Hector Triana
Area: 40 sqm
Year: 2013
Photographs: Fabio Ferrario

The sense we trust the most is the sense which exposes us the least. The sense that will bring us into direct contact with life is used the least. The first is to see. What we see, we believe, but it is what we don’t see that holds the truth of what is because then it remains undistorted by our interpretation.

We think that all perception is locked within our body: The sense of seeing from the eyes, the sense of hearing from the ears, the sense of smelling from the nose, the sense of tasting from the mouth, and the sense of touch primarily from the hands. Our garden, entitled ‘outside-in’, is conceived as a visual paradox, as device that enhances such conditions in order to make the audience realize how by relying only on sight we rely on imagination, that is to say, on interpretation.  In other words, how the sense of vision can become a shield that precludes us the possibility of having a holistic experience of life, one that involves the entire body and that extends beyond it.

The experience of the garden begins when the visitor finds himself confronted with a seemingly void space, only the sound of his footsteps walking on top of the red sand surface and a minimalist white box mysteriously levitating sixty centimeters above the ground complement his experience.

The weightless, five meters wide by eight meters long, semi-cubic volume –defined by a translucent white skin– takes almost one third of the extension of the garden and works as a floating canvas where a monochrome world of shadows is casted suggesting the presence of what seams to be a tiny and inaccessible chunk of forest confined within. Only when gazing inside –either by crouching down and looking under it or peeking through one of the peepholes scattered on top of the white surface– the visitor is drawn into an illusory space in which trees and plants vanish into the distance. An effect attained by the fact that the four interior faces of the volume are covered with two-way mirrors and thus create a seemingly infinite forest reflected in all directions.

Like the scene in ‘Alice in Wonderland’, in which Alice peers through the keyhole of a tiny door onto a beautiful garden only to realize that she is unable to enter, this inverted experience of peeking inside to actually look outside, is meant to be both engrossing and frustrating. This voyeuristic experience allows for the viewer’s presence never to interrupt the tableau: the forest remains infinite and trapped inside this solipsist hall of mirrors while the visitor is confronted with the paradox of being looking inside a box where the contained space is actually larger than its container.

‘Outside-in’ is a garden within a garden, a contemplative space, a small universe where landscape and architecture are fused to create an experience capable of raising questions rather than answering them, a live mechanism whose aim is to make us reflect on the contrast between what we know and what we see, demanding us to constantly negotiate the gap between physical reality and visual perception. It is a meditation on space, light, and the possibility of infinity as seen through the limitless reflections of a trapped narrative meticulously fitted inside a world of two-way mirrors.

Architects: Ippolito Fleitz Group
Location: Hamburg
Architect In Charge: Ippolito Fleitz Group
Design Team: Peter Ippolito, Gunter Fleitz, Tilla Goldberg, Christian Kirschenmann, Tim Lessmann, Alexander Fehre, Christine Ackermann, Roger Gasperlin, Katja Heinemann
Area: 520.0 sqm
Year: 2011
Photographs: Zooey Braun

The SPIEGEL Group, whose stable includes Germany’s most important news magazine Der SPIEGEL, moved into its new publishing house in Hamburg’s HafenCity development. We were commissioned to create a new, 520 sqm large employees’ canteen for the building. The legacy building’s famous canteen was designed in 1969 by Verner Panton. This inheritance represented a particular challenge.

The employees’ canteen was and is a calling card of the SPIEGEL Group, reflecting its journalistic philosophy as much as its culture of dialogue. It is a space that meets all functional demands while creating a strong visual impact to form a truly distinguishing space. In so doing it supports the mature culture of communication within the company and in a grand gesture transmits these values to the outside world.

The ceiling design is the distinguishing moment of the space. It is formed of 4,230 circles made of micro-perforated aluminium. The tables are placed within the space in three large groups in loose arrangements and so provide an organic counterpoint to the polygonal floor plan. Through a zigzagging glass façade a separate area can be formed at one end for discrete events.

Brooklyn-based architect and Harvard GSD alumni Gia Wolff has been awarded the $100,000 Wheelwright Prize for her proposal Floating City: The Community-Based Architecture of Parade Floats. Now in its first edition, the Wheelwright Prize is a travel grant issued by Harvard University in an effort to foster new forms of architectural research led by cross-cultural engagement.

Mohsen Mostafavi: “The positive response to the Wheelwright Prize has been extraordinary. It is inspiring to see so many talented architects with clear agendas and visions. I am delighted for Gia Wolff, the winner of the prize. Her proposed investigations at the intersection of design, performance, and temporality will surely provide us with new insights and new directions for the future of architecture.”

At 35, Wolff has acquired an impressive list of credentials. Her past work with Acconci Studio, LOT-EK, Adjaye Associates, and Architecture Research Office (ARO) has guided her to establish an “innovative” and “multifaceted” practice that focuses on “performance and its use of space and objects to convey narrative, form, and emotion,” in her words. 

Alongside her work, she is currently an assistant professor adjunct at the Irwin S. Chanin School of Architecture at the Cooper Union and a visiting assistant professor at Pratt Institute. In addition, she has been collaborating with the Phantom Limb Company on set designs for productions.

Wolff’s winning proposal, Floating City: The Community-Based Architecture of Parade Floats, proposes the study of the tradition of parade floats – elaborate temporary and mobile constructions that are realized annually in carnival festivals in Rio de Janeiro (Brazil), Goa (India), Nice (France), Santa Cruze de Tenerife (Spain), and Viarreggio (Italy). As Wolff describes in her essay, “The float transforms the city. Its scale makes exterior streets into interior rooms of street theater… This research ties into contemporary interests in performance and architectural notions of mobility, temporality, spectacle, urban space, and community-based design.”

The jury was enthusiastic about the strong continuity between Wolff’s existing body of work and her proposed area of study. The following comments emerged during the final premiation: “Wolff embodies a new way to think about practice”; “Though her work deals with impermanence, it engages with contemporary architectural concerns with flexibility, modularity, mobility, art”; “With her interest in the community-based creative production of carnival floats, Wolff’s proposal has a social dimension that resonates with the current preoccupation with local fabrication and maker economies”; and “Her research promises to touch on ideas that will help the analysis of the city.”

The $100,000 grant will fund Wolff’s research over the next two years.

The Wheelwright Prize Jury – Harvard GSD Dean Mohsen Mostafavi, Yung Ho Chang, Farès el-Dahdah, K. Michael Hays, Farshid Moussavi, Zoe Ryan, and Jorge Silvetti – selected Gia Wolff among 231 applicants from 45 countries.

via Harvard University, Wheelwright Prize