Expert: L'Observatoire International | ArchDaily

15 Hudson Yards Building / Diller Scofidio + Renfro

Pilar Caballero — Sat, 01 Mar 2025 11:00:00 +0000

15 Hudson Yards will be the first building with for-sale residences to open in Manhattan's new Hudson Yards neighborhood; the first residents are expected to begin moving in December 2018. Designed to LEED Gold standards, the 70-story, 900-foot-tall tower anchors the southeast corner of Hudson Yards East at 30th Street and 11th Avenue. Utilizing cold-bent glass to achieve its shape, 15 Hudson Yards softens the conventional expressions of glass towers, with its surface expressed as fluid and supple. The tower morphs into a quatre leaf at the top, shaped to maximize panoramic views in all directions.

Toranomon Hills Station Tower / OMA/Shohei Shigematsu

Paula Pintos — Thu, 26 Oct 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Developed by Mori Building, the 49-story mixed-use tower is the firm’s first ground-up building in Tokyo and the largest built work to date. The building is the final installment of Mori Building’s vision for the Toranomon Hills Area and central Tokyo as a new Global Business Center hub.

Domino Sugar Refinery / PAU - Practice for Architecture and Urbanism

Paula Pintos — Mon, 09 Oct 2023 06:00:00 +0000

Like the Brooklyn Navy Yard and Industry City, the Domino Sugar Refinery will soon return to life as the nerve center of a new working waterfront. An industrial urban landmark constructed by Henry Havemeyer, the building long dominated both Brooklyn’s skyline and economy.

Shanghai Cofco Cultural & Health Center / Steven Holl Architects

Paula Pintos — Wed, 13 Oct 2021 07:00:00 +0000

Designed in 2016, the Shanghai Cofco Cultural and Health Center aims at being a social condenser, fostering community among the residents of the surrounding new housing blocks with public space and park along an existing canal. While the adjacent housing blocks are repetitive, here the architecture is of spatial energy and openness, inviting the whole community in for recreational and cultural programs.

Audrey Irmas Pavilion / OMA

Paula Pintos — Fri, 03 Sep 2021 02:00:00 +0000

We have been trying to build in Los Angeles for more than a decade and the Audrey Irmas Pavilion for the Wilshire Boulevard Temple marks our first cultural building in the city. It is also our first religious institution. Religious institutions have always played a critical role in civic life as places for communal activities in and out of worship.

Tao Zhu Yin Yuan Apartment Building / Vincent Callebaut Architectures

Collin Chen — Wed, 03 Feb 2021 00:00:00 +0000

DNA Concept
The main target of « Tao Zhu Yin Yuan » project has been devoted to promoting carbon‐absorbing architecture, in order to decrease the temperature of the Earth. Faced with the crisis of global warming and climate change, it is must be participation of all enterprises in urging the governments to draft incentive programs that world lead to carbon reduction in the sector of industry, transportation and daily life. This project also carries out Fan’s Li philosophy and think of the world as one community. It makes changes that bring benefits to not only ourselves but to neighbor or even the entire world. The architectural concept is to eco‐design an energy selfsufficient building, whose energy is electric, thermal and also alimentary. The “Tao Zhu Yin Yuan” tower is directly inspired of the structure in double helix of the DNA (Deoxyribonucleic acid), source of life, dynamism and twinning. Every double helix is represented in the project by two housing units forming a full level. Thus, from its base to the top, the 20 inhabited levels in double helix stretch themselves and twist themselves at 90 degrees.

Nancy and Rich Kinder Museum / Steven Holl Architects

Paula Pintos — Tue, 17 Nov 2020 07:00:00 +0000

Designed to display the Museum’s collections of modern and contemporary art, the three-story, 237,213-square-foot Nancy and Rich Kinder Building, designed by Steven Holl Architects, houses 102,366 square feet of exhibition space on its two upper floors, its entry-level and two underground pedestrian tunnels.

Winter Visual Arts Building / Steven Holl Architects

Paula Pintos — Thu, 08 Oct 2020 06:00:00 +0000

On the historic campus of Franklin & Marshall College, the new Winter Visual Arts Building takes shape as a raised pavilion formed by the site’s 200-year old trees, the oldest elements of the campus. A new campus destination for all students, the building’s spaces aim to evoke the creative energy involved in teaching and making art.

Hunters Point Library / Steven Holl Architects

Paula Pintos — Wed, 25 Sep 2019 06:00:00 +0000

Located on a prominent site along the East River, against the backdrop of rapidly built skyscraper condominiums, the 22,000 square foot Queens Public Library at Hunters Point stands as a public building and public park, bringing community-devoted space to the Long Island City waterfront. Resisting recent trends of incorporating public libraries and much-needed social space within high- end residential towers, the Hunters Point Library stands independently, rising with a minimal footprint on its 32,000 square foot site to offer maximum surrounding green space to the local community and becoming an integrated part of the vibrant public park that lines the river’s edge.

The Imprint / MVRDV

韩双羽 - HAN Shuangyu — Mon, 24 Sep 2018 01:00:00 +0000

MVRDV has completed construction on The Imprint, a new 2-building art-entertainment complex in close proximity to Seoul’s Incheon Airport. Featuring a nightclub in one building and indoor theme park in the other, the windowless structures feature three key design elements: imprints of the façade features of surrounding buildings, lifted entrances, and a golden entrance spot covering one corner of the nightclub building.

Pier 17 / SHoP Architects

Daniel Tapia — Thu, 09 Aug 2018 11:00:00 +0000

SHoP’s design for the new Pier 17 at the South Street Seaport re-imagines the mall to create a mix of boutique and a large restaurant and retail spaces. The new design echoes the typical New York streetscape, with smaller individual structures housing shops and restaurants, separated by open-air pedestrian thoroughfares.

Institute for Contemporary Art at VCU / Steven Holl Architects

Rayen Sagredo — Thu, 26 Apr 2018 09:00:00 +0000

Sited at the edge of the Virginia Commonwealth University campus in Richmond, Virginia, the new Institute for Contemporary Art links the University with the surrounding community. On the busiest intersection of Richmond at Broad and Belvidere Streets, the building forms a gateway to the University with an inviting sense of openness. The main entrance is formed by an intersection of the performance space and Forum, adding a vertical “Z” component to the “X-Y” movement of the intersection. The torsion of these intersecting bodies is joined by a “plane of the present” to the galleries in “forking time.”

Maggie's Centre Barts / Steven Holl Architects

Daniel Tapia — Thu, 21 Dec 2017 09:00:00 +0000

The site in the centre of London is adjacent to the large courtyard of St. Bartholomew’s Hospital. Founded in Smithfield in the 12th century, the hospital is the oldest in London and was founded at the same time as the St. Bartholomew the Great Church in 1123. Rahere founded the church and hospital “for the restoration of poor men.” Layers of history characterize this unique site, connecting deeply to the Medieval culture of London. While most all of the realized Maggie’s Centres have been horizontal buildings, the centre at St. Barts will be more vertical, sitting on the historically charged site. It will replace a pragmatic 1960s brick structure adjacent to a 17th century stone structure by James Gibbs, holding the “Great Hall” and the famous Hogarth staircase.

In Progress: Institute for Contemporary Art at VCU / Steven Holl Architects

Rayen Sagredo — Tue, 19 Dec 2017 09:00:00 +0000

The open design of the ICA features dynamic exhibition and programming spaces that can be creatively activated in order to support widely varied forms of contemporary art. The glass walls and windows create continuity between the interior and exterior spaces of the building. On the first floor, a 4,000-square-foot gallery and café, bar, and concept shop radiate from the ICA’s central forum and frame an outdoor garden, which Steven Holl describes as the “Thinking Field,” that will be used for social gatherings and public programs. The first floor also features a state-of-the-art 240-seat auditorium for film screenings, performances, lectures, and other programs. The second floor includes two forking galleries and an adaptable “learning lab” for interactive engagement. It also includes a publicly accessible terrace, featuring one of four green roofs. The third floor features a gallery with soaring, 33-foot-high walls and houses one of the administrative suites and the boardroom. Additional staff offices are located in the building’s lower level, which also includes a lobby for visitors, art storage and preparation facilities, a fabrication workshop, a green room, the catering kitchen, and general storage.

Steven Holl Architects Break Ground on Houston Museum of Fine Arts Extension

Sabrina Syed — Tue, 06 Jun 2017 05:00:00 +0000

Steven Holl Architects break ground on Museum of Fine Arts extension in Houston, Texas.

Under One Roof / Kengo Kuma & Associates

Fernanda Castro — Wed, 14 Dec 2016 22:00:00 +0000

The new campus for Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne (EPFL) is named Artlab, which consists of three programs – an Arts & Science Pavilion, a Technology & Information Gallery, and the Montreux Jazz Café. The three boxes are tucked under a grand pitched roof that stretches as long as 235m. Between each box, we designed an aperture area that generates two axes. The two lines help to marshal the ow of people and reorganize all the buildings in the campus.

Visual Arts Building at the University of Iowa / Steven Holl Architects

Fernanda Castro — Mon, 10 Oct 2016 08:00:00 +0000

The new Visual Arts facility for the University of Iowa's School of Art and Art History provides 126,000 sf of loft- like space for all visual arts media, from ancient metalsmithing techniques to the most advanced virtual reality technologies, including Ceramics, 3D Design, Metal Arts & Jewelry, Sculpture, Printmaking, Painting & Drawing, Graphic Design, Intermedia, Video Art, and Photography. Also housed are galleries, faculty offices, an outdoor rooftop studio, and teaching spaces for Art History.

House of Dior Seoul / Christian de Portzamparc

Cristian Aguilar — Sun, 25 Oct 2015 19:00:00 +0000

I wanted the building to represent Dior and to reflect Christian Dior’s work. So I wanted the surfaces to flow, like the couturier’s soft, woven white cotton fabric. These surfaces, which soar into the sky and undulate as if in motion, crossed by a few lines, are made from long moulded fiber glass shells, fitted together with aircraft precision.