Masterplan: The Latest Architecture and News

3XN has been commissioned to design a new arena and masterplan for central Bergen, Norway. Responding to the city’s ambition to revitalize the core of its UNESCO World Heritage Site, the scheme will act as an anchor for the development of an entirely new neighborhood connecting the inner city with the waterfront.

The scheme is intended as an “urban arena” serving as a destination for concerts, sports, and cultural events in an underutilized central part of the city. The design of the arena will also incorporate a vibrant public district “offering places to live, play, rest, and work.”

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Powerhouse Company and Benthem Crouwel Architects have revealed their vision for the 2022 Asian Games Athlete Village International Zone in Hangzhou, China. The “Sponge City” proposal explores the sandy connection between land and water on a site which has recently been reclaimed from the sea.

The scheme, designed in collaboration with landscape architects SMARTLAND and Chinese firm UAD, forms a competition entry for the design of the village, the results of which are expected in August/September 2018. The team is one of six competing, including AS+P, SO-IL, NEXT Architects, Jadric Architektur, and Pelli Clarke Pelli Architects.

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Steven Holl Architects have been announced as winners of the University College Dublin Future Campus Competition, overcoming 98 total entries, and a shortlist of Diller Scofidio + Renfro, John Ronan Architects, O’Donnell + Tuomey, Studio Libeskind, and UNStudio.

The winning design features seven new quadrangles designed around historic features and woodland, integrating sustainable features such as solar connectors and water retention ponds. The competition sought to express UCD’s creative abilities and strengthen its physical presence and identity, signifying a major educational project for the Irish capital.

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That’s the goal, at least. Mecanoo has released designs for a large-scale development in Utrecht inspired by “blue zone” regions - areas where residents tend live atypically long and healthy lives. Currently there are only five recognized blue zones worldwide: Sardinia, Nicoya, Loma Linda, Okinawa, and Ikaria.

OMA has released updated images of their Feyenoord City masterplan after reaching initial city approval in 2016. Developed for the Feyenoord football club in Rotterdam, the project comprises a mixed-use district and a new 63,000 seat stadium along the River Maas.

Henning Larsen has released images of their proposed urban development for the historic Imperial Shipyard at Gdansk, Poland. The 4.3million-square foot (400,000-square-meter) development seeks to transform the shipyard, built in 1844, into a “powerful financial and social engine building a thriving, mixed-use, inner-city neighborhood by the waterfront that is alive around the clock.”

The old industrial site has played a central role in the economic development of both Gdansk and Poland, serving as a key shipbuilding hub on the Baltic Coast. Through creating spines of public life centered on pedestrian/bicycle-friendly streets, Henning Larsen seeks to maintain the shipyard’s strong presence through waterfront living, work, and recreation.

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Benoy has released images of their competition-winning design for a waterfront development in Wenzhou, China. INCITY MEGA will form part of the Central Green Axis masterplan, a dramatic landscaped district cutting through the urban fabric of Wenzhou.

The 2.6 million square foot (250,000 square meter) INCITY MEGA scheme will occupy two of the eight plots on the Central Green Axis, with a mixed-use program including retail, movie theaters, plazas, and gyms. The scheme is in response to a rapidly-growing consumer population in Wenzhou and will join the ranks of previous schemes in the region by Hammer Schmidt Lassen, UNStudio, and HENN.

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The Mayor of London Sadiq Khan has unveiled a £1.1 billion vision for the East Bank project at the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park, creating a “new powerhouse of culture, education, innovation, and growth.”The project, alternatively dubbed “Olympicopolis” will contain a number of landmark schemes, including the V&A East by DS+R, and a cultural and education quarter by Allies and Morrison, O’Donnell + Tuomey, and Josep Camps/Olga Felip Arquitectura.

As part of the announcement, the Mayor unveiled new images of designs for Sadler’s Wells, London College of Fashion, and the V&A scheme in partnership with the Smithsonian Institution. He also announced that the BBC will create a new home for its world-renowned Symphony Orchestra & Chorus as part of the program. The will also see the building of 600 new homes across the site, 50% of which will be affordable.

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Zaha Hadid Architects has won an international competition for the Admiral Serebryakov Embankment masterplan in the city of Novorossiysk on Russia’s Black Sea coast. Connecting Russia with the Mediterranean, Atlantic Ocean, and Suez Canal, the industrial city is home to the nation’s largest shipping port, and the third busiest in Europe by turnover.

The ZHA masterplan, designed in collaboration with Russian studio Pride TPO, seeks to integrate new public space and amenities into the rich maritime history and traditions of Novorossiysk, achieved through careful consideration of building orientation, views, and landscape.

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Schmidt Hammer Lassen has won an invited competition for the design of the Marine Knowledge Hub in Liverpool, United Kingdom. The 70,000-square-foot (6,400-square-meter) scheme, intended for marine engineering research, survival training, workspace, and events, seeks to elevate the status of both Liverpool and the United Kingdom in the maritime research industry.

The scheme forms part of the Wirral Waters regeneration project, a £4.5 billion masterplan, which represented the largest planning application ever submitted in the UK in 2009.

ADEPT and KARRES + BRANDS have won the international competition to design Oberbillwerder, a new masterplan district in the city of Hamburg. Offering around a million square meters of housing, business, shopping, public buildings, and recreational activities, the Oberbillwerder plan is the largest single development plan in Germany since Hafencity, which contains around 1.7 million square meters of new space (including the Hamburg Elbphilharmonie) and is also currently being completed in Hamburg.

Morphosis has released details of their competition-winning masterplan for Unicorn Island in Chengdu, China. One of four entrants to be successful, including the OMA scheme we covered yesterday, Morphosis were recognized for their “walkable park city interweaving business resources, green infrastructure, and lifestyle” to offer the optimum conditions for both large and small companies to thrive in the Chinese development zone.

As the Chinese economy transitions from a production-based system to one driven by services, the Unicorn island masterplan is an initiative commissioned by the Chengdu government to offer state-of-the-art resources and networks for both start-up firms and so-called “Unicorn” companies, those with a value of over one billion US dollars.

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A Studio Ghibli Theme Park is Coming to Japan in 2022. New images released by Studio Ghibli and Aichi Prefecture showcase the park themed around the Japanese animation film studio, best known for its anime feature films. Located on a 200-hectare area of land previously used to host the 2005 World’s Fair, the park seeks to “inherit the philosophy of the World Expo to the next generation,” with an emphasis placed on leisure, walking, and history.

C.F Møller and MT Højgaard have unveiled their vision of a new Railway Quarter in Aarhus, Denmark, transforming the area into a car-free urban district. Covering 1,180,000 square feet (110,000 square meters) of new construction, the area will predominantly contain residential buildings up to six stories high, as well as retail and recreational areas.

The idea of covering the railway site in Aarhus has existed for decades, with upcoming infrastructural upgrades to the network calling for tracks be lowered further into the ground, creating the opportunity to occupy the existing overhead site currently dividing several areas of Aarhus.

Murphy Burnham & Buttrick Architects (MBB) has recently revealed its competition-winning design for the final phase of Garitage Park, a 41-acre complex in a growing district of Sofia, Bulgaria. The extensive mixed-use development by Garitage Investment Management, among several other major multinational companies developing nearby, will provide residences, a school, office, commercial, retail and event spaces to a large international population of residents.

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International design studio Woods Bagot has generated a masterplan for what they are calling, “the next generation of mixed-use developments for Perth.” The 17,469-square-meter island development, named Applecross Central, boasts three sides of storefront in the heart of the Canning Bridge Precinct, overlooking the Swan and Canning Rivers.