MVRDV has just introduced its comprehensive plan and architectural vision for the construction of the Gate M West Bund Dream Center in Shanghai. Formerly home to a cement plant factory, the design uses the existing structures for cultural programs and combines them with new structures to house new functions. The Dream Center aims to revitalize the riverbank area into a thriving cultural and recreational district.
Exploring unbuilt projects can offer insights into the design process and leading strategies employed by contemporary architecture practices, revealing unexpected solutions, experimental approaches and innovative design concepts. This week’s curated selection of Best Unbuilt Architecture highlights designs submitted by established architecture practices. From a fjord-side regeneration project and oceanography research center to a headquarters building shaped to reflect company’s main focus or a restaurant adapted to extreme conditions, the compilation of unbuilt projects presents the variety of concepts, design philosophies and programs put forward by prominent global architecture studios.
Featuring internationally recognized offices like CRA-Carlo Ratti Associati, Herzog & de Meuron, OODA, KCAP, and Aedas, this selection showcases worldwide interventions that illustrate architectural and civic interventions across diverse scales and programs. Whether tackling the restoration of monuments, interventions in public spaces or the transformation of a city’s waterfront, each of these projects aspires to deliver a fitting response to the spatial, functional, social and ecological requisite of its context.
Danish architecture practice Schmidt Hammer Lassen revealed the winning design of an international competition for the world’s tallest residential timber building. Located in the Swiss city of Winterthur, the 100-metre tall Rocket&Tigerli tower developed in close corporation with the local Swiss architecture studio Cometti Truffer Hodel echoes the 19th-century industrial architecture of the surrounding area through its facades of dark red and yellow terracotta bricks. The project proposes a variety of residential typologies and amenities that are set to create a vibrant neighbourhood.
Architecture has long been designed to symbolize and venerate shared values and beliefs. This is especially true in cathedrals and places of worship, structures that exists across environmental, economic and cultural boundaries. These buildings encompass ritual and gathering as they explore the relationship between human experience and the divine. Today, cathedrals are being reimagined for contemporary life and new building traditions.
Schmidt Hammer Lassen Architects and BOGL were selected by the municipality of Albertslund and Freja Ejendomme to re-imagine Vridsløselille, a facility that housed once a state prison, and transform the site into an attractive, green district with a distinct identity derived from its unique heritage. The scheme was chosen alongside another project by COBE to create a combined vision for the future development of the area.
The sustainable mixed-use K8 tower, designed by Schmidt Hammer Lassen moves forward with final approval from the Stavanger City Council in Norway. The proposal aims to encourage future urban developments in the city and generates a new benchmark for sustainable and creative work environments.
When reflecting on recycling, sustainability, measures to take, and innovative technological solutions, one cannot help but think that there are also familiar approaches that should be taken into consideration. In fact, when examining the impact of the built environment on the climate, one notes that in many countries, 80% of the buildings that will exist in 2050 have already been built. The most effective form of sustainability may, therefore, be saving energy by eliminating or minimizing new constructions, and by avoiding the demolition of existing structures.
That is what adaptive reuse stands for: instilling a new purpose on an existing “leftover building.” Nowadays, the refashioning process is becoming essential because of numerous issues related to the climate emergency, plot and construction costs, a saturation of land, and a change in living trends.
Despite all the news of re-openings, lifted restrictions, al fresco options dining, and a return to something more closely resembling “normal,” COVID-19 is still very much with us. And despite the defeatist/downplayed/nothing to see here stance embraced by the current presidential administration, the United States is still in the midst of an unprecedented public health crisis. In some states, both new reported cases and hospitalizations have now reached record highs.
This being said, the need for accessible, easy to fabricate, and quick-to-deploy testing facility solutions are still in great need, particularly in dense urban areas, at large institutions and workplaces, and in underserved communities where coronavirus testing might come as a luxury, not a basic necessity. In terms of testing availability, all bases need to and must be covered.
Planning application has just been submitted for a new landmark library, for the University of Bristol. The latest addition, designed by a collaborative team formed by Schmidt Hammer Lassen, Hawkins\Brown and BuroHappold, is set to transform the heart of the campus.
Danish design firm Schmidt Hammer Lassen is partnering with Australia-based Hames Sharley to transform the existing Curtin University Library in Australia. At the center of Western Australia’s largest university, the landmark library building will be transformed into an open, light-filled building to meet the needs of future users. The team aims to create a “living library” with new pathways for visual and physical connectivity throughout the building site.
Schmidt Hammer Lassen has announced details of their second U.S. project: the Seaport World Trade Center in Boston, Massachusetts. An adaptive reuse project that will bring new life to Boston’s Commonwealth Pier, the 68,500-square-meter mixed-use project seeks to reactivate a historic maritime hub to create a new waterfront destination.
The largest pier building in the world when completed in 1901, the Commonwealth Pier will be reactivated with the introduction of new materials, increased daylight, and new points of connectivity. The exercise in adaptive reuse will contain flexible office space, dynamic event space, new retail, dining, and public amenities.
The world's largest waste-to-energy plant by Schmidt Hammer Lassen and Gottlieb Paludan is set to open next year on the outskirts of Shenzhen, China. The new plant is made to handle 5000 tons of waste per day within a simple, clean, and iconic structure. It will incinerate waste and generate power while teaching residents about the waste-energy cycle. The project aims to showcase new developments in China's waste-to-energy sector and share them with the world.
Schmidt Hammer Lassen Architects has broken ground on its first U.S. project, a mixed-use tower and associated masterplan in Detroit, Michigan. “Monroe Blocks” will stitch together the heart of one of America’s most storied cities with a mix of modern office space, residential units, restaurants, retail, and outdoor public areas.
The 12,500-square-meter site in Detroit’s Campus Martius Park, vacant for a generation, will be activated by 4,800 square meters of outdoor space, with the design team drawing on historical influences for the form and materiality of the new masterplan.
Schmidt Hammer Lassen Architects and Architectus have announced the opening of Tūranga, the new central library for Christchurch, New Zealand. Built to address the earthquakes that damaged Christchurch in 2010 and 2011, the library is one of the first public buildings to open downtown after the disasters. Working with Architectus and the indigenous Māori people of New Zealand’s South Island, the design was made to celebrate rebirth in Christchurch.
Schmidt Hammer Lassen has released images and details of its competition-winning design for the headquarters of Solvay, an advanced materials and chemicals company, to be located in Brussels, Belgium. Working in collaboration with Modulo Architects and VK Engineers, the Danish firm has prioritized sustainability and resilience in the zero-carbon, near-zero-energy building.
The winning team was chosen from a competitive international field including OMA, Valode & Pistre, Wilmotte & Associés, and Henning Larsen.
Schmidt Hammer Lassen has won an invited competition for the design of the Marine Knowledge Hub in Liverpool, United Kingdom. The 70,000-square-foot (6,400-square-meter) scheme, intended for marine engineering research, survival training, workspace, and events, seeks to elevate the status of both Liverpool and the United Kingdom in the maritime research industry.
The scheme forms part of the Wirral Waters regeneration project, a £4.5 billion masterplan, which represented the largest planning application ever submitted in the UK in 2009.
Danish firm Schmidt Hammer Lassen Architects has been selected to design the redevelopment of Kimmel Quarter, a historic district in the heart of the Latvian capital of Riga, after an international competition. The 19th-century Kimmel Brewery complex, now mostly abandoned, will be transformed into a mixed-use center featuring a new office building, hotel, and an array of public facilities. Schmidt Hammer Lassen was one of eleven participants, with firms such as Henning Larsen and Zaha Hadid invited to the open competition.
The proposal for the 120,000-square-foot (11,500-square-meter) district manifests as a vibrant, public-orientated program, including a gym, child care center, café, food court, and spa. A series of courtyards and plazas are laced throughout the scheme, connecting old and new in a “timeless, classic appearance that is also uniquely contemporary.” The design took 2nd place in a competition in which no first place winner was selected, as the jury felt that no entry fully met the competition criteria. As the highest-placing entry, the competition organizers have committed to begin negotiations with Schmidt Hammer Lassen to refine the design.
Through his series of architectural photographs, photographer, Marc Goodwin, is giving us an inside look into the architecture firms of the world’s greatest cities. His work has brought us through a collection of Nordic architectural offices, firms both large and small in London, numerous studios within Beijing, a selection of practices in Seoul, and a compendium of offices through the French capital. Shanghai is the next to be added to his list with his most recent collection showcasing the rich architectural culture of China’s largest city.
