Focusing on diversity, this curated selection of the Best Unbuilt Architecture showcases a multitude of functions. Submitted by our readers, the projects vary in scale, program, design, and representation. Coming from all over the world, many of these interventions are in progress, while others are still in conceptual phases.
Introducing innovative and out of the box ideas, this roundup includes a floating farm in the Netherlands, natural swimming pools in South Korea, a resort in Hungary, and a cascading museum extension in Armenia. Even more common functions such as a hotel in Vietnam, an infinity loop library in China, a mixed-use building in Iran, headquarters for Yandex in Russia, and a campus in Germany, present inventive approaches and intriguing imageries.
Read on to discover 10 selected projects submitted and their descriptions from the architects.
Airport City Urban Masterplan in Jeddah
Airport City will be a world-class, mixed-use development that will become a leading destination for visitors from across Saudi Arabia and the GCC region. The 1.91 million m² GBA master plan for Airport City introduces an innovative mixed-use community concept to the region, creating diverse tourism and business opportunities while also providing a dynamic lifestyle and family entertainment venue. The Airport City master plan vision creates a sustainable new-generation city district, unique for its human scale and fully pedestrianized urban community, with a perfect synergy between landscape and architecture.
The Parasite
ARC- Ashkan Rafiey Cooperation
This project is a commercial and hospitality mixed-use development located in Tehran, Iran. It consists of a grid structure nesting on two towers while having the least impact on them. It includes vertical and horizontal paths or corridors, where shops take place, making it a three-dimensional maze. The grid creates open spaces that enable different public activities to take place, generating a hanging city on the towers. The main challenge of this project lays in the addition of one program to two different buildings, using their performing structure while having the least impact.
Floating Farm Poultry
The Floating Farm Poultry is a design in succession of the Floating Farm Dairy. Similar to the adjacent cow farm it is organized as a logically stacked and compact agricultural building. The farm combines a poultry farm for 7000 hens and an indoor LED cress farm with an evocative factory floor that facilitates the processing of products from both farms. Fresh eggs, edible crops are also combined into a new range of products. Technologies that are based on circular principles and that minimize the ecological footprint are applied on all levels of the farm. Besides being a functional farm, the building also fulfills an educational role for the city and its inhabitants.
Cascade Cafesjian Museum Extension and Concert Hall
This proposal seeks to complete the development of Cascade, a 300-meter-long multipurpose stairway complex, and fully realize its potential as a multifunctional culture facility and public space while addressing important infrastructure concerns and the unmet demand for performance facilities and museum space. The focal idea of the project is diversification of the growing pedestrian traffic of Cascade by creating new vantage points and transversely oriented low-inclination walkway ramps as alternatives to the stairs along the main axis.
LIFE Hamburg
Architectural firm LAVA joined forces with urban agricultural collective Cityplot to design LIFE Hamburg, a new figure eight-shaped building of three levels that is energy self-sufficient and brings inside and outside together into one continuous landscape. Based on the educational paradigms of Learn life (purpose-inspired and personal learning) and American futurist David Thornburg (variety of spatial typologies), a new type of landscape building will reinvent learning for 800 children and 800 adults, opening in 2023.
Jamsil Hangang Park Natural Swimming Pools
A creative international collaboration between 100 Architects (Shanghai), Carve (Amsterdam), and Urien (Seoul), with the local coordination & support of the landscape architect Walter Ryu, has resulted in this proposal for a leisure facility in Seoul, South Korea. With the purpose of improving the existing public facility of the Swimming Pool in Jamsil Hangang Park, the Municipality of Seoul launched a Competition for a design solution that would bring back the former glory of this 30-years-old facility on the banks of the Hang River. Not only by renovating the Swimming Pools themselves, but also seeking a solution that would reactivate the entire Park as a public destination within the City of Seoul.
The Buda Resort
Johannes Torpe Studios unveils the Buda Resort; a luxury spa resort located in the Visegrad Hills of Hungary and inspired by the spiritual symbolism of its setting; the ‘Heart Chakra of The Earth’. An unfinished and derelict concrete construction lying dormant since the early 2000s and built on an old stone quarry is reimagined by Johannes Torpe Studios around its unique location into a luxury spa and wellness resort concept with 210-rooms. Situated 50 km north of Budapest, in a hilly landscape surrounded by lush green forests, near the bank of the tortuous Danube River; the Buda Resort project blends the functionality of a modern spa hotel with conference and event facilities.
Yandex Headquarters
PLP Architecture is designing an innovative new smart headquarters for Yandex, the Russian technology giant, in the Gagarinsky District of Moscow. The inclusive, 170,000m2 campus will enable staff to have a healthy and sustainable place for seamless work and recreation, a space for inspiration and fun that will integrate technology with materiality to inspire new ideas and refined ways of working. The campus will be a striking yet sensitive addition to the city’s skyline, sitting on a prominent site near the Moskva River a short distance from some of the city’s leading research institutions and the location of the company’s first office.
Sichuan Dayi Infinity Library
Infinity Library is inspired by the idea that learning is endless and adopts the form of an infinity loop. The loop encloses 2 courtyards: a terraced garden and a water court. A path connects the spiral gallery, bridge reading lounge, terraced forum, and café into a seamless loop, allowing a panoramic view of the scenic mountains along the way. The library, together with a local kitchen, amphitheater, aroma laboratory, and tactile pathway, forms a complex to provoke human’s five senses.
M Garden City Hotel
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M Garden City Hotel is a majestic Green alternative to the dry block buildings currently being built. M Garden City Hotel is designed with 25 floors and 2 basements, with an area of nearly 1,200 m2, located in a central area of high-rise coastal projects. Its two facades consist of high-rise projects with setbacks to accommodate green spaces. The main idea of the project was inspired by a "black box". The monotonous, dry block appearance typical of other buildings was broken to see new things in a new way from the inside and exterior.
Editor's Note: This article was originally published on July 1st, 2020.
HOW TO SUBMIT AN UNBUILT PROJECT
We highly appreciate the input from our readers and are always happy to see more projects designed by them. If you have an Unbuilt project to submit, click here and follow the guidelines. Our curators will review your submission and get back to you in case it is selected for a feature.
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