Slussen in Stockholm by BIG and NOD

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56 Leonard Street by Herzog & de Meuron

Work has started on the construction of 56 Leonard Street, a 56-storey residential tower in New York designed by architects Herzog & de Meuron.
The tower, the architects’ first, will be built on the corner of Leonard Street and Church Street in Tribeca.
A specially commissioned sculpture by Anish Kapoor will sit at the corner of the building at street level.
All images are Copyright Herzog & de Meuron, Basel, 2008,


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Urban Beads by MVRDV

Dutch architects MVRDV have unveiled designs for a new urban neighbourhood at Almere near Amsterdam, based on a string of beads.
The development, for the Olympiakwartier area of Almere, will feature nine urban blocks composed of a variety of different building types that the architects compare to beads on a string.

Chair Eye Exam

Blue Ant Studio has created yet another adorable poster for designer chair lovers… can you imagine if you went to the optometrist and they made you tell them which chairs you saw up to the tiniest ones to test your eyes (and chair knowledge)? Or what if it was part of an entry exam to design school??? Anyhow, loving this poster, check out the larger image after the jump!

10 неща

http://whata.org/blog/10-neshta-koito-da-podarish-na-edin-arhitekt-za-koleda

1. стенен часовник Frank Gehry

2. прибори за хранене Заха Хадид/

3.Philippe Starck Optical Mouse

GOLD MEDAL WINNER - 2004 INTERNATIONAL BRAND PACKAGE AWARDS
4. абонамент за списание MARK

http://www.mark-magazine.com/
5.

Szymon Szczesniak house / Moomoo

This house features a dynamic skin, a curtain that covers the long side of the elevation. The intermediate space changes during the day due to the winds of the area.

Architects: Moomoo - Jakub Majewski, Lukasz Pastuszka
Location: Wilga, Poland
Collaborator: Tomasz Bierzanowski
Project year: 2008
Constructed Area: 130 sqm


House for a photographer, Szymon Szczesniak. A textile elevation of the house reacts for any tiny wind move, it creates an unusual space for resting, relaxing and finding inspiration.

basque health department headquarters by coll-barreu arquitectos

while frank gehry’s guggenheim museum made the spanish town of bilbao an international destination,
a slew of new projects are continuing to add to its reputation. one of the most recent additions to the
cities landscape is the health department headquarters designed by coll-barreu arquitectos. the young
firm’s creation is most recognizable for its cubist façade of glass. the glass sheets are placed on
irregular angles reflection the city into the building. the façade is also part of the structure’s double
skin frame, which helps insulation. most of the building will be home to offices while the basement will
house a 150 seat auditorium.

http://www.coll-barreu-arquitectos.com

Walter Towers : The Power of the W

Designed by Danish architects Bjarke Ingels Group’s, the Walter Towers look stunning even though I wouldn’t buy an apartment in such a building. Would the elevator be straight or a ride with it turns into a terrifying experience? Is such a building safe, most likely yes, but would you live in an upside down McDonald’s logo building? - via Dezeen

Barcode, by Vitruvius

For the city of St. Petersburg the Russian office Vitruvius & Sons - I am not joking - designed a building called ‘Shtrikh Kod’: Barcode. As the iconography suggests the building houses… shops, shops and shops.

“The center is located in a soviet residential area on the bank of the Neva River. Placed in a vast nameless square by the Volodarsky Bridge, formed by gray housing blocks. Vitruvius and Sons liven up this space by introducing a splash of color”, it reads on Mimoa.

The color surely brightens up the city. The rigorous application of the barcode iconography surprisingly works quite well too. It goes so far as that there are actual windows behind the numbers at the sixth floor. You could actually look out from, like, the number five.

Its superficiality and banality could be interpreted as a critique of shopping. I would though rather regard it as a way to connect to context. The ‘plattenbau’ slabs standing in the asphalt landscape are so abstract an all over the place, that a literal and colorful element like this is like an oasis in the desert. It brings a refreshing contrast.

When you think about it, the iconography of the barcode happens to pop up quite often, and not only in architecture. The iconography seems to begin with the painting of a big barcode on a façade. Then there was AMO that designed a new flag for the European Union that transformed all national flags into a multicolored ‘barcode’. A more abstract version of the image is the Barcode House that MVRDV finished last year in Germany.

To take it a step further: from a technological point all buildings could be regarded as barcodes. Last year Wired published an article about how Google Maps is changing the way we look at the world. In the future it could become possible that Google recognizes the location of every building you take a photograph of. If you would then take a photograph with your mobile phone of the building you’re standing next to, Google Maps could provide you with information about (what is happening in) that building, or about program or events in the neighborhood, or a way out of that place. Pattern recognition will make our cities into one big barcode.

Top Towers Building

Top Towers Building
Top Towers
Constructive simplicity and visual complexity

This project required the design of two very economic office towers, but with great visual impact as a response to its context, a point of great visibility within the city of São Paulo, Brazil.

It was also required an extreme maximization of private floor areas in relation to the total built area, as well as the best possible relation between common and private floor areas, configuring a typical and strict real state equation.

Technically, the buildings enjoy great constructive simplicity, with a precise and economic structural modulation.

The terraces that strongly characterize the towers are nothing beyond a simple game of displacements, and structurally they work as extensions of the great rectangular slab that supports each floor. The windows are also displaced in function of each unit’s terraces.

Conceptually this design references, albeit in a contemporary and renovated way, the playful modulated façades of so many of São Paulo’s buildings from the 40’s, 50’s and 60’s that still stand in the city’s downtown.

Its impacting language of light and shadows is also related to today’s world contemporary production, one in which Architecture is again an expressive protagonist of the city’s built environment.

The general result of seeming complexity is actually born out of rigorously simple design, structural and modular principles.


Jorge Königsberger
Gianfranco Vannucchi

Technical data - Top Towers

Area of the terrain: 3.802,49 m²
Total built area: 25.929,97 m²
Total private area:
• Tower A: 7422,26 m²
• Tower B: 6993,27 m²
Number of floors:
• Tower A: 24 floors + 3 underground levels
• Tower B: 21 floors + 3 underground levels
Number of units:
• Tower A: 217 units
• Tower B: 206 units
Number of parking spaces: 332
Development of the project: 2005 - 2006
Building period: 2007 - 2008

70ºN

This project is part of a masterplan that looks to develop a reclaimed area of the Tromsø strait. It’s amazing what is being done in Europe in terms of new dwellings. The construction of the rest of the masterplan is currently in progress.

Architects: 70ºN Arkitektur
Location: Tromsø, Norway
Client: Strandkanten AS
Lighting Design: Ljusarkitektur
Landscape: Aurora Landskap / 70°N arkitektur as
Engineers: Skanska ASA
Contractor: Skanska ASA
Project year: 2003-2009

Leaf chapel

The Leaf chapel sits within the grounds of the Risonare hotel resort in Kobuchizawa, a refreshingly green setting with beautiful views to the southern Japanese Alps, Yatsugatuke peaks and Mt.Fuji.

Louis Vuitton flagship store by UNStudio

Естествено Холандски архитекти и естествено проект в Япония!
UNStudio:

The design for the 10 storey (54m tall) flagship store in Japan aims to establish an architectural equivalent of the identity of Louis Vuitton in which classical and modern qualities are blended. The element that moves through all the scale levels
of the design is the leaf shape which is found in the floor plan, the section and the elevation. Leaf-shaped openings in the façade give the building
a strong identity with landmark potential. The building follows the structure of a (grand) house: with three levels, each spanning a varying number of split-level floors and each with its own atmosphere and purpose. Each floor is in principle divided into four leaves, which are set in a spiral pattern. Terrace zones, which offer a mix of functions in a garden setting, mark the different vertical sections of the house.

Contemporary Home

If you are a fan of contemporary homes then these pictures may be a source of inspiration. This home is referred to as the "orange house" and offers some unique architectural aspects. The architects behind this design were Nuno Grande and Pedro Gadanho.






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Asemic Scapes

Asemic Scapes - Rehabilitation Center Rainberg is concept for a medical rehabilitation centre in the Austrian Alps designed by architecture gradute Sarah Schneider.

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Mora River Aquarium

The River Aquarium is located in Mora, a small municipality in the Northern Alentejo region. Given the need to shift regional development from the dependence of an increasingly weaker agriculture economy into the environmental tourism and leisure market, the municipality launched a design-and-build competition for an aquarium that could somehow embody the paradigms of biodiversity of the Iberian river.
Integrated in the Ecological Wild Park of Gameiro and bordering the Raia stream, the building stands amidst a secluded field of cork and olive trees removed from the more intense leisure and fishing activities of the river. The plot’s gently undulating topography forms a basin at the confluence of two small watercourses. Placing the aquarium at the edge of this quasi-natural retaining lake brought together the fundamental relation between its thematic contents and the presence of fresh water.

Given the blazing Alentejo sun and the need to create shade, the building was devised as a compact and monolithic volume with a pitched shelter of thin white pre-cast concrete porticos with single spans of 33 metres, evoking the profile of the canonical Alentejo whitewash barns known as “montes”. The shading and cross ventilation systems along with the water circuits foster the reduction of cooling energy, the sustainable increase of humidity and the wellbeing of animal and plant life.

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Dubious Dubai Museum

Now that the city of Dubai seems to be building pretty much anything and everything you can think of, from the world’s tallest building, the highest tennis court, an indoor ski resort and even a fashion island for that bizarre castaway fantasy your gold digging spouse secretly has. I guess someone finally thought it was time for some culture. Someone’s Highness Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum has “decreed” (that means demanded and payed for) the start of “his strategic vision of making the UAE a hub for multicultural understanding. The museum will be a celebration of the region’s artists and art. It will also celebrate Khor Dubai’s importance as a cultural hub within a Dubai as a global city.” I find it interesting that they believe a building filled with only local artists will somehow put Dubai’s new museum on scale with more inclusive international museums like Hermitage, Getty, New York’s MET, Prado, British Museum and Louvre. UN Studio, based in The Netherlands, has been selected to design the Museum and will certainly be the most international aspect of this rather intriguing looking museum.

Architect: UNStudio