This week's curated selection of Best Unbuilt Architecture highlights different competition-winning designs submitted by the ArchDaily Community. From large scale urban developments to small interventions in the landscape, from commercial projects to public spaces and urban planning strategies with an environmental focus, this article showcases a variety of design approaches, programs and scales. The proposals featured are the results of local and international competitions, either creative concepts or projects currently in progress.
The award-winning entries include a range of different projects, designed by both young architects and established firms. An adaptive reuse project for office towers in New York, the redevelopment of an industrial site in China, an abstract installation for a Russian festival, or a masterplan focused on climate resilience and ecosystems protection are a few of this week's highlights.
Read on to discover 10 curated projects highlighting competition-winning designs, along with their project descriptions from the architects.
Hotel Wisła
Moving away from the current design of contemporary hotels in the Silesian Beskids, the project fulfils the extensive program while replacing the single volume concentrated building with a balanced architecture of a complex of hotel pavilions broken into modules. The project includes the construction of five hotel pavilions with two hundred apartments, spa zones, restaurants, cafes and a complex of additional sports and recreational functions.
Theatre and Concert complex "Tchaikovsky universe"
The contest-winning ambitious grand-scale project of the Main Theater and Concert complex of the Moscow Region includes three auditoriums, an inner yard – the main festival square, academic educational centre- a branch of the Moscow Conservatory, a hotel complex, a reconstruction of the administrative building of the Tchaikovsky State House-Museum, built next to the wooden memorial museum in the 1990s. It promises to become a high-profile centre for classical music festivals on a national scale.
Adapting Obsolescence - CASE: 550 Madison
Ahmed Helal
The pandemic completely disrupted the corporate hierarchy, as it became evident that the workforce could remain productive outside the office. This paradigm shift has rendered the commercial office tower obsolete. The only path forward is adaptive reuse - to transform these antiquated buildings into vibrant and essential structures that serve to alleviate the two fundamental architectural crises in the city: housing and public space. This proposal is an example of adaptive reuse design of the AT&T Building by Philip Johnson into residential spaces.
Dream Pathway / The connection between the sports recreation park to a cultural street
The subject of the competition is the design of an urban pedestrian and cyclist's pathway in the western part of Abbas Abad hills complex in Tehran, between Valiasr Street (the most historic street in Tehran) and Jost-e-Joo Park, a route approximately 1.5 km long that crosses Gandhi and Nelson Mandela streets. This axis aims to revitalize the western part of Abbasabad lands, create social mobility, and improve the urban quality of the region.
The upgrade of Pearl River - "Beer Cube" Cultural and Creative Park
the Pearl River Beer Cultural Creative Park and the riverside cultural complex will be an opportunity to showcase Guangzhou's history and culture in the city's central area. One of the upgrade's purposes is to develop further and promote the local brewing industry and culture. Our design created two towers, a complex comprising office, hotel, retail, catering, museum and entertainment. From the river looking back to the site, what unfolds in front of the city is a revitalized old industrial site with distinctive architecture.
FishNest Island
GVL Gossamer & TJUPDI
Known as the "Gateway to the Funchun Mountains" and protected from dense urbanization by heritage planning, this once thriving ecosystem is now dominated by industry, villages, farmland, illegal aquaculture and forestry. The masterplan draws on deep historical and cultural research proposing a sensitive outcome that provides economic and climatic resilience, extends village typologies, remediates agriculture & aquaculture and regenerates local ecosystems.
Building Complex for the German Cancer Research Centre (DKFZ)
Heinle, Wischer und Partner, Freie Architekten
As part of its strategy for the future, the German Cancer Research Centre (DKFZ) in Heidelberg is planning the construction of a model building complex for innovative cancer research. In a unique building complex, the research fields of prevention, digital oncology and basic research are linked in a shared structural "network" of openly designed office spaces, laboratory modules and specialized amenities, in which each function can develop and shape its own strong identity.
Lake Milada: Living Landscape
In 1994, A large surface mine was transformed from an industrial crater to a massive 250-hectare lake - Lake Milada. An international competition was launched to provide a guiding landscape vision. "Living Landscape" is organized around three core principles: living nature, living destination, and a living future; The strategies present a clear pathway to reclaim, strengthen, and celebrate the existing landscape while developing novel and exciting ways to experience the Lake and surrounding area.
Pavillion "1 / 10 000" - the concept of possibilities
Sergei Konchekov
The project "1 / 10 000" is a hybrid architecture project for spatial visualization data on a person's plans and a picture of society in real-time. The accounts laboratory is a corridor consisting of blocks of support poles and strands stretched between them - one web stretched into a pipe. It creates a feeling of open space but also a limited path, transparent and layered. Such threads are interwoven with symbolic events in the form of balls like beads. Being inside such a corridor, it is possible to shift these beads, creating your own thread of events.
A Heart
Khaled Abou Team Architects & Atelier
What every child needs - Our proposal tries to answer this question and fulfil it: Education, Safety, Gathering, Sport, Joy, in an atmosphere of Love. "A Heart" suggests a design of classes around a heart-shaped courtyard, where children needs would be met. "a Heart" is a home that embraces multiple cultures and traditions, a space of love. The circular design meets the main challenge of the competition since the suggested prototype might be fit and integrated within any context. Our main objective is flexibility in the use of spaces and the possibility of adding new areas if they are needed.
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.
