Architectural photographer Paul Clemence has released a new photoseries of Riken Yamamoto's The Circle project, a mixed use development at the Zurich Airport. The design was a competition entry that asked architects to create a program that offers visitors: Swissness, Surprise, and Connections to the World. Yamamoto's winning design, with its inclined facade and combination of linear and curved outlines, linked the airport to the park physically and visually, creating an architecture that highlights the Swiss identity.
The project serves as a mixed use development with numerous commercial and retail spaces, offices, hotels, conventions centers, and public spaces. The architect reflected Swissness through precision; precision in craftsmanship, as seen on Swiss watches, in economic service systems symbolized by insurance and banks, political and administrative systems, and medical technology. Having this approach, the columns within the project were made extremely slender through PC construction technologies, complimented with reflective glass, and Minergie construction standards.
The Circle was designed without any direct reference to a previous era, as seen in many projects in Zurich, but as an entirely new city for the new lifestyles and programs of the 21st century. Several medieval cities in Switzerland are prominent commercial, recreational, and residential centers mostly because they retain their old structures and establish a complimentary relationship between urban infrastructure and architecture. Using the same approach The Circle was treated as a city, recreating the layout of a medieval city but with entirely new technology, construction methods, and design.
