Fuksas' Shenzhen Airport

image taken from the architect's website

I'm loving Shenzhen's International's new terminal designed by Fuksas. It's tubelike perforated canopy structure, that is splayed open in some parts and spreads out like wings, or an amoebic organism, is a new take on the currently typical airport design of two buildings in one. One building being the large roof that protects us from the environment, and the other being the scattered structures that riddle the interior. The first has open views to the outside and is planned as an open space, so it allows for "flexibility due to the unpredictability of the aviation industry."

image taken from europaconcorsi and provided by the architect

What is new about this one is the more minimalist appearance that is achieved. This canopy structure has two skins, one on the outside of the structure, and one on the inside. This particularity, the double skin, helps to hide the structure from the inside, giving the visitors a cleaner look and reducing the amount of perceptual noise of the huge roof structure. The topside of the roof is of an almost regular shape along the concourses and terminals, like a slightly tweaked oval pipe. But on the inside the flowing shapes bellow and retract more like an organism's skin. The concept of the interior space is fluidity which means two different characters, "one is movement, the other is pause". Retail spaces and lounges will be "islands for pause" that seem only natural within the fluid main space.

image taken from the DesignBoom article on the previous post

image taken from the architect's website

This double layered organically shaped spaceframe construction allows for flexibility not only in the spatial arrangement of the terminal itself, but also of the service spaces. The structure itself could be thick enough to house mechanical equipment in it. but they hint more towards the more typical approach of cooling or heating from the spaces underneath the main concourse floor. Using sculptural organic shapes to throw air to the inside of the main space.

image taken from the DesignBoom article on the previous post

And just as I imagined, the double layered skin is designed to reduce direct sunlight towards the inside, while still allowing for natural light. Since the airport is located in Shenzhen very near Hong Kong, which is tropical in climate. It shares latitudes with Cancun and Northern Cuba. So passive solar design is a very important factor in the building. The perforations on the skins perform much like deep set windows, allowing for light to come in while blocking direct sunlight. Although every once in a while large perforation appear, they are called "plazas", and I assume that apart from giving us direct sunlight, they will also work as the smoking areas for our cancer prone fellow travelers.

image taken from Dezeen's article on the airport

I don't know if construction has started on this building, so I still don't have a specific location for it. What I do know is that it will definitely be a building worth visiting at least once in a lifetime.

Sources:
Contemporary Airport Design - Pictorial guide of new airports around the world, DesignBoom
EuropaConcorsi's portfolio page of the Shenzhen Airport
Shenzhen InternationalAirport Terminal 3 by Massimiliano and Doriana Fuksas, Dezeen
Massimiliano Fuksas Architetto website

Airpot Design at DesignBoom

A very justified distraction from the search for self identity is this interesting document that Designboom has put together about airport design. Most of them have been designed in the last decade, which I agree has been very prolific for good airport design.

1. DOHA International Airport in Qatar, by HOK
2. Islamabad International Airport in Pakistan, by Downer EDI Ltd. & CPG Corporation
3. Carrasco International Airport Expansion in Uruguay, by Rafael Viñoly
4. Incheon International Airport and Transportation Center in Korea, by Samoo Architects and DMJM + TF&P
5. Indianapolis International Airport in Indiana, by HOK (again)
6. Shenzhen International Airport in China (one of my favorites), by Massimiliano Fuksas
7. Bangkok International Airport in Thailand, by Murphy/Jahn
8. Beijing International Airport in China (just opened last month), by Foster + Partners
9. Heathrow Intl. Terminal 5 in the UK, by Rogers Stirk Harbour + Partners
10. Hyderabad International Airport in India, by GMR Group, and a bunch of other people
11. Bangalore International Airport also in India, by Kauffman Van Der Meer + Partner AG
12. Miami International Airport in the USA, by Rizo Carreño & Partners with Borelli & Associates
13. Toronto Pearson International Airport in Canada, by Moshe Safdie and Associates
14. Shanghai Pudong International Airport in China (really cool unknown for me), by Rogers Stirk Harbour + Partners
15. Abu Dhabi International Airport terminal 2 in the UAE, by Paul Andreu
16. Madrid Barajas International Airport in Spain, by Rogers Stirk Harbour + Partners
17. Zaragoza Airport in Spain, by Vidal y Asociados Arquitectos
18. Jeddah International Airport in Saudi Arabia (another favorite of mine), by OMA
19. Sendai International Airport in Japan, by HOK with Azusa Sekkei co. ltd.
20. Ben Gurion International Airport in Israel, by Moshe Safdie and Associates with SOM, Karmi Architects and TRA Architects
21. Madeira Funchal Airport extension in Portugal, by Segadaes Tavares e Associados
22. Incheon International Airport in Korea, by Fentress Architects
23. Sondica International Airport in Spain, by Santiago Calatrava

A pretty long list of just airports designed between 1989 (#9 - Heathrow Terminal 5) and today, 23 in all. Out of these, my favorites definitely are the Shenzhen International's new terminal designed by Fuksas, the Shanghai Pudong International by RSH + Partners that I've just discovered and will be looking for more information on it, and the strange and new Jeddah International by OMA.

Bird's Nest Lecture at Tate Modern

In the Online Events section of the Tate Modern Museum's website there is a really incredible hour and twenty minutes long lecture done by Jacques Herzog on the Beijing Olympics National Stadium, or Bird's Nest. The lecture is one of a series called Real Architecture done in Spring of 2008.

Enjoy the lecture, even if Herzog speaks a little slow for you. Or enjoy a few pictures of the Stadium and its construction process.

via architecturephoto.net

100 Best

BD Online has released their annual list of the best 100 architecture firms in the world in their last issue. And most of the starchitects didn't even make the top 100 since this list has to do more with size and income than with good architecture, if the list were to be about architecture instead of revenue, the list would be much longer, and probably piss a lot of people along the way.

The only starchitects I identified in the list are:
5 - Foster and Partners
51 - Herzog & De Meuron
71 - Grimshaw
76 - David Chipperfield Architects
83 - Coop Himmelblau

There's, of course, a lot of very well known firms. But most of them don't behave like stars or are hired because their name has become a brand.

I House

Japanese Architects have been doing wonders with small projects and small sites. This one is no different. Katsufumi Kubota of Kubota Architect Atelier took this harbor site of merely 2,500 or square feet and designed this 1,100 square foot house.


A white concrete slab rises from the site to block the views from the street blocking intrusive glances, at the same time it bends towards the ocean welcoming it and giving every space in the house wonderful views of the harbor. This is where the beauty of this house lies, in its surroundings. I think the rows inside the background waters are seaweed crops, they look remarkably like the hops fields for beer you find in eastern Europe.


Enjoy the simple but dramatic shapes Kubota managed to give in order that we could learn a little bit more...


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Casa Mila 2.0

Continuing with my Gaudi research, I have found a couple of interesting videos on Gaudi. I'm posting the first one here... although it might be a little difficult for non-catalonian speakers. But it has beautiful grainy black and white images from the 20's and 30's, and video fragments from who knows when. Anybody that speaks Spanish will make out about 80% of it, knowing French helps a little bit more.

Casa Mila

Image from wikipedia.org

The Casa Mila, better known as "La Pedrera" in its native Barcelona, is a building that has fascinated me long before I studied Architecture. I remember my dad brought me several books on Gaudi from a trip he made to Spain, he thought I would like them, he was right. He probably knew long before myself that I would become something like an architect, with my long hours spent playing with my legos (I still have some of those). I digress...

The thing is that as I learn more and more about Gaudi's architecture, I learn more about his genius. The Casa Mila, contrary to the standard of the time, has no bearing walls, only columns hold it up from the basement to the top floor. This was so for the simple reason that it allowed him to build curved walls, in plan and in section. So this, as far as I know, is the first free plan house.

According to history, Le Corbusier created the open floor plan in his Five Points of Architecture created during the 1920's, and epitomized in the Villa Savoye finished in 1931. The Casa Mila, with a very similar concept behind it was finished in 1910, 20 years before Le Corbusier published his Five Points. It is surely conceivable that, since Le Corbusier and Gaudi were contemporaries, they had met and talked about architecture over coffee, or that good ol' Corbu had studied Gaudi's work.

It is certainly something to think about... Gaudi is definitely a prophetic architect, and his architecture is definitely a premonition of modernity and Modern Architecture.

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Public Records Building in Basel, Switzerland, by EM2N.

Zumthor's Vals Thermal Baths in Switzerland

I still haven't met anyone that doesn't love Peter Zumthor, his published books have the largest resale value of any architecture book I have ever seen. I love his work simply because his views on architecture are so similar to mine, phenomenologically speaking of course. He overloads your senses, not only with light, texture, and sound, but gives his buildings a personality, an ego, a history, that makes them feel almost organic, as if it was an organism that was here to learn a become better than when it was created.

I don't know who made these videos, but Offensive77 is hosting them in his You Tube page, along with many other architecture videos. Enjoy these, I sure did.

Cumayasa Project

On Monday a new project on the southern coast of the Dominican Republic was announced. As far as I know it is the first proposal within the tourism real estate industry that uses a globally recognized contemporary language for its architecture.

The location towards the booming eastern side of the island, between The town of San Pedro de Macoris and the already recognized Casa de Campo complex.

The complex lies on 1,400 hectares (14 million square meters or 3,459.5 acres) of land on the coast, and consists "of more than 3,000 luxury villas, 3 hotels, 4 golf courses and a marina, providing a place to enjoy a variety of water sports, tennis and ecotourism". These ideas of luxury and ecology bundled together are unprecedented on this scale in the Dom. Rep.


Joaquin Torres at A-Cero Estudio de Arquitectura claims that the project is to be green as this text taken from the World Architecture News website, and translated from A-Cero's own website says:

"The main idea was to create a settlement of high environmental quality and low density, which incorporates native vegetation. The landscape design follows a contemporary style that embraces the houses, scattered on a stair pattern, softening the impact of their presence and creating a dynamic appearance to the whole."

I can't help but wonder how a firm from Madrid can successfully design a project in the Caribbean, I surely hope that they have a tropical architect on their staff. Although they are on the right track, natural ventilation, a lot of open spaces, less use of glass exposed to sunlight, and lots of water to reduce temperatures and increase the "cool feeling" factor.

The extensive use of natural materials, of local craftsmanship, and tropical plant species helps reduce the impact of the project on the land.

Aside from the news article on WAN and the news feed on A-Cero's website, I haven't found anything else on this project on the web. So I have no info on pricing or exact location, and I understand that there are a lot of properties in Cumayasa that are having legal problems regarding titles and speculation, I'm assuming that this project is not included in that bunch.

Putting aside the secrecy and blurry areas I think that the designs put together by A-Cero are damn sensual, it could come out to be a nice Tropical Architecture example if they play their cards right.

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Image: Joseph Harrington, The Beck Group

Joseph Harrington from the Beck Group won a mention in the 33rd annual KRob Ken Roberts Memorial Delineation Competition. For some reason the actual winners don't appeal to me as much as this image here. The winners' images are colder, more digital in nature, this one is much warmer, more human. You can see that a person was involved in making this, against a more machined image. The image won an honorable mention in the Professional Digital / Hybrid category. Please be sure to check out the website, where you can find this year's winners along with the honorable mentions.

Kogod Courtyard by Foster

The Smithsonian Institution has opened to the public the new Robert and Arlene Kogod Courtyard by Sir Norman Foster inside the Smithsonian's American Art Museum, the building is better known as the Patent Office. This is another of the world's repeated solutions, and Foster, in this specific case, has been typecast and become somewhat pedestrian because of his previous Great Court at the British Museum.

This time around the courtyard is sandwiched between sheets of water, the glass canopy ripples and undulates as a liquid surface, and the floor has a curious water feature. The granite floor is darkened by a very thin sheet of water with an imperceptible slope that you can walk on and across. The result is definitely beautiful.

The courtyard's main purpose is to give the Museum a space that it can rent and use for its own activities.


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Jean Nouvel in New York

Yesterday Archinect had a photograph featured on their website that really caught my eye, but couldn't find any more information on it, it was a 3D rendering of a (another) new development by Jean Nouvel in New York. Today the web has exploded with info on this project. Dezeen has an incredibly informative feature about it, and fellow Blogger John Hill of Archidose has a post on it as well.

Jean Nouvel's very successful 40 Mercer Residences in SoHo, catapulted him to his 100 11th Ave. project in Chelsea, next to Gehry's building, making him the most bankable of contemporary architects currently designing in New York City. This new project not only is on a site next to the MoMA (Hines development actually bought the site from MoMA), but is of 75 stories, making it the same height of the Chrysler Building, and in its program is included about 50,000 square feet (5,000 sq mt) of exhibition space on three floors for the Museum next door.

The project is called 53 West 53rd and aside from the MoMA's exhibition space it will include a 100 room Hotel and 120 high end residential condos with commercial spaces at ground level.

Sources:
Dezeen
Atelier Jean Nouvel
A Daily Dose of Architecture
Archinect

Renzo Piano's California Academy of Sciences

Image: Renzo Piano Building Workshop

Renzo Piano, who could very well be my favorite architect (I'm very anxious to see the Morgan Library Extension in NY), has just opened (and going on with the same theme as my previous post on the Acropolis Museum by Bernard Tschumi) the building to the curators of the exhibit of the California Academy of Sciences in San Francisco. It has been newly renamed the Kimball Natural History Museum, and is scheduled to open in October of 2008, so we can't visit it right now. Although, you can get a pretty good view of the whole building from the free access viewing platform in the tower of the Herzog and de Meuron De young Museum.



The Academy of Sciences commissioned Piano to redo their outdated group of buildings into a "modern facility for exhibition, education, conservation, and research under one roof", which he literally did. Piano demolished most of the 11 buildings on the site, two of them are most prominent in the new design that places a "living roof" of native plants on seven rolling hills of varying sizes that represent the hills of San Francisco, this one roof manges to unify the entire building program while serving as an umbrella for the old buildings and becoming an exhibit in itself. In the center of this roof lies a glass canopy covering a Piazza, while the two larger "hills" are the two more important exhibits. The first one is a large domed simulated tropical ecosystem housing forest and wildlife from Borneo, Costa Rica, Madagascar and the Amazon rainforest's flooded river beds. The second one is the largest planetarium in the country.

The rolling "living roof" cantilevers over the perimeter of the buildings in order to produce shade to the glass facade and to place around 55,000 photo-voltaic cells.

If you want to know a little bit more, you can go to the article that the San Francisco Chronicle printed where they describe a guided walk through the museum's unfinished installations. The article is accompanied by updated photos and a video that's a definite must see, and the website of the California Academy of Science has an entire section dedicated to the new building, with photos, videos, and a time lapsed slideshow of the construction process.


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Sources:
Renzo Piano Building Workshop
San Francisco Chronicle
California Academy of Science

Robert Bruno's Steel House

Eikongraphia has posted information about this house in Texas, as with the previous house in Brazil I posted about this is a labor of love that has taken 23 years (and 110 tons of steel) to this date, and it's still unfinished. It's organic shapes and curves remind me of Expressionistic Architecture like the Einstein Tower Observatory by Erich Mendelsohn, and it definitely reminds of the movie Metropolis by Fritz Lang. Robert Bruno is a sculptor (though I haven't found anything else he has done on the web) who, like Richard Serra, works in what apparently is Corten steel. He has built the entire house out of steel, no concrete, and the only wood I've seen is on the stair treads.

Fritz Lang's "Metropolis"

Apparently he is influenced, or is of a new manifestation of the Expressionistic movement, although Bruno's work appears to be on the optimistic side of expressionism, instead of the pain and suffering that they usually portray.

The house appears to be a small group of steel trees sprouting out of the ground, the seemingly infinite amount of points of view that the interior offers appears to have come out of the mind of M.C. Escher, you could almost confuse up from down. It is built high on the side of of a river valley, so the views through the asymmetrical windows are incredible. There is little information on the house, for example, is the steel structure double layered so it works as a truss? (I would imagine so), how big is it? (it appears to have at least two floors).

BD Online Architects of the Year Awards

Yesterday, BD Online has announced the winners of their annual Architect of the Year Awards for established and young Architects, with Allies and Morrison emerging as the overall winner and Carmody Groarke earning the YAYA (Young Architect of the Year Award).
"Unlike most architectural prizes, the Architect of the Year Award is not given to a single building but to a body of work, with the judges rewarding practices who consistently raise the bar not just with one great project but several, and with more on the way."

The Young Architect of the Year Award (YAYA), "now in its 10th year, which is a reminder to more established firms that there is a wealth of talent coming up behind."

The list of the winners is:
Young Architect of the Year Award - Carmody Groarke
Leisure / Sports Architect - Arup
Affordable Housing Architect - Peter Barber Architects
Single Dwelling Architect - Seth Stein Architects
Private Housing Architects - BDP
Masterplanning Architects - Allies and Morrison
Education Building Architecs - van Heyningen and Haward
Interior Designer - Project Orange
Industrial Architect - 3D Reid
Retail Building Architect - John McAslan and Partners
Health Building Architect - Penoyre & Prasad
Public Building Architect - Allies and Morrison
World Architect - Foster & Partners
Office Architects - Lifschutz Davidson Sandiland
Richard Feilden Architect of The Year - Allies and Morrison

I still haven't had the chance to check them all, but definitely will in the very near future. Especially the unknowns, I am always craving for new information.

New Acropolis Museum

"Situated at the foot of the southern slopes of the Acropolis, the new €94 million complex will provide a central unifying focus for the archaeological sites clustered around the monument."

Bernard Tschumi won this international competition in 2001; this year has seen the completion of the building itself and has marked the start of the curatorial process for the exhibitions. Although parts of it are already in place, during excavations for the supports a small town called Makriyianni was found as "the excavations unearthed important ruins, including private houses of the early Christian era (400-600AD), and more than 50,000 portable antiquities".

The new museum is what Tschumi calls an anti-Bilbao museum. It does not intend to attract visitors with fascinating architectural shapes that resemble abstract sculpture. Maybe the reason is that it had, what probably is, the greatest competition, the already considered perfect Acropolis Complex of buildings and temples. Tschumi rather decides to retract from his usual dramatic architecture, and created the museum that the Acropolis needed, delivering a "heart-stopping sense of space and light."

"How to make an architectural statement at the foot of one of the most influential buildings of all time; how to design a building on a site already occupied by extensive archaeological excavations and in an earthquake-prone region; and how to design a museum to contain an important collection of classical Greek sculptures and a singular masterpiece, the Parthenon frieze, currently still housed in the British Museum."

Bernard Tschumi

The museum is built on top of the 2,500 square meter archaeological site of the town Makriyianni, levitating atop slender columns, respecting the past. And as you come into the building, you walk on the glass floors that allow you to view the ruins of the excavated town.

Transcribed from Bernard Tschumi's website:
"Three concepts turn the constraints of the site into an architectural opportunity, offering a simple and precise museum with the mathematical and conceptual clarity of ancient Greece.

A concept of light
More than in any type of museum, the conditions animating the New Acropolis Museum revolve around light. Not only does daylight in Athens differ from light in London, Berlin or Bilbao; light for the exhibition of sculpture differs from that involved in displaying drawing or paintings. The N.A.M. could be described as an anti-Bilbao. It is first and foremost a museum of natural light, concerned with the presentation of sculptural objects within it.

A movement concept
The visitor's route forms a clear three-dimensional loop. affording an architectural promenade with a rich spatial experience extending from the archaeological excavations to the Parthenon marbles and back through the Roman period.

Movement in and through time is a crucial dimension of architecture, and of this museum in particular. With over 10,000 visitors daily, the sequence of movement through the museum artifacts is conceived to be of utmost clarity.

A tectonic and programmatic concept
The base of the museum design contains an entrance lobby overlooking the Makriyianni excavations as well as temporary exhibition spaces, retail, and all support facilities.

The middle is a large, double-height trapezoidal plate that accommodates all galleries from the Archaic period to the Roman empire, with complete flexibilty. A mezzanine welcomes a bar and restaurant with views towards the Acropolis, and a multimedia auditorium.

The top is the rectangular Parthenon Gallery around an outdoor court. The characteristics of its glass enclosure provide ideal light for sculpture, in direct view to and from the reference point of the Acropolis. The Parthenon Marbles will be visible from the Acropolis above. The enclosure is designed so as to protect the sculptures and visitors against excess heat and light. The orientation of the Marbles, which will be exactly as at the Parthenon, and their siting will provide an appropriate context for understanding the accomplishments of the Parthenon Complex itself."


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Sources:
The New York Times
http://www.tschumi.com/
The Tommy Flynn Index

New World Blood

The website New Italian Blood has been conducting a survey among its readers and calling it New World Blood, even though it's not even considering any countries outside the European Continent. People reading the pages nominate who they consider to be the best emerging architects under 40, building a list of the top 10 with links to their websites and naming about 25 runner ups. As of now four countries have been listed, Spain, Portugal, France and Denmark. With Germany coming soon and Britain, Netherlands, Slovenia, Austria and Switzerland to follow.

It reminds me of the list of the 101 of the most exciting new architects that Wallpaper magazine published about two months ago. The basic difference, aside from the way the lists are presented, is that Wallpaper does include the rest of the world. Although there are no Caribbean countries included.

Be sure to visit both of them, It's definitely interesting. I haven't visited all of the architect's websites on these lists, but I know a few of them, and they are worth a look.

German Team Won the Solar Decathlon

The Solar Decathlon is a competition in which 20 teams of college and university students compete to design, build, and operate the most attractive, effective, and energy-efficient solar-powered house. The Solar Decathlon is also an event to which the public is invited to observe the powerful combination of solar energy, energy efficiency, and the best in home design.


The event takes place on the National Mall in Washington, D.C.

"This year the Technische Universität Darmstadt achieved the first place. This team from Germany came to the Solar Decathlon hoping to have an impact on people, and it's safe to say that this happened. Darmstadt won the Architecture, Lighting, and Engineering contests. The Architecture Jury said the house pushed the envelope on all levels and is the type of house they came to the Decathlon hoping to see. The Lighting Jury loved the way this house glows at night. The Engineering Jury gave this team an innovation score that was as high as you could go, and said nobody did the integration of the PV system any better. Darmstadt was one of seven teams to score a perfect 100 points in the Energy Balance contest. All week, long lines of people waited to get into this house."

Source: http://www.solardecathlon.org/

Gaudi in the Favela

Last Saturday I was flipping through channels on my TV and stopped on BBC World when I heard a voice with British accent talk about Gaudi's architecture and how desirable his houses and apartments were. I was fascinated by what they really showed me, it was "Favela Fantasy Gives Rise to Gaudi House". It was a piece on a house in a Sao Paulo Favela called by the neighbors "Casa de Pedra" or the House of Stone. Estevao Silva da Conceicao, the owner, has definitely mirrored Gaudi's work without even knowing the architect's name.


He started his house around a rose bush that he planted, in order to have a place to live and to protect the plant he built around it using organic shapes and found construction materials like pebbles, dishes and saucers; later on he used materials like clocks and typewriters, storing the materials before starting another part of the house. Today, two decades later after he started, a time frame comparable to the time that Gaudi took to build a project, we get a labyrinthine set of hallways, stairs and spaces that have been compared to Parc Guell (dioxmat's Flickr Photoset here) in Barcelona.


The house is still a work in progress, growing as his family grows and changes its needs.