© d.teil

In June, we featured Steven Holl’s latest Horizontal Skyscraper which hovers above a landscaped park in Shenzhen, China. Matthias Wolff, an ArchDaily reader and also a contributor to our Flickr roundups, shared some of his photographs of Holl’s building with us.  Wolff, aka d.teil, shot these images at the complex’s opening this past December, when some of the complex’s components – such as the hotel – were still under construction.  Since the grounds are open to the public, the project will truly affect a large scope of people, both natives and visitors of the area.  Wolff’s photos provide a clear understanding of the building’s varying materiality, as well as its situation within the designed terrain. What do you think of Holl’s project?

Check out more photos after the break. read more »

Pratt Institute by Steven Holl Architects. Photography Andy Ryan

New York will be the recipient of another Steven Holl project – a new library at the Queens West Development at Hunters Point.  Envisioned as a contemporary “urban forum”, the project will shape public space and create new connections across the Queens West Development, Hunter Points South, and the existing neighborhood of Hunters Point.  Steven Holl states, “We are very pleased with this great commission for an addition to the growing community.  We envision a building hovering and porous, open to the public park.  A luminous form of opportunity for knowledge, standing on its own reflection in the east river.”

More about Holl’s new project after the break.

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© Iwan Baan

Our friend and architecture photographer, Iwan Baan , just published on his website some of his recently shot images of Steven Holl’s Horizontal Skyscraper in Shenzhen, China .  The project is a long mixed-use complex which includes office spaces, apartments, a hotel and even a public landscape.  Baan’s photos illustrate Holl’s idea that the “building appears as if it were once floating on a higher sea that has now subsided; leaving the structure propped up high on eight legs.”

Complete photoset at Iwan’s website, more images and more about the project after the break. read more »

© Andy Ryan - Steven Holl Architects

When Massachusetts Institute of Technology commissioned Steven Holl in 1999 to design a new a dormitory for the school they had one goal in sight: that the spaces around and within the building would stir up interaction among students. While MIT focused on the building’s use and function, Holl aimed to create a memorable building. With MIT’s vision in mind along with Holl’s artistic architectural ideas, the ten-story undergraduate dormitory became a small city in itself with balancing opposing architectural elements, such as solids and voids and opaqueness and transparency.

More on Simmons Hall after the break.

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Architect: Steven Holl Architects, Marcela Steinbachová (Skupina)
Location: Prague, Czech Republic
Program: Cultural center with exhibition, lecture and concert space, as well as offices and a library
Client: Franz Kafka Society Center
Project year: 2007-2008
Photographs: Andrea Lhotakova

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Architect: Steven Holl Architects
Location: Hamarøy, Norway
Program: Historical museum for writer Knut Hamsun including exhibition areas, library, reading room, cafe and 230 seat auditorium
Client: Nordland Fylkeskommune (County)
Project Area: 2,271 sqm
Project year: 1994-2009
Photographs: Ernst Furuhatt & Steven Holl Architects

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American architect Steven Holl discusses contemporary architecture in Beijing with acclaimed interviewer Charlie Rose.

Steven Holl Architects‘ winning design from the “4 Tower in 1″ competition calls for a quartet of towers to be built around the brand new Shenzhen Stock Exchange and its surrounding plaza.

The four buildings in the complex have a variety of features typical of environmentally friendly and sustainable structures of recent, and the kind we may see in the future.

Rooftop garden ponds to recycle rainwater, solar tracking screens around the buildings’ exterior and circular footprints for the towers, enabling wide-open social spaces to face the sun. And of course the position of the buildings, arranged in a horizontal linking pattern so they double as giant sun umbrellas for the Stock Exchange. The buildings will be linked by underground rail as well, so the only time you’ll have to venture outside is to partake in all the rooftop garden festivities.