Bloomberg’s new European headquarters is respectful of its location in the heart of the City of London, close to the Bank of England, St. Paul’s Cathedral and the church of St. Stephen’s Walbrook. In its form, massing and materials, the new building is uniquely of their place and time – a natural extension of the City that will endure and improve the surrounding public realm. It is a true exemplar of sustainable development, with a BREEAM Outstanding rating – the highest design-stage score ever achieved by any major office development. Occupying a full city block, the 3.2-acre site comprises two buildings united by bridges that span over a pedestrian arcade that reinstates Watling Street, an ancient Roman road that ran through the site. Bloomberg Arcade is now a key route for people moving around the City, with restaurants and cafes at ground level, set back behind an undulating façade under a covered colonnade. Three public plazas, located at each end of the arcade and in front of the building’s entrance, provide new civic spaces in the heart of the Square Mile.
Foster + Partners Team list: Norman Foster, Michael Jones, Kate Murphy, Simona Bencini, Owe Schoof, Stefan Behling, Grant Brooker, David Nelson Spencer de Grey, Stefan Bench, Robin Blanchard, Saxbourne Cheung, Federico De Paoli, Jon Fielding, Irene Gallou, Rie Hasloev Dancey, Mike Holland, Lucas Mazarrasa Chavarri, Bruno Moser, Vladimir Shukhov, Christopher Trott, Rene Wolter, Tsutsui Yusuke, Aike Behrens, Ruben Bergambagt, Giovanni Betti, Peter Brittain, Stefano Capra, Luca Carraro, Atisthan Charoenkool, Christopher Christophi, Emilio Cimma, Victor Corell Gasco, Salmaan Craig, Begona De Menaca, Rodriguez Avial, Jan Dierckx, Petru Dragoiu, Julia Cordero Eisman, Gavin Fung, Giuseppe Giacoppo, Charles Gillespie, Philip Goodman, Florian Goscheff, Pietro Gottardi, Neil Gray, Luigi Grosso, Jens Hoffman, Elisa Honkanen, Brandon Hubbard, Agnete Jukneviciute, Arjun Kaicker, Thomas Kalkhoven, Tamika Kawabuchi, Alastair King, Jedrzej Kolesinski, Javier Lahuerta, Ignacio Larracoechea San Sebastian, Natalie Latacz, Christopher Lee, Jean-Francois Lemay, Isabel Lopez Taberna, Milena Marucci, David McGowan, Joao Mendes, Rebekka Mueller, Wolfgang Muller, James Murray, Premveer Nagpal, Liz Ng, Laura Nieto Mendez, Nicholas Oldroyd, Ollie Battle, Brett Ormrod, Robert Henry Parr-Young, Ino Protopapa, Jonathan Rabagliati, Giorgio Ramponi, Maria Sagrario M Torres, Francesco Sasia, Behdad Shahi, Laura Smith, Ryan Sorrell, Dimitrios Sotiropoulos, Dimitra Tampaki, Harsh Thapar, Dimitrios Themelis, Arthur Van Der Harten, Sarin Varadul, Thomas Wagner, Michael Ward, Vincent Westbrook, James White, Nicholas Wong, Ronald Wong, James Wroot
South of Hangzhou, known as the name card of the ancient Hangzhou town, is the exact place where you will find the traditional Hangzhou restaurant SHANG MING TANG (the SMT). Designed by YUDesigns, the SMT on the famous Qiutao Road shoulders the mission to promote the cultural spirit of “Hangzhou family cuisine”, one of the eight major Chinese cuisines.
By sorting and categorizing the abundant dishes and dining behaviors at the SMT, YUDeisigns intended to build a bridge between the tradition and modernism of Chinese catering culture, a quick path to the new customer groups.
From the outset, the project had to appeal to the aesthetic dissociation of the typical beer bar. The challenge was to create a new aesthetic universe associated to the cocktail bars but without forgetting the impressive brand of 30 taps, emphasizing the idea of the largest beer bar in Buenos Aires.
As bamboo is the most common material and symbolic extraction of Sichuan culture, the restaurant takes Sichuan Qingshen’s Bamboo-weaving Art as the medium and carries out the intangible culture of Sichuan with tangible material. Recently, the restaurant “Chuan’s Kitchen”, designed by ∞ Mind, was awarded the Red Dot: Best of Best in the category of “Interior Architecture and Interior Design” and shortlisted by the Restaurant & Bar Design Awards 2018. Not long before, this project had also won iF Design Award 2018 in the category of “Interior Architecture”.
Catering industry in China has become saturated, business individuals rapidly emerge and decline. How will a restaurant contains contemporary folk art that rooted in traditional culture grow upright and unafraid on this land, where the rupture of ancient and modern cultures long exists? The inheritance and re-creation of intangible cultural heritage of traditional culture is the key.
“Feels like home” was the main goal for this project. The design aimed to achieve the best functionality of the space despite its small size and the need for the company to serve as many people as possible. Thus, by using a curve, two comfortable areas are created, one small for the reception and one bigger as the waiting area. Moreover, another essential point was the extroversion, the need for the company’s brand to be visible from the main hall.
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In the town of Arta and right next to the river, there is an “all day” place that formed the “canvas” of a very interesting renovation. The aim from the very beginning was the total reconstruction of the place and the creation of a unique atmosphere with classic elegance and a minimal touch combined in a sense of comfort and luxury.
The building envelope is created by methods of twisting, connecting and layering the city grid axis and the adjacent RRS Discovery ship axis, using a ring structure made of reconstituted stone and concrete to compliment the traditional construction materials used in Dundee and reflect the natural cliff structure of the coastline.
The building’s form creates dramatic spaces with an impressive main hall forming a public indoor plaza, and areas that overhang the external public plaza. The external envelope draws people to the waterfront and generates a new migration route along the riverside promenade. The interior space of the main hall is filled with a gentle light emanating from apertures cut through the layered stone to create an open yet intimate public space.
Restaurant design specialist, Faber, has completed the design for Thai Express’s new flagship store in Birmingham city centre.
Headquartered in Canada, Thai Express opened its first store 10 years ago, and now has more than 200 locations worldwide.
Faber was enlisted to adapt the global quick-service brand’s concept for the UK market. The design created for the Birmingham store will be rolled out across multiple locations nationwide, with another store opening in Derby city centre soon.
The interior design of St. Petersburg-based “Gastrobar O” celebrates Scandinavian laconism and pays a tribute to the local context. The restaurant with 46 seats is located on the first floor of the former 20th century club mansion currently occupied by a creative cluster. Functionally, the architectural solution follows the historical conception of the place — a space for meeting and communication. Aesthetically, it enters into a productive dialogue with the neighboring Danish design school.
10.8231°N, 106.6297°E. Ho Chi Minh City. Here, the tropical sunlight is so intense that we primarily recognize it as a physical hindrance, like the rain or the wind, before we consider it as an abstract existence in architecture. You can easily imagine its harshness when you see most of the people outside wearing, even in the hottest season, coats and multiple layers of clothes to protect themselves from the sun’s strong rays. If you look around the city’s streets, you can also note they are full of add-ons purposefully arranged to create shades: observe the outdoor parking areas, the street-cafes, the flower shops or the play-yards in schools… Indeed, under such a heavy sunlight, it is as natural to seek and generate shadows as to have umbrellas and raincoats under rainy conditions.