China-based firm PWD Architecture will soon break ground on Dali Creative Area, a mixed-use development in Dali City, in Yunnan province. The project took home first place in a 2014 design competition, and takes significant direction from the area’s landscape, employing a minimalist stepped-form that celebrates its setting. The development will include a hotel, restaurants, offices, retail and exhibition space. It is slated for completion in 2016.
A team of architects from the Danish design firm Kullegaard have been awarded first place in a competition for the seaport municipality of Holbæk in Denmark. Seeking to form a connection with the surrounding architecture, their proposal for a mixed-use complex, entitled "Holbæk HavneBy," derives its form from the distinction of public and private spaces.
Read more on the $22 million proposal after the break.
Construction is underway on a striking new tower by Morphosis Architects in Shenzhen. "A departure from conventional towers," as the practice describes, the "Hanking Center Tower" merges commercial retail with private office space through the folding of its steel structure. Beyond that, tenants are connected via a series communal sky gardens and a massive sun-lit atrium that occupies the building's core.
Construction is underway on SHoP Architects' newest addition to the New York skyline - 626 First Avenue. The conjoined residential towers, slated for completion in early 2016, aims to stimulate development on the city's East River. Once complete, they will add 800 residential units to the area connected via a sky bridge. Featured amenities will include an indoor lap pool, communal lounge areas, rooftop deck, fitness center, and film screening room. In addition to the cooper structures, SHoP will also design all the buildings' interiors and furniture, making the development a true gesamtkunstwerk.
Read on for more images of the project and a fly-through around the structure.
London-based design group Urban Systems Office has developed a work-flow system employed in their 180-meter "Bundle Tower" to redefine the office typology of the Bank of China. Informed by its specific site features, the mixed-use Bundle Tower creates an open floor plan that responds precisely to its surrounding conditions and unique site requirements.
Adjaye Associates has announced plans to transform a 17-floor post-modernist structure in Johannesburg’s central business district into a luxury mixed-use building that will be known as the “Hallmark House.” Scheduled for completion mid-2016, the project aims to “combine an African aesthetic with a contemporary vision” and form a new typology for urban living.
“The transformation of Hallmark House is an opportunity to apply fresh thinking to urban community and to address changing lifestyles with a more fluid approach to the way we inhabit cities,” says David Adjaye.
Wiel Arets Architects (WAA) has won a competition to design a cluster of four mixed-use towers adjacent to Munich’s Hirschgarten station. Each “horseshoe-shaped” building, perched upon a six to seven story plinth, will offer space for office, hotel and retail space as part of the “Am Hirschgarten” development.
Read on to learn more about WAA's winning proposal.
Images have been released of what will be one of Adjaye Associates’ largest UK commissions - London’s £600 million Piccadilly Redevelopment. The competition-winning scheme, selected over proposals by Rem Koolhaas, Jean Nouvel and Frank Gehry, will replace a post-war office building on 70-73 Piccadilly with a mixed-use project designed for Crosstree Real Estate Partners.
More images after the break...
Rogers Stirk Harbour + Partners (RSHP) has unveiled a massive commercial development planned for central Bogotá. The mixed-use project, ATRIO will be comprised of a 200-meter North Tower and 268-meter South Tower that will be connected by a large, open public space that will take up two thirds of the project’s site in the area of Centro Internacional on Avenida El Dorado and Avenida Caracas.
“The clients brief was not only to deliver class office accommodation but also to create a new public space at the heart of the city. The project is a really exciting opportunity to contribute to the resurgence of a civic society in Bogota,” says Simon Smithson, Partner and lead designer at RSHP.
Foster + Partners has unveiled plans for an 80-story mixed-use tower that will rise 318-meters on a prominent site in downtown Toronto at One Bloor West. The city’s second tallest building, “The One” skyscraper aims to “pioneer a new model of vertical retail” with an expansive, 60-meter commercial base that will anchor dense housing.
ADEPT has won a competition to design a new city gate in the German city of Flensburg along Bahnhofstrasse - a central urban axis leading to the city’s main station. Designed as a “small piece of the city,” the winning proposal adapts itself to the existing typology by combining different types of “facade expressions” that creates a “playful synergy between new and old.”
“The proposal gives us a unique chance to transform and influence our future city at a very high level of quality and creativity - Bahnhofstrasse can really become a real and vibrant piece of city,” says the client.
An overlooked strip mall at the corner of Sunset and Crescent Heights boulevards will soon be replaced by a mixed-use, walkable community designed by Frank Gehry. Known to be the “gateway to the Sunset Strip,” the West Hollywood site will be comprised of 249 apartments, restaurants, retail storefronts and a central plaza - all within "an environmentally sensitive building that complements and contributes to the historic architecture in the neighborhood.”
“Frank Gehry’s deep understanding of the property, its history and the context will elevate the project to the iconic and timeless status that it deserves,” said Townscape partner and project developer Tyler Siegel.
The City of Paris has approved MVRDV’s plans to overhaul a 1970s urban block in Montparnasse. The ambitious plan aims to “reintroduce the human scale” and improve “accessibility and programmatic identity” to the aging mixed-use development. As part of the restructuring, the building’s existing public library, hotel, commercial and office space will be expanded and a new kindergarten, conference center and social housing units will be added.
Swiss firm HHF Architects have released images and drawings for "Parking & More," a mixed-use structure and public facility for Basel's Dreispitz quarter.
An addition to an existing steel parking complex, "Parking & More" combines a parking lot with eateries, sport facilities, and shops, "creating a vibrant and lively street and a partially covered urban plaza." The project is adjacent to BIG's Transitlager ad Herzog & de Meuron's 312 Helsinki Dreispitz, forming a triumvirate of new developments that reflect the area's rapid rates of densification and urbanisation. Read more about "Parking & More" and view selected images after the break.
When asked by the City of Paris to envision its future, Planning Korea turned to the uncharted microbial world of the city’s parks. Their observations lead them to an unusual proposal: shape the future “Greater Paris” by infilling voids within the urban landscape (in this case, between two bridges in the heart of Porte Maillot) with a floating, “organism-like” complex of mixed-use pods designed to coexist with the “macro world of artificial structures.”
