Yurihonjo city is relatively new. Founded in 2005, Yurihonjo was created from a combination of various small towns in Akita, Northern Japan. Until recently, the local cultural centre was quite disjointed – so much so that it was split over two buildings. The new building, designed by Japanese architects Chiaki Arai, brings together all the disparate elements of the old cultural centre with uniformity and finesse.
read more »
London's biggest, newest, most controversial skyscraper has critics divided.
read more »
Hofritcher Ritter Architects have brought the life-events of death and grieving into the forefront of Graz's public life while providing a safe and comforting space for performing final rites.
read more »
Wintergarden, a facade created by studio505 for the Wintergarden shopping centre, takes nature as inspiration for an intricate and beautiful piece of art.
read more »
A quirky project connecting kids from Sydney and beyond to the weird world of outer space.
read more »
Architect Adam Dettrick identified a stagnant and outmoded principle in over 55’s Australian design. Along with clients Grace Bruce & J.L. Macmillan Memorial Home, Dettrick “wanted a building to demonstrate that architecture for older Australians does not have to be ‘beige’ – it can and should be just as engaging as architecture for any other age group.” Born of this vision, The Heights Community Building shows that smart, environmentally appealing design need not be exclusive to cutting-edge urban centres full of young professionals. Dalkeith Heights, being in regional Victoria somewhere between an industrial complex and rural farmland, is not the typical place one would expect to find “progressive” architecture. Yet, in its new community village, Dettrick has used socially and ecologically sustainable design principles in order to reinvent the standard for aged care.
read more »
The average hotel lobby is not exactly the kind of place most of us would want to spend hours on end. The Waiting Room, on the other hand – with a dynamite combination of a Neil Perry menu, one of Melbourne’s hottest 5-Star locations and absolutely jaw-dropping interior some design – is precisely the kind of space where many people would be happy to be held up.
read more »
It isn’t often that an entire exhibition is focused solely on the work of one single contemporary design firm, but DAM: Deutsches Architecktur-museum in Frankfurt is doing just that with their showing of WOHA - Breathing Architecture.
A multidisciplinary design firm based in Singapore, WOHA is led by directors Wong Mun Summ, a native Singaporean, and Richard Hassell, an Australian born and raised Architect. As a team, the pair made a name for themselves in the late 1990s, with their open, single-family dwelling designs suitable for the tropics. Today, their work is of a greater scale, mainly designing high-rises and large structures, such as a mega residential park in India and office and hotel towers in Singapore.
The company’s design philosophy revolves around the idea that the responsibility of the architect to create diverse, innovative and exciting environments. They believe that each project should add a humane and desirable environment to the world, resulting in a continuous improvement of the constructed environment. It is this ideology that makes WOHA the shining example of building for vertical garden cities.
The firm is intent on creating permeable architecture, creating building structures which provide cooling, natural lighting, reused rainwater and solar modules which harvest energy.
The exhibition is split into four categories: Permeable Houses, Open School and Community Buildings, Porous Towers, and Perforated Hotels and Resorts. Across these chapters, 19 of WOHA’s most important projects are showcased, through large format photos and plans, project texts, digital images and models.
Within these classifications, there is a focus on different themes as well, including tree, umbrella, landscaping, community and porosity, all revolving around the progressive development of life and living standards in Singapore.
A key feature of Singapore design is that of skyward development, with buildings being built vertically to maximise space. Parallel with this advancement, has been the transformation of the metropolis into a garden city. Here, the umbrella-like crowns of trees make them the fundamental tropical shelters, optimising conditions in a hot and humid climate. With this as inspiration, WOHA has transformed this image for use in the contemporary Singaporean multi-storey. The firm also extensively uses plants as shading and facade materials, with their green buildings devised and developed in the context of Singapore’s garden ideal. Traditional styled pavilion structures and cabanas have been transformed by WOHA into contemporary forms, providing new interpretations for other building typologies.
It is this tropical slant to architecture that makes WOHA such an appealing choice to display, being permeable, leafy and interspersed with community spaces. These characteristics are what lead to the title of “Breathing Architecture”, as WOHA’s works really do seem to grow and develop just like living organisms. +
WOHA - Breathing Architecture is on at DAM: Deutsches Architekturmuseum until 29th April 2012
For more information visit www.dam-online.de
read more »
The idyllic Milson Island, with its quintessentially Australian eucalyptcovered landscape, is home to a small community on the Hawkesbury River. It is exactly the kind of community that Sydney based architecture firm Allen Jack+Cottier are interested in serving; the kind of place where a great, multifunctional and cleverly designed building is really going to make a difference to the quality of life of its inhabitants.
read more »
Architects Beckmann N'Thépé and landscape designers TN PLUS have designed a new zoo for St Peterburg, Russia, which is expected to be completed in 2014. The zoo will reunite Pangaea, the super continent that existed hundreds of millions of years ago. The zoo will consist of islands that represent the earths various zones: Southeast Asia, Africa, Australia, South America, North America and Eurasia, all next to one another like they were before the continents split. The design of the zoo is therefore closely linked to geological history, providing opportunities for education about the movement of the tectonic plates and how the world has changed in its long history. By providing the animals with large enclosures and mimicking the land- scape and botanical species of each continent, the zoo will give visitors the impres- sion of exploring faraway continents. For the architects, however, the very fist con- sideration was the wellness of the animals themselves, and creating a balance between the man-made nature of architecture and the natural landscapes that will be so important to the zoo. The zoo’s location in Russia with its harsh winter climate was also a serious factor. With temperatures frequently dropping below -25 degrees and with little daylight, indoors shelters have to be generous. Made from ultra-light ETFE the greenhouses will shelter the tropical animals throughout the long winter.
read more »
