Amsterdam City Council recently held ‘The Silo Competition’ which involved the adaptive and reuse design for two former sewage treatment silos in the city’s Zeeburg district.

For the competition NL Architects proposed silos dedicated to climbing, sports and culture. In their design the existing structures were extended to the maximum height to benefit from the views.

The cultural silo consists of two theaters with dressing rooms and rehearsal spaces, spaces for workshops, exhibition spaces, music studios and a space for hair design. A bridge connects the silos at the height of the original roof level and office spaces will be positioned on top. The top level will be dedicated to a restaurant with 360 views and a roof terrace.

Seen at designboom. More images after the break. read more »

Stockholm-based Petrén Merom Architects and Scheiwiller Svensson Architects Office have designed the SWAN, in Gävle, Sweden.

This 150 meter high building will include offices, hotels, conference and residential service.

More information here (in Swedish). More images after the break. read more »

Architect: MAPT + DARK Architects
Location: Oslo, Norway
Program: Highrise with Shopping, Wellness and Office Facilities
Project year: 2009
Images: MAPT

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Allard Architects shared with us Matchbox, their latest building in Amsterdam, The Netherlands, that just got approved by the Amsterdam Aesthetics Committee. Completion expected for December 2010.

Architect’s description and more images after the break.

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Architects: KPMB – Kuwabara Payne McKenna Blumberg Architects
Location: Denver, USA
Project Team: Bruce Kuwabara (design partner), Shirley Blumberg (partner-in-charge), Bruno Weber (project architect), Myriam Tawadros, Javier Uribe, Bill Colaco, Jose Emila, Richard Wong, Roland Ulfig
Structure: Halcrow Yolles
MEP: ABS Consultants
Civil Engineering: MB Consulting
Building Envelope: Wiss, Janney, Elstner Associates
Landscape: MP Consulting
Acoustics: D.I. Adams Associates Inc.
Client: Urban Villages, LLC
Project year: 2008
Construction area: 13,460 sqm
Photographs: © Tom Arban

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Belgian practice BURO II designed some new projects around this historic site with a great importance to the city of Ostend. This is, amongst others, determined by its location: the proximity to the sea the Royal Galleries and the historically important Thermae Palace. The former racecourse for horse racing was turned into a collection of projects, and a crossroads of activities, which bring a new urban dynamic to ‘the queen of seaside resorts’.

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Architect: Tatiana Bilbao & at103
Location: Lomas de Chapultepec, Mexico D.F., Mexico
Design Team: Tatiana Bilbao S.C. with Francisco Pardo, Julio Amezcua, Israel Alvarez, Aida Hurtado, Arturo Peniche, Jorge Vazquez, Carlos Leguizamo y Octavio Vazquez
Structural Engineering: IESSA, Ing. Francisco Javier Ribe
Contractor: MZM, Ing. Miguel Cornejo
Construction Management: Elizabeth Huerta
Project Year: 2006
Construction Year: 2007-2008
Budget: US $2.75 M
Constructed Area: 2,430 sqm
Photographs: Iwan Baan

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Architect: Dorte Mandrup Arkitekter Aps + Cebra Arkitekter A/S
Location: Hellerup, Copenhagen, Denmark
Project Year: 2008
Turn Key Contractor: Partnering NCC Construction Danmark / Mangor & Nagel Arkitektfirma A/S
Client: Gentofte Municipality
Engineer: NCC Construction Danmark
Landscape: Peter Holst Landskab
Construction Area: 2,600 sqm
LOutdoor Area: 4,000 sqm
Photographs: Adam Mørk

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Secretary of State for Cultura Media and Sport Andy Burnham, will officially open Alison Brooks Architect’s Quarterhouse Performing Arts and Business Centre in Folkestone, located in the Kent district, England. The ceremony will take place in March 5.

The building is the centrepiece of the city’s arts-led regeneration programme spearheaded by client The Creative Foundation. The 1550 sqm includes a 220 seat, 500 standing multi-purpose auditorium for music, dance, theatre, film performances and conferences; ground floor foyer and exhibition space; first floor café/bar and a top floor business centre for start-ups in the creative industries.

More details and images, after the break. read more »

Dorobanti tower, a new project  by Zaha Hadid Architects in Bucharest moves away from the works we  have been seen lately, with a very expressive structure. The 200m tall iconic tower will be located in the heart of the capital city of  Romania, at junction of Calea Dorobanti and St. Mihail Eminescu, with over 100,000 sqm for mixed-use development which include a 5-star hotel (with restaurants and convention centre), luxury apartments and retail space at street level.

The chamfered diamond like structure  tapers from the centre towards the top and the bottom. The meandering structural mesh expresses the change of programs across the tower.

A good move by Zaha in my opinion.

More on the structure, from Zaha Hadid Architects:

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This project by young Latvian architects NRJA (previously featured on AD) is currently under construction. The complex, in Riga, Latvia, includes 2 towers (29 and 30 stories each), connected by a floor bridge. It also includes a 4-stories podium. Completion is expected durin 1st quarter 2010.

Architect´s description, more renderings and construction photos after the break. You can also watch the construction site via webcam.

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Museum Plaza is -in my opinion- one of the most amazing mixed-use project of our time. It makes all the variables (economical regulations, community, local authorities) fit together, on an pure volume – with a Mies-ian look.

But REX, and the following video, explain it better:

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Some time ago we featured a mid rise building by OMA in New York, a cantilevered volume that brings a new concept for tall buildings. A similar approach can be found at a recent competition for the Rødovre Skyscraper won by MVRDV in association with ADEPT: A 116m tall mixed use tower, based on a 60sqm module arranged around the central core of the building.

It´s interesting to see the structural approach for this new typology, as you can see on another render below: the inner core -actually 3 cores to access the different program segments- is made out of concrete, with the units wrapping it around on a steel structure.

Something interesting in times like this, is that the building allows for different configurations responding to unstable markets, flexibility achieved by re-designating these 60sqm units.

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Well, here we have another skyscrapper in Dubai, this time in the shape of a giant wind turbine. When I saw this, i thought it had this turbine to generate eolic energy, but actually it’s a structure that holds a panoramic restaurant in the glass capsule at the top of the building, as you can see on the further images.

The 2,15 feet (655m) tall tower includes a mixed use developement with retail, offices, 300 luxury apartments and a 250-room luxury hotel. As you can see on the vertical renderings, it has a tremendus atrium and vertical gardens every 27 floors.

The Anara tower was designed by Atkins Design Studio for Tameer Holding Investment

Construction is set to be started during next year. More images after the break.

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b720 architects won the competition for the World Trade Center at Igualada, Spain. The complex will articulate the existing industrial city with the residential zone, completing a new zone of infrastructure for this developing city.

The complex consist of 4 buildings with a total area of 53.000 sqm, including 530 underground parking spaces. This project will hold offices, retail spaces.

Retail space is located on the lower and first level of the first 3 buildings, as a base to the office space above it as you can see on the rendering. The upper levels are wider than this retail base, creating a covered space for pedestrians. Between the volumes, several spaces will allow for future occupation. Galleries on the upper floors will allow an exterior-interior continuity, integrating the mid-rise volumes with the exterior that starts to become more as a neighborhood than with this new relations, thus answering to the city council requirement to turn this project in not just office space, but a new urban centrality.

There’s only a few more images available (after the break), but we will keep in touch with b720 to bring you more on this project as it develops.

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UPDATE: We wrongly credited the whole project to AS+GG, but they were only comissioned to design the three main towers, on a master plan designed by SOM Chicago.

It seems no one told Dubai about the financial crisis, as new projects keep being unveiled. This time, our green friends over Inhabitat tipped us on a mega development, owned by Maraas Holding: The Jumeirah Gardens. The master plan for this project was designed by SOM Chicago, and consists of  a mixed-use development that incorporates low, medium, and high-density zones for business, residences, retail, leisure, and recreation – a city within a city, with an estimated cost of US$95 billion.

The three main towers were comissioned to Chicago based architects AS+GG (Adrian Smith + Gordon Gill), The most impressive one -and the third tallest tower in the UAE- is 1 Dubai, pictured above. The tri-partite skyscraper will be 3218 ft (981m) tall, and the towers will be connected by a series of glass suspension sky-bridges. This bridges are so big, they even grow palms on them as you can see on the further renderings. At the base of the buildings, grand arched entrances allow boats to travel underneath the building and into a central atrium space. The mixed-use development includes a hotel, residential, commercial retail and entertainment space totaling 800,000-900,000 square meters.

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Architect: nArchitects
Location: New York, USA
Project Year: 2004-2007
Design Team: Eric Bunge, Mimi Hoang (Partners); Daniela Zimmer (Project Architect), Jorge Pereira, Takuya Shinoda
Client: 109 Norfolk, LLC
Constructed Area: 1,328 sqm
Program: Art gallery on Ground & Cellar Floors & 5 condo apartments
Photographs: Frank Oudeman & nArchitects

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There’s nothing more exciting for an architect than to shape the form of his own city with a new building. And that’s what Rem Koolhaas is about to do in Rotterdam with a large scale mixed use building. Also, a project developed for The Hague, also in the Netherlands, will start construction as of next year. Site visits will be closer to the central OMA headquarters this time.

First, we’ve got a 120.000m2 (30.000m2 for retail, 70.000m2 for office, residential, culture and leisure) mixed use building in the Rotterdam’s shopping district, the Coolsingel. This district is actually the true centre of Rotterdam, where the most important streets in Rotterdam merge (Coolsingel, Lijbaan, Binnenweg and Beurstraverse).

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Realdania is a strategic foundation that initiates and supports built projects that improve the quality of life in Denmark. They are involved in aprox. 54 flagship projects, and now they are starting a mixed use building in Bryghusgrunden, one of the few undeveloped remaining areas of Copenhagen, Denmark with the potential to link the city to the waterfront. And guess who they choose for this project: OMA.

But what´s interesting in this project is the mixed of use. Housing, offices, public spaces and parking are put together with the Danish Architecture Center, with its own exhibition areas, research facilities, an auditorium, conference rooms, a bookstore and a café. It´s architecture meets one of it´s own key subject of study: mixed use.

Video, renders, plans and more info after the break.

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