Featuring a huge expanse of greenery surrounded by high-end residential developments, museums and concert halls, the Ersha Island is actually the central park of Guangzhou. However, according to its original planning in 1980’s, all the developments on this island were targeted at foreign buyers and ordinary local citizens were even denied access to it, which demonstrates its superior location. In the beginning of 1990’s, the government started to build a “Cultural Golden Coast” along its southern bank and a series of first-class art venues including the Guangdong Museum of Art and Xinghai Concert Hall emerged one after another on the scene. Now the Island has become synonym of “high-brow” in the eyes of Guangzhou people.
Valley’s three peaks of varied heights reach up to a maximum of 100 meters at which the publicly accessible Sky-bar sits, spread out over the top two stories, offering panoramic views over Amsterdam. The building consists of 196 apartments, 7 stories of offices, a three-story underground parking with 375 parking spots and various retail and cultural facilities. From street level, a pedestrianised path, running along retails functions, terraces and roof gardens, leads up to the central valley-area spread across the 4th and 5th level and surrounds the central tower. Internationally renowned landscape architect Piet Oudolf designed all of Valley’s vegetation, focusing on a year-round green appearance. The project derives its name from the publicly accessible valley.
Shunchang Museum is located in a county that features a unique location. As approaching the project, the architects studied the internal connection between the site and the city, balanced the local context with metaphorical creation, and worked to let the building integrate into local citizens’ daily life and carry the memory of those who’re residing in places far away from their hometown. Designed in response to local context and based on people-centered principle, the museum is not merely a space that collects and display exhibits. For the city where it sits, the museum itself is an exhibit, platform and symbol. It carries the nostalgic sentiments of local people, and interprets the past and future of local culture.
The Nubuke Foundation, founded in 2007, with locations in Accra and Wa, has a wide range of programs supporting the arts, culture, and heritage of Ghana. The East Legon (Accra) grounds are defined by a large variety of day and evening programs that cater to many audiences spanning networks in the city, country, and region. The design of Nubuke Extended resolves this programmatic layering through a generosity and specificity of spaces. Green spaces and openness have been a driving design focus, as well as simplicity, which allows the spaces to become hosts to a variety of scenarios. Large gatherings for music events or festivities may spread underneath the new building, while on quieter afternoons, children may move on to the stage platform to read books from the library shaded by palm trees, and cultural producers may sit and co-work with others in the bungalow´s main space, the Nubuke lounge.
Article source: gmp · Architects von Gerkan, Marg and Partners
With the National Museum, which combines two new museums for the display of China’s cultural heritage, the architects von Gerkan, Marg and Partners (gmp) have completed an important component of the new cultural quarter in the Olympic Green in Beijing. The external design makes reference to the function of the building, which with its changing color and light effects created by the sculptural structuring of the facade is clearly visible from near and far.
The museum building marks the northern end of Beijing’s Central Axis and is not far from the National Stadium, the Bird’s Nest, and the Asia Financial Center & AIIB Headquarters completed by gmp in 2021. For the first time, an opportunity is provided to present valuable collections of Chinese arts and crafts and items of intangible cultural heritage at national level.
CAA architects led by Liu Haowei announced the planning and architectural scheme of CAFA Qingdao Campus, which is directly entrusted by the Client. The new campus is a key strategic project for the Central Academy of Fine Arts (CAFA) to launch the new century strategy for the future. It is also an important measure for the college to expand its own operation space and develop a campus with future design disciplines as the core and the ocean cutting-edge science and technology as the characteristics.
CHYBIK + KRISTOF (CHK) and Mecanoo present competition entry for the Vltava Philharmonic Hall, a new musical and cultural center located in the heart of Prague. Designed to meet 21st century standards for symphonic music concerts, with the development of modern construction and exceptional acoustic design of the halls, the proposed building addresses the need for an integrated cultural and social hub that compliments Czech history and culture, and simultaneously responds to the contemporary needs of the city.
Project Team: Ondrej Chybík, Michal Krištof, Francine Houben, Nuno Fontarra, Rodrigo Bandini Dos Santos, Jiří Vala, Ingrid Spáčilová, Eliška Morysková, Ondrej Mičuda, Tomáš Wojtek, Vadim Shaptala, Tomáš Babka, Daniele Delgrosso, Victor Serbanescu, Omar El Hassan, Selin Gulsen, Pieter Hoen, Isabella Banfi, Dario Castro, Mattia Cavaglieri, Aydan Suleymanli, Alessandro Luporino
The new Cultural Center of Moréac is located near the town center in a landscaped environment containing the main facilities of the town (sports hall, school group, cultural hall). This generous site, marked by a topography, offers an exceptional setting for the new complex of festive halls. The project, supported by the municipality, meets the new needs of the city of Moréac in strong growth.
Article source: Shanghai United Design Group Co., Ltd. (UDG)
Fall in Love with a City for a Flower
The project breaks away from the rigid image of conventional civic buildings. By blending the building into nature, and art into life, the architects created a public cultural landmark that is graceful, romantic, unique, and exclusive to local citizens.
The prerequisite for any design is the question of pleasure. The pleasure of reinventing and reinvesting a building with atypical dimensions and of giving it a new history. This totem building makes us pass from the safeguard of a collective memory of an industrial past to another form of memory, now digital.
I wanted a building that is educational in the sense that it offers itself to be read and to experience the space in all its dimensions, length, width, height, and thus reveal the architectural and patrimonial singularities. I tried to avoid a reflexive approach that would like a large central atrium lined with offices, but rather to invest the void as an experience of space and to reconnect with the industrial history of this building built in 1847.