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

Zaha Hadid Wins Design Comp For Guggenheim Hermitage Museum

Zaha Hadid’s silvery building resembling a sub-surface ferry or a space ship is the winning entry in the competition for the design of the Guggenheim Hermitage Museum in the ancient city of Vilnius, capital and the largest city of the Republic of Lithuania.

Although Vilnius is one of Europe's smallest capitals, it has a long, strong and culturally rich history, beautifully reflected in its well-preserved Old Town with cathedrals dating back to the 12th century. The Pritzker prize-winning architect Hadid’s futuristic building will be an arts centre and a museum, housing selected collections of both the New York’s Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation and the St. Petersburg- based State Hermitage Museum.
The jury selected Hadid’s (Zaha Hadid Architects) design over those of equally famous architects Daniel Libeskind (Studio Daniel Libeskind) and Massimiliano Fuksas (Studio Fuksas).

A feasibility study, commissioned by the recently established Jonas Mekas Visual Arts Center in Vilnius, is expected to be completed by mid-June 2008. Depending on its outcome, the museum could open as early as in 2011. By Tuija Seipell

Architectural Lace

MILAN 2008: Antonio Citterio’s Architectural Lace





The installation was made of 160 hexagonal tiles, each measuring 150×130cm, fitted together over an ultralight structure. Citterio designed them to act more as a membrane than as a container: the holes are essential to keep those inside the building aware of the changing weather and lighting outside the building. The tiles’ tessellation creates the rhythmic geometric pattern that gave the installation found its name.

Kerakoll Design, one of the world’s biggest chemical suppliers for the building industry, helped Citterio realise his vision, supplying a specially developed eco-resin that creates a textured effect with a minimal application. The installation isn’t Kerakoll’s first foray into sustainability: the company offers a range of solvent and VOC-free adhesives and resins. We look forward to the sustainable structures they’ll help create next year.

http://www.antoniocitterioandpartners.it/
http://www.kerakoll.com/index.asp

James Law’s High Tech ‘Cybertecture Egg’ for Mumbai

James Law’s High Tech ‘Cybertecture Egg’ for Mumbai




more

UK Eco-house

UK Eco-house Sold for world record £7.2m

It’s not all doom and gloom for the UK property market: in the face of the country’s slowing or depreciating prices, Sarah Featherstone’s cutting-edge green home has sold for a record-breaking £7.2million, or $14.2million USD! The building, known as Orchid House, is one of the key homes on Lower Mill Estate, a project to turn a disused gravel pit into a beautiful 450-acre nature reserve.





Possibly to subsidize the £3,000 per square foot cost of the property, the building aims to generate more energy than it consumes, making use of geothermal heating. The house can be adapted to any occasion, be it a family holiday or a large reception, due to its flexible living spaces. Inhabitants and visitors to the property can be entertained by the glass-sided badger set installed in the garden.

The inspiration for the form comes from the flora and fauna on the estate, with living and dining areas appearing to fan out from the building’s core. The form is created using laminated veneer lumber – not great for the planet, as it consists of layers of wood held together with adhesives – but it does stay beautiful longer than conventional timber. This lumber is then clad with timber shingles with a camouflage pattern burnt into them. The main living spaces join the home’s pontoon to float over the lake.

The buyer chose to remain anonymous, but rumor has it they work in the entertainment industry – and may well be a household name, going by the celebrities such as Brad Pitt and Kylie Minogue who’ve expressed an interest so far. We may have to wait until 2011 to find out though – this is when the house will be completed and become home to the mystery buyer.

+ Sarah Featherstone
http://www.lowermillestate.com/

(ARCAM)

The Architecture Centre Amsterdam
ARCAM works to promote architecture in Amsterdam.
In 2003, they built this new location.

Designed by architect René van Zuuk

Art House

As you’ll no doubt have seen on the pages of the cool hunter over the past few weeks, we’ve been paying homage to wall-art from all over the world. From bars in Baghdad to clubs in Cairo, we’ve been trawling buildings looking for the finest illustrations the art-world has to offer. And for this next one, we had to scurry around the trendy backstreets of Jingumae in Tokyo to find it.

This small live in studio and salon has been decked in black paint with a beautifully elegant mural, depicted from the salon’s own brand to engulf its two exposed walls. The hand-painted pattern is reminiscent of an inverted Rorschach inkblot drawing. Yet the symmetrical display blends perfectly with the centre piece - a woman overwhelmed by the surrounding plumage. And while the windows are large and severe, they don’t distort the image. Instead, they perforate the design with different levels of intensity, revealing larger and smaller details of what lies beneath.

Inside, the space has been deliberately simplified, so as to not compete with the eye-catching exterior. Blackened wood surfaces sit quietly against the enlarged windows, decorated with cream-coloured blinds. While the theme of masculine and feminine remains true throughout. The angular planes of the structure repeat in the harsh lines of the furniture and the effeminate fresco is imitated by the soft lighting inside. A smart yet simple piece that respects the duality of the building – somewhere to live and work – while playfully intertwining the two. By Matt Hussey

Bølgen

more

Spiraling Calatrava Chicago Tower to be World’s 2nd tallest

Chicago’s city skyline is about to be graced by a stunning new super-structure that will rise above its shore like a helical seashell. Designed by Spanish architect Santiago Calatrava, the 2000 foot Chicago Spire will be the world’s second tallest building upon its completion in 2011. The halcyon monolith is beautiful example of biomimicry, taking cues from the spiraling structure of the nautilus. It’s an iconic spire with a timeless form that will take strong future-forward steps with a projected LEED gold rating.

The Chicage Spire has been called the world’s most significant residential building, featuring 150 floors and 1,194 residences. The slender structure rotates each floor an average of 2.44 degrees to total 360 degrees from top to bottom, guaranteeing that no two views are the same. Calatrava explains: “what distinguishes this building from any other tall building . . . is that this building is not done for a corporation, or a group of corporations, it is done for individual human beings”

“Inspired by nature, by the interaction of earth, water, and air,” the structure is replete with biomorphic elements. Its helical form incorporates the golden mean and the Fibonacci sequence to closely mirror the spiraling growth of the nautilus shell. Calatrava states “the principles I follow are based on repetition. This reminds you of nature because nature often works in patterns.”




The sparkling super-structure incorporates a variety of sustainable elements, including a fluid facade shrouded in high performance glass that has been designed to protect migratory birds. All landscaping is maintained via a rainwater recycling system, and a geothermal system draws river water to cool the building. The entire interior is outfitted with an Intelligent Building & Energy Management System, and it bests energy efficiency standards by 15 percent.

Lately we’ve seen Chicago bolstering its eminent architectural heritage with scores of stunning projects and sustainable initiatives; this latest project is sure to be a sustainable gem that will channel and exemplify the ardency of these efforts.

Five Franklin Place by UNStudio

Construction has begun on a 20-story residential tower on 5 Franklin Place in New York designed by Dutch architect Ben van Berkel of UNStudio.

The exterior will be wrapped in black metal bands which will form balconies, terraces and sunshades. These bands will also frame views from inside the apartments and provide privacy for inhabitants.

The building will contain 55 apartments ranging in size from approximately 1,200 square feet to approximately 3,400 square feet. There will be three types of home: the loft residences on the lower floors, city residences above and three sky penthouses. Fixtures for kitchens and bathrooms have been designed by van Berkel and manufactured by B&B Italia.







The building is UNStudio’s first major project in America.

All renderings by Archpartners.

Here’s some information from UNStudio, followed by an interview between Raul Barreneche and Ben van Berkel:

–

In 1998, Dutch architect Ben van Berkel, co-founder of UNStudio, Amsterdam, captured the imaginations of design cognoscenti around the world with the Möbius House, a remarkable private residence in Het Gooi, the Netherlands. Nestled on a sylvan site northeast of Amsterdam, the Möbius House gave physical expression to the fluctuating domesticity of modern life in an endlessly looping form of concrete and glass, containing luminous interiors where interlocking private and public areas defied all previous convention. With the Möbius House, van Berkel illustrated his belief that things evolve and change – both architecture and family life are elastic – and that orthodoxies exist to be challenged, including the increasingly stale tropes of glass-sheathed, square box Modernism.
Featured in the landmark 1999 exhibition The Un-Private House at The Museum of Modern Art in New York City, the Möbius House was soon followed by a spate of ever more daring museums, university buildings, corporate structures, residences and industrial design projects that established Ben van Berkel as one of the most significant and critically acclaimed architects of his generation – a designer who embodies what mid-century Italian architect Ernesto Rogers exalted as “designing from the spoon to the city,” connecting public and private worlds.
In conjunction with the 10th anniversary of the completion of the Möbius House, construction has begun in New York City on Ben van Berkel’s latest, most ambitious and beautiful re-interpretation of standard domestic architecture: Five Franklin Place, UNStudio’s first major American project, will be a 20-story residential tower on Franklin Place, an original 19th century cobbled passageway that runs parallel to Broadway and connects Franklin and White Streets in the Tribeca historic district of Downtown Manhattan. The building will be wrapped in an optically dazzling, constantly shifting pattern of horizontal black metal bands sewn onto its form the way decorative seams and pleats are sewn onto a luxurious couture garment. A direct homage to the applied metal façade decoration of Tribeca’s celebrated 19th century cast iron architecture, these gleaming reflective ribbons will grow thinner and thicker, wrapping the entire tower and moving softly around corners to give the whole structure an etched effect and curvilinear softness, while reflecting the evolving light of day, the clouds and the colours of the city in one of the most dramatic compositions attempted in modern Manhattan’s recent building boom.
Van Berkel’s highly decorative architectural garment is no mere graphic conceit: Thanks to strategic twisting and torquing, his facade bands will serve as essential functional elements of the tower as well, transforming into balconies for more than half of the building’s residences, terraces for the penthouses at the top, and sunshades that deflect heat and protect all of the structure’s interiors from excess sunlight. These iconic metal bands will serve to also frame panoramic views from inside the building’s residences and insure a level of intimacy and privacy at Five Franklin Place that would be impossible to achieve in a transparent glass facade building.
Equally important, the exterior geometries of Five Franklin Place will relate directly to the building’s interiors, which will balance high glamour and cutting edge technology with a distinct atmosphere of warmth. The horizontal and mutable qualities of van Berkel’s facade bands have been brought inside and translated into broad horizontal spatial arrangements; carefully placed curved walls that echo the soft corners of the ribbons outside and shift to allow for maximum flexibility in the use of rooms; balconies shaped to loop residents’ movements back indoors; and highly-engineered, custom features and fixtures for kitchens and bathrooms designed by van Berkel and fabricated by renowned design manufacturer B&B Italia, to echo the shapes formed by the elegant facade treatment. Every interior element has been conceived to maximize light and the exceptional views – bathrooms for example, will have circular sliding doors so that baths can become part of bedrooms and share the same views – and to introduce an alternative to the now standardized rectilinear interiors of contemporary condominium architecture in New York City.
Containing 55 residences in three distinct zones, Five Franklin Place will stand on the frontier of the Tribeca historic district, which is today considered one of the world’s most coveted addresses, in close proximity to such dynamic and desired neighborhoods as Soho, the West Village, the Financial District, Chinatown, and the bustling Lower East Side.
read more

Herzog and de Meuron’s Spectacular Portsmouth Stadium

Some stunning pictures recently surfaced of Herzog and De Meuron’s latest oeuvre, a £600 million soccer stadium to be constructed in Portsmouth, England. In keeping with their Beijing Bird’s Nest, the venerable Swiss architects have created a striking 36,000 seat stadium that will include an exhibition center, housing, and a park. Envisioned as a shining waterfront beacon, the development will revitalize Horsea Island (a former landfill site) via an abundance of green spaces, a sustainable energy program, and a low-carbon emission scheme.
Sports venues raise an problematic environmental quandary, since the carbon emissions incurred by transportationt to and from stadiums can be staggering. We were impressed that Herzog and de Meuron’s development will employ a variety of sustainable approaches to offset these carbon costs.

The project will reclaim a great expanse of land from Horsea Island, introducing 1.5 acres of public space. Bus, park-and-ride, pedestrian and train services will be provided to help cut down on emissions, and entire island will incorporate a sustainable energy approach that will “take advantage of the different program elements to work together and ensure a low carbon emission scheme.”

A series of 750 waterfront residential units were designed by such that “the depth and height of the built unit is limited to ensure both interior and exterior spaces can always be naturally lit.” James Sellar has stated: “Our challenge is to deliver a solution that coordinates the needs for user comfort, sustainable access and cost effectiveness while keeping input of materials and energy to run the facility as low as possible.”

Land reclamation work is tentatively scheduled for 2008, with construction of the stadium to begin next year.

dezeen.com

Foster + Partners Build Green in Amsterdam

Foster+Partners is making their mark in Amsterdam with their newly completed towers housing the headquarters for Ernst & Young. Standing 24 stories tall, the new tower has been dubbed the “gateway” to the Vivaldi Park area of a new Zuidas district development south of Amsterdam. While it is arguable that the new Ernst & Young headquarters is not nearly as highly designed of as some of our past Foster + Partners postings, there are at least two things that we can guarantee about this new design: the building is completed and it is exceeding targeted Dutch environmental standards.
The structure’s facade, which is made up of steel diagrid and a combination of opaque and translucent glazing on all sides, has the Ernst & Young headquarters operating more than 10 percent above current efficiency standards. The resulting interior spaces include an expansive three story entrance atrium and double height conference facilities that are constantly flooded by natural daylight.

The structure of the building allows for large open floor plans that can accommodate change over the building’s lifecycle without the obstruction of interior columns. Also included in the sustainable solution is a ground water storage system which retains up to 65 percent of the rainwater on site. The system features an ecological pond at the entry level of the building which serves as a nice accompaniment to the public spaces including a restaurant, terrace, auditorium and bar.

+ Foster+Partners

Future Architecture

Future Architecture : Floating Ecopolis for Climate Refugees






According to the less alarming forecasts of the GIEC (Intergovernmental group on the evolution of the climate), the ocean level should rise from 20 to 90 cm during the 21st Century with a status quo by 50 cm (versus 10 cm in the 20th Century). As a solution to this alarming problem architect Vincent Callebaut came up with this ecotectural marvel that could serve as a luxurious future retreat for 50,000 inhabitants seeking refuge from rising waters due to global warming. He believes the world will be desperately seeking shelter from the devastations of climate change, and hopes the auto-sufficient amphibious city will serve as a luxurious solution. To bad that right now we are close to 7 billion people and this luxurious future retreat is just for 50,000 inhabitants ( just for rich people ).
Vincent Callebaut called this project “Lilypad“, but this ecotectural marvel is also called as “Floating Ecopolis for Climate Refugees”. The whole structure is covered in green walls and roofs, the top portion covered in grasses with the inner portion featuring a palm oasis, and the under portion serving as a bed for natural sea planktons and oceanic plants. Finally if you were already planning to reserve a place to this luxurious future retreat stay calm, because Vincent Callebaut hopes that “Floating Ecopolis for Climate Refugees” will make the transition from design to reality around the year 2100.