Jaeger and Partners Architects’ design for the Shenzhen Archive Towers recently received a Design Excellence Award in the AIA Chicago 2011 Design Awards program. This competition scheme was acknowledged in the Unbuilt Design Award category. Shenzhen’s Meiling District resides between City Center and new north railway station, forming an urban center with the Archive site at its heart. Creating an authentic urban space, the design unifies four parcels (city blocks) by removing dividing streets. Circulation is re-organized, thereby harnessed, by introducing a perimeter one-way street system. The enlarged spatial boundary establishes an appropriate scale and symbolic relationship with the City Plaza. More images and project description after the break.
The design of the Two Towers, by MA2 in collaboration with CZ Visual Architecture, is a series of manipulated manifolds that construct a dual vertical lattice with angled surfaces. The towers radiate vertically deriving from a multi-sided body, diamond shaped, molded, intended for diversity, complexity, and robustness in form. Elongated diamond bodies functions as a poly-operational structure that addresses flows of energy, circulation, dynamic composites, both aesthetically and material make up. More images and architects’ description after the break.
The headquarters of the Verbund AG is a block perimeter development built around a central courtyard in Vienna’s first district. It was erected between 1952 and 1954 to designs by Carl Appel and is bordered on three sides by public streets or squares. The street facade extends from the square known as Am Hof along Heidenschuss towards Freyung and into Tiefer Graben. The block perimeter development is made up of two volumes, one facing onto Am Hof and the other towards Freyung. In formal terms the building refers back to the architecture of the interwar period. On the other hand the economical use of design and decorative elements, for example the window reveals of real stone, is characteristic of the post-war era. As this facade design had reached the end of its useful life, an invited competition was set up for the redesign of these areas. This competition was won by SOLID Architecture. More images and architects’ description after the break.
