The new headquarters building for the Guosen Securities Corporation in Shenzhen, China, is to be the new symbol for the dynamic corporation that needs to be energy efficient and a pleasurable working environment in the new century. The Guosen Securities Tower by MVRDV is a project driven by the creation of good views and direct daylight for every worker in a compact floor plan of 1849m2 where no workplace is further than 11 meters away from the façade. Stacking these floors leads to a 204 meter tall tower with a square floor plan and an elegant, slender volume.
Earthquakes in Haiti and Chile, monsoons in India, and now the disasters in Japan. Each has left thousands displaced from their homes, giving us, as architects, reason to re-think the idea of temporary housing. In Chile, strict building codes helped some infrastructure withstand the 8.5 quake; yet, there is a limit to the pre-disaster measures a country can take. So, what are the steps for dealing with the after effects of the disaster, be it wind, water, or seismic damages?
Each world tragedy brings with it the opportunity for the creative to find solutions that will help give shelter to people. There are many obstacles to overcome in Japan’s case – roads are completely destroyed which presents quite a challenge to collect and transport material, plus snow has covered much of the region. Yet, if we could re-think the idea of a house and pool our efforts to create a system of rapid response temporary housing that can overcome such obstacles, think of the number of people in devastated areas that would benefit from such a project.
The formal opening of the 76-story 870 foot skyscraper New York by Gehry (previously Beekman Tower) was held this past Saturday. In celebration with hundreds of guests, the occasion also marked the Pritzker Prize winning architects 82nd birthday.
New York by Gehry, located within the Lower Manhattan skyline, has a recognizable facade of stainless steel cladding appearing as draped fabric. Now the tallest residential building in the Western Hemisphere the building boasts 903 luxury rental units and 22,000 sqf of amenity space. A building under a lot of scrutiny during its design and construction phase, the completed New York by Gehry received remarks of praise from architecture critics stating that it is “the finest skyscraper to rise in New York since Eero Saarinen’s CBS building went up 46 years ago,” (NY Times) and from the New Yorker, “one of the most beautiful towers downtown”.
Our previous coverage of New York by Gehry including a short video about the design can be found here.
When Facebook announced it was relocating its headquarters to the Sun Microsystems campus in the Menlo Park area there were many mixed emotions. With bright eyed optimism Facebook has approached the move as not just gaining much needed space for the growing company, but also as an opportunity to have a vested interest in the adjacent Belle Haven neighborhood. Sun Microsystems is a 57-acre campus with 11 interconnected buildings complete with marshlands and the Bayshore Expressway as its borders; a clearly introverted campus and typical Silicon Valley image of a stale tinted window office park. Facebook however has set out to provide a more inspiring place for their employees (their former Palo Alto campus was nicknamed the Bunker).
Whether you call it a design charrette or in Facebook terms a hackathon, recently the AIA San Mateo and the city of Menlo Park gathered by the busloads over 150 architects, urban planners, and students along with local citizens for a 12-hour fast-paced collaborative design session to re-imagine the Menlo Park’s Belle Haven community. Red, Yellow, Blue and Green teams of 20-40 people were given free rain to let their imaginations run wild, designers first toured the campus and surrounding community and then hunkered down to discuss how the local amenities could be improved, the fortress feel of the campus could be overcome, and how to thoughtfully connect the new headquarters with the outside world.
Five great projects you may have missed from last week! Check them all after the break.
Santa Ana’s Chapel / e|348 arquitectura Visiting the site, we noticed that the given location of the Chapel was in the intersection of five streets/roads, and at the bottom corner of an ascending topography. We noticed also that this topographic condition was the perfect “stage” for celebrating Santa Ana’s festivities, occurring in July 26th every year, as locals already do (read more…)
CHANGING ROOM, by Easton + Combs, is a mirage of the intimate in the realm of the public. As the daydream is to daily life, a momentary slippage that can re-qualify the onslaught of a quotidian continuum, so too is the CHANGING ROOM to the urban field.
In 2005, the Chinese government announced its target to reduce energy consumption per GDP unit by 20% by the year 2010. After a €300 billion investment over five years, that target has been reached. The Chinese Climate Protection Program laid out goals to increase energy efficiency, development of renewable energies and promotion of energy savings while reducing pollutant emissions and strengthening environmental protection. The “Future City” by SBA Design marks these achievments with a design that promises low-carbon, economic and energy design and manages to support the climate protection process efficiently.
Currently under construction Future Towers, a vertical city proposed by MVRDV, is part of the first phase of Amanora Apartment City. The design of 1,068 apartments & public amenities, as a part of a large scale housing development with a total of 400,000 sqm comprising 3,500 apartments is a response to the demand for housing in the rapidly growing city of Pune, India. The competition for the Future Towers design was won by MVRDV in November 2009. This is MVRDV’s first project in India presented to the public, who are currently also working on a range of projects in Mumbai and Bangalore.
Sturgess Architecture has designed the winning competition entry for Brewster’s newest tourist attraction in Alberta, Canada, the Discovery Walk. The design is expected to be built by the end of 2011. More renderings after the break.
