A Landmark building near Tarjish Square.
Isolation of floor units anticipate future seismic activity. Staggered juxtaposition maximizes views, and creates various ‘green shelves’ for rain capture, irrigation, and shading during summer months. These green shelves accommodate lush, climbing vines and vegetation for sound absorption and passive temperature control. Cast glass discs are embedded at the ground floor and parking slabs for natural light and weight reduction.
Located in central China, Zhengzhou is experiencing rapid re-development. Part of a broad scale master plan labeled “The Rise of Central China”; Zhengzhou is implementing a two part initiative: ecological and infrastructural development. Ecological development prioritizes the surrounding natural resources; forest park, scenic areas, wetlands/reserves, rivers/lakes & urban green space. Infrastructural development addresses an emerging market identified as “Logistics Industry”. Zhengzhou is to serve as an integrated hub for the import/export of goods and mass transportation which connects the east and the west.
In addition to its famous Tsingtao beer, the city of Qingdao has long been a key tourist and film-production destination in northern China.
A rich mix of historic buildings makes it a sought after movie shoot location while its proximity to some of the best beaches in northern China attracts millions of tourists every year and helped its successful bid to host the Olympic Sailing competitions in 2008.
Context – Problem Definition
One way to look at the decline of natural biodiversity is from the perspective of complex human dynamics –i.e. the organized but fundamentally unpredictable behavior of human systems – and its consequences for the natural environment. We humans tend to expand, move, and reallocate ground at speeds unparalleled within the natural world. Our persistent and unpredictable need for space, land, and raw materials causes the original natural environment to diminish, along with its ecosystem of plants and animals. The highly dynamic reallocation and changing of the earth’s habitat by human action falls short in providing vulnerable species of plants and animals with sufficient time to recover. The continuous cycle of removing and reallocating natural space can, in the best case, maintain a certain amount of the “natural environment”, yet it can never maintain the same level of biodiversity that was originally present.
Located to the north-east of Crowley, the site lies between the urban/residential development to the west and the rural/agricultural development to the east. The design seeks to mediate this threshold and express the importance of the local agricultural development to place. Rice is the primary economy in the Parish and city of Crowley. Rice fields create a beautiful mosaic that blanket the landscape. Contours follow the natural topography, control water run-off and delineate rice paddies. As technology has advanced the rice fields have evolved from a more fluid configuration to a more orthogonal configuration. This results in a more efficient layout and maximizes the yield.
On an infill site, PH3 isolates itself from the context, a gated community in Tijuana mostly made up of california style mcmansions. It is a 3 layer structure that is set on the street side of the sloping site, shifting towards the back in both scale and openness. Closing itself to the street for privacy, the back of the house opens itself to the patio, creating indoor/outdoor living space.
Exterior View (Images Courtesy Alfonso Medina, Oscar Gonzalez, Alfredo Zertuche)
Danish architects CEBRA’s proposal for a new church in Våler, Norway creates a symbolic landmark in the shape of a tilting cross using light and wood as key design elements for the interior.
The village of Våler, in the south eastern part of Norway, is in need of a new church in order to replace the village’s old wooden church, which burned down to the ground in 2009. The church is of great importance for the local community – both as a social gathering point and as characterizing landscape element. Therefore, the design of the new church has to combine a particular sensitivity and attention to the site’s culture-historical context with a modern architectural expression so as to succeed in creating flexible and contemporary church facilities.
This project is characterized by four “Rings”, each of which is defined by two levels with different thicknesses, rounding different playgrounds. The perimeter is as important as the interior space formed by the rings, projecting physical areas that can express the function that will be developed. It was inspired by the shapes of tropical plants and trees in the area, taking us to a recreational atmosphere of games, educational exchanges, etc.
A team of international designers collaborated to transform a decommissioned blast furnace and a brownfield site into a modern history museum dedicated to the region’s rich history of steel production. Borrowing from materials endemic to the site, innovative landscape design weaves together with modern architecture to usher an old relic into the 21st century. Environmentally sensitive technologies — such as green roofs and a storm water collection system — offer a new approach to the landscape while respecting the original context.
Article source: David Giraldeau / Alexandre Guilbeault
“Controlled Collapsing” is a project recently sumbitted to the 2012 EVOLO SCKYSCRAPER COMPETITION. Established in 2006, the annual Competition recognizes outstanding ideas that redefine skyscraper design through the use of new technologies, materials, programs, aesthetics, and spatial organizations, along with studies on globalization, flexibility, adaptability, and the digital revolution. This is also an investigation on the public and private space and the role of the individual and the collective in the creation of a dynamic and adaptive vertical community.
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