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Norway is typically famed for its fjords, standard of living and fish. Soon it shall add another feather to its cap – host of Europe’s largest and most futuristic train station. The Space Group of architects, based in Norway, has been commissioned to overhaul the traditional European style of Oslo’s central station. The design is characterised by strong planar surfaces, reflective materials and hauntingly avant-garde arches. The station incorporates the themes of the larger Norwegian landscape – the memory of ice is conjured by the arches, and the interiors resemble graceful arctic caves. The wan northern light ensures that the towering design is subdued, not so much a monolith as a sleeping giant. The structure will be four storeys tall, with two of the upper storeys used as office space. |
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The kingdom of Saudi Arabia has commissioned Chicago-based firm Adrian Smith & Gordon Gill to design the masterplan for a new city of 2 million people on the Red Sea, north of Jeddah. King Abdullah City will be a modern community comprised of industrial, residential, office, financial, educational, commercial, resort, port facility and governmental agency facilities. A particularly interesting element of the project is the Wind Tower. The Wind Tower provides a bastion of innovation at the point where the unforgiving desert meets the soothing sea. This 120 storey environmentally sustainable tower spindles up into the heavens. Its reflective photovoltaic exterior clothe a tower designed to be slightly leaning, allowing it to take utmost advantage of the winds billowing off the Red Sea. Smith & Gill are well-placed to guide the integrity of the project. The firm recently bagged a prize for designing the Masdar Headquarters in Dubai, the first building with zero waste and zero carbon emissions. |
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The King Abdulaziz Centre for Knowledge and Culture rises like an otherworldly spacecraft above a manicured elliptical garden set in the arid wastes of Saudi Arabia. The centre’s fluidic body, polished to a metallic sheen, looks like a giant blob of oil falling from the sky and forever frozen at the point of impact upon the surface, and so is a beautiful herald of the subject of the information contained within. Norwegian architects Snøhetta, appear to have drawn inspiration from Frank Herbert’s Dune series of science fiction novels – where space-age themes and curvilinear shapes abut the most primordial desert landscapes.
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Before the Lebanese civil war and invasions by its neighbours, Beirut enjoyed the moniker ‘the Paris of the Middle East’. The city’s culture was suffused within an attitude of general joie de vivre, helped by a preponderance of cafés, restaurants, and gorgeous Ottoman-era houses. Recent moves by the city council to encourage more high-rise development have the capacity to undo some of the individuality of the city. As the country recovers from decades of political unrest, the capital is attempting to rectify a situation of chronic insufficiency of housing, most of which was destroyed by fighting. Beirut’s characteristic Ottoman-style mansions resplendent with Venetian windows, arches and manicured gardens are taking the brunt of the redevelopment.
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A new project by Rem Koolhaas’ firm seeks to capitalise on the flow of goods through Rotterdam’s sea-lanes and highways, while providing subversive commentary on the nature of the modern culture of consumption. At first glance it is a mundane glass cube, indistinguishable from similar buildings such as Apple stores. It is only when one notices the fluid voids that puncture the cube that the true nature of the Coolsingel becomes evident. As a contemporary project which undermines the existing tower topography of Rotterdam while introducing energy efficient shopping and living space, the Coolsingel is generational. |
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French architect Vincent Callebaut has taken civilisation to the oceans. His Lilypad city concept is a floating ecopolis for 50,000 climate refugees — those affected by rising sea levels and climate change. Callebaut includes the amazonia victoria regia flower, the novels of Jules Verne, and the cult movie Howl's Moving Castle among his inspirations. The slow-moving Lilypad is built around three mountains and three marinas, one each for living, work and entertainment, and has an external skin of polyester fibres covered with titanium dioxide to absorb atmospheric pollution. [via inhabitat] |
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Aarhus, Denmark's second city, has appointed a consortium of architects including Julien de Smedt, CEBRA, Louis Paillard and SeArch to turn the city's redundant container terminal into a 25,000 square metre housing complex, whose jagged peaks and canyons have earned it the moniker 'the Iceberg'. The unique architectural design allows for natural light to permeate the craggy structures and reach individual apartments. [via tuvie.com] |
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Dubai is a city of firsts and superlatives, and UN Studio's Museum of Middle Eastern Modern Art is no exception: it will be the first of its kind in the region, and perhaps the most spectacular in the world. A grand, sweeping structure with smooth, curving lines, it will include an amphitheatre for live performances and cultural festivals, an exhibition hall, smaller museums for local and international art, and a shipyard for traditional dhow builders. [via yatzer] |
