In the past few years, I have seen van Gogh’s Starry Night and Sunflowers on separate occasions. At that time, I was not so touched – perhaps my mood wasn’t set up quite right. Last year, when working on a renovation project, I revisited my impression of those paintings and had some new revelations.
The project site sits in a hidden spot in the heart of Beijing’s CBD area. We were asked to renovate a three-story tall 80’s light industry factory building with a 4-6m span. The entire industrial complex had had its façade system redesigned by Kengo Kuma, and we were not allowed much room for expression on the exterior. Function-wise, it was initially purposed as a yoga school; half-way through construction, however, the client decided it would become home to an educational organization, and before long, the project brief went from a kindergarten to a shared working space. Towards the end, one no longer knew what the project was about.
Renowned architecture firm Bohlin Cywinski Jackson (BCJ) has announced their designs for two new buildings at Carnegie Mellon University (CMU). Both projects, ANSYS Hall and TCS Hall, are designed for collaborative research and maker-based learning. The buildings will be utilized by faculty, graduate and undergraduate students across multiple disciplines, and underscore university-corporate partnerships.
Today Fentress Architects and its collaborators, West 8 and Arquitectonica, released the first photographs of a $620 million transformation of the Miami Beach Convention Center (MBCC).
In 2016, the City of Miami Beach selected Fentress Architects to serve as the lead architect for the 1.435 million square foot redesign, incorporating a 500,000 square foot exhibit hall, four new ballrooms ranging from 10,000 to 60,000 square feet, and 127,000 square feet of new meeting spaces. The shared vision between the client and design team was to reposition the MBCC as the most technologically advanced convention center in the U.S. and raise the facility to comply with FEMA code as part of a resiliency plan to safeguard against future hurricanes and flooding. Throughout the nearly three years of construction, MBCC has remained operational with over 40 shows and hundreds of thousands of visitors.
The Obelisk Winery was built on the green horizon in southern Czech Republic, with a unique view of Valtice and Pálava Hills where a former border guard platoon was once stationed. National borders once in need of protection are now the site of a beautiful winery and lush vineyards, carefully landscaped and maintained.
Seat of AON Central and Eastern Europe, a.s. is located on a corner of the main square in Prague, Wencelas Square. Our very first commission in historical neo-baroque building by Friedrich Ohman from 1896 was a small task of lunch room refurbishment. Second assignment was design of a small part of office open space and the third one was already a masterplan of the whole floor of 1100m2 total area including complete project documentation and supervision of the building process.
Set in the orthonormal organisation of the town of Mons-en-Barœul, the cultural centre pivots, the better to look at the town hall. The building gains in autonomy and becomes an urban landmark. It contains three music studios, one 500‑seat modular auditorium, a bar, an exhibition gallery, and a large rehearsal room.
The pivoting of the volume of the large rehearsal room creates a large empty space on the inside that connects with the other elements of the project. The geometrical conflict generated by this pivoting is revealed by the triangular shape the empty space creates. In association with the diagonal lines of the staircase, the walls bend in an upward movement.
Chiryu city in Aichi Prefecture was the 39th of the Fifty-three post-towns of Tokaido.
The site is along the old Tokaido Street where Honjin (officially appointed inn) was once positioned. It is fair to say that it is the center of the town in terms of local history. Based on such historical importance, a Chiryu-based global robot manufacturing company decided to purchase this ownerless land and make a facility for regional contribution.
The direction of the winds and the path of the sun have determined the floor plan for our project. Protected from cold north-easterly winter winds, nestling up to the forest, the aquatic park opens towards the west to make the most of cool breezes in warm weather.
This multi-function hall is located at the center of the architectural complex of the Central Academy of Fine Arts, and has always been one of the largest single-storey indoor spaces in the academy. Before the renovation, it was a school history museum, but the original interior space was too old to be used for modern teaching. On the occasion of the academy’s 100th anniversary in 2018, a series of adjustments were made inside the campus, then this architecture was transformed to a multi-function hall, which is now mainly used as an art exhibition hall for daily teaching, meanwhile, it can be a place to hold different activities, such as large meetings and performances for teachers and students.
The scholar Wang Jing (1337-1408) rose to become an influential scholar under the first emperor of the Ming Dynasty due to his extraordinary intellectual abilities. He became a member of the Hanlin Academy and was involved in compiling the Yongle Encyclopedia (1408), the up-to-then most comprehensive summary of knowledge in china.
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