A linear office space twists organically in plan creating a large landscaped courtyard within it.
Varying from two to four levels sectionally the office floors are lifted from the ground at the southwest and northeast sides to facilitate south westerly breeze through the courtyard.
Ben van Berkel: “Shopping malls are the public spaces of Chinese cities. These retail complexes are not simply places to shop, they are all-in-one destinations for outings and social gatherings. They are also places where culture and commerce merge and where architecture can express this expansive condition.”
The best of both worlds
Collaboration was key for the creation of a symbiotic relationship between the commercial aspirations and the architectural interventions. While Nihon Sekkei were asked to develop the outer shell of the retail center, UNStudio was tasked with fleshing out the mall as a placemaking destination for customers and the larger community. This included the design of the inner courtyard and its facades, the full interior of the mall and a public rooftop terrace.
UNStudio: Ben van Berkel, Astrid Piber, Hannes Pfau with Ger Gijzen, Marc Salemink, Sontaya Bluangtook and Daniele de Benedictis, Dongbo Han, Enrique Lopez, Lars van Hoften, Tiia Vahula, Martin Zangerl, Mo Lai, Ningzhu Wang, Shuang Zhang, Marta Piaseczynska, Chao Liu, Cristina Bolis, Tom Wong, Yang Li
Located in Seattle’s Central Area neighborhood, this home is an L shaped plan that creates a courtyard accessible from both the living area and the bedroom. Large sliding glass doors allow the living area to ‘steal’ the outside and appear much larger than it actually is. The home is designed to be on one level, both for aging in place needs as well as to allow for higher ceilings which create a more spacious feel. As the entry is from the alley, Fivedot created an entry courtyard to extend and soften the entry sequence. The garage serves as an object implying the edge of the courtyard and creating an outdoor room as well as providing space for outdoor gear and the other parts of life that don’t fit into 800-square-feet.
The homeowner (also the civil engineer on the project) has a deep appreciation for mid-century architecture and expressed wanting all the elements you would find in a quintessential MC home. Vertical windows set into the masonry walls, views into lush and inviting courtyards, exterior materials used on the interior, indoor planters, slatted screen walls, and of course terrazzo floors – which was a tremendous team building experience, as 1800 pounds of various colored glass was hand spread into the three-tiered foundation as the concrete was setting up. The finished floor Is truly a-one-of-a-kind finish that won’t be duplicated.
The site stands in front of the future big re-developing area. The rest of the town is a mixture of low housing, and middle-low large apartment, and agricultural field, and it was a lack of community space for the neighborhood.
Owing to the brief by the client, the house stands true to the idea of vernacular and indigenous architecture yet following the contemporary lines. Our approach was to study the traditional Science, extract its essence, yet arrive at a fresh and innovative design. From Large palaces like Rajwada Indore (Kings Palace) to small residential dwellings, almost all the houses, in this region, use to have such open to sky spaces, Hence Courtyard became the driving factor for this residence Design.
The history of Dexamenes dates back to the “Era of Currants”. Since the liberation of Greece in 1830, the cultivation of currants took on impressive dimensions and currants were the main export product of the Greek Kingdom. But when the “Currants’ Crisis” broke out in 1910 in Greece, the trade of currants collapsed and there was a need to convert the unsold stock of currants into alternative products, such as wine. This was when the first wineries and distilleries were created. Dexamenes was built on the sea so that ships could be loaded with wine directly from the tanks, before setting sail for the major overseas markets. The derelict, industrial structures that characterize the site were left relatively untouched since the 1920’s, sitting quietly on one of the most unspoiled and beautiful stretches of coastline in the western Peloponnese.
The North West Cambridge Development (NWCD) transforms a 150-hectare site of University of Cambridge farmland into a community with residential buildings, academic facilities, public amenities and open green space. Mecanoo worked alongside NWCD to deliver 232 affordable housing units for researchers and key university employees.
The property at Frankfurter Tor is located in an exposed location in the Friedrichshain district in the middle of a residential and business district with typical Berlin apartment buildings. It also borders on the listed building ensemble designed by architect Hermann Henselmann along the Karl-Marx-Allee / Frankfurter Allee. The apartment ensemble with student apartments and micro apartments comprises a total of 567 apartment units with 485 student apartments and 82 micro apartments, with an attractively designed courtyard.
TRIANGLE STACK #2 is designed for the Brooklyn Museum to support an urban-scale mural by the artist JR, and create an instant public space, a 60-foot tall triangular courtyard open to the city and the sky.
email
Facebook
Twitter
RSS Feed
