Hasta La Ideas

Architects Coop Himmelb(l)au have completed a film and theatre centre in South Korea with a steel and glass cantilever that’s wider than the wings of an Airbus A380 (+ slideshow).

As the home to the Busan International Film Festival (BIFF), the Busan Cinema Centre sandwiches a 4000-seat outdoor cinema between the two halves of the building, while the column-free roof measures 85 metres from end to end.

“Once we build architecture like aircraft wings we will no longer need columns,” Coop Himmelb(l)au Principal Wolf D.Prix told Dezeen. ”The cantilevered part of the roof with its 85 meters is twice as long as one wing of the Airbus 380.”

LED lights glow from behind the canopy’s glass underside, creating a rainbow of colours over the heads of visitors and guests arriving across the public square at the front of the complex.

A funnel-like structure punctures the roof on one side, while a ramp spirals around it to create a red carpet route into the reception hall in the south-eastern block.

A triangulated metal lattice clads this column, concealing a cafe at ground floor level and a staircase leading to a bar and restaurant above.

An indoor cinema and theatre are contained within the north-western block and are stacked on top of one another.

“The basic concept of this project was the discourse about the overlapping of open and closed spaces and of public and private areas,” said Prix. ”While the movie theatres are located in a mountain-like building, the centre’s public space is shared between an outdoor cinema and a huge reception area.”

Prix recently caused a stir by launching an attack on this year’s Venice Architecture Biennale, claiming it’s “no longer about lively discussion and criticism of topics in contemporary architecture.”

See all our stories about Coop Himmelb(l)au » 

Photography is by Duccio Malagamba.

Here’s a project description from Coop Himmelb(l)au:

Busan Cinema Center / Busan International Film Festival, Busan, South Korea (2005 – 2012)

The Busan Cinema Center – A multifunctional urban plaza

COOP HIMMELB(L)AU’s design for the Busan Cinema Center and home of the Busan International Film Festival (BIFF) provides a new intersection between public space, cultural programs, entertainment, technology and architecture creating a vibrant landmark within the urban landscape.

LED saturated outdoor roof elements acting as a virtual sky connect building-objects and plaza-zones into a continuous, multifunctional public urban space.

Media, technology, entertainment and leisure are merged in an open-architecture of changeable and tailored event experiences. The result is a responsive and changing space of flows acting as an urban catalyst for cultural exchange and transformation.

Project Description

The concept envisions an urban plaza of overlapping zones including an Urban Valley, a Red Carpet Zone, a Walk of Fame and the BIFF Canal Park. The urban plaza is formed by building and plaza elements sheltered by two large roofs that are enabled with computer programmed LED outdoor ceiling surfaces. The larger of the roofs includes a column-free cantilever of 85 meters over a multifunctional Memorial Court event plaza. The urban zones of the complex are formed by individual and recognizable building objects placed below the outdoor roofs. The building objects contain theater, indoor and outdoor cinemas, convention halls, office spaces, creative studios and dining areas in a mixture of sheltered and linked indoor and outdoor public spaces. The design of these spaces supports flexible, hybrid functionality that can be used both during the annual festival period and day-to-day use without interruption.

The urban zones defined by functional surfaces in plan are further articulated in a sectional dialogue between stone-clad “ground” forms of the Cinema Mountain and BIFF Hill, and the metal and LED clad “sky” elements of the roofs. The materiality of the building objects differentiates the spaces and articulates the architectural concept. Through their shape, placement and materiality, the various parts create a dynamic and informal tension between the ground and the roof.

Architecture and Cinema – the Main Roof

The dynamic LED lighting surface covering the undulating ceilings of the outdoor roof canopies gives the Busan Cinema Center its symbolic and representative iconographic feature. Artistic lighting programs tailored to events of the BIFF or the Municipality of Busan can be created by visual artists and displayed across the ceiling in full motion graphics, creating a lively urban situation at night, but also visible during the day.

Imbedded in the architecture the lighting surfaces serve as a communication platform for the content of the Busan Cinema Center. Light as art, which is at the very nature of cinema, creates a unique and memorable atmosphere for the public urban plaza and architecture of the BCC.

Double Cone, Café and Roof Restaurant

The Double Cone is the symbolic landmark entrance element to the Busan Cinema Center and serves as the connective element between the Cinema Mountain and the BIFF Hill. Designed as a steel web drum on top of a series of radial concrete fin walls, the Double Cone also is the only vertical structural support for the large cantilevered roof acting as a large, singular column.

During day-to-day use, the ground level of the Double Cone contains a public café with outdoor seating, and the upper level links to a world-class restaurant, bar and lounge within the roof volume with views overlooking the APEC park and river beyond.

During the festival the Double Cone marks the Red Carpet Zone and VIP entrance to the “Busan Cinema Center”, and can be used as a pre-event space for VIP’s on the ground level, or as a pre-staging area for transfer to the Red Carpet procession to the outdoor cinema stage, or to the upper levels of the Cinema Mountain or BIFF Hill foyers via the red carpet spiralling ramp and bridges suspended from the roof.

Ground floor plan – click above for larger image 

Cinema Mountain

The Cinema Mountain is a multifunctional building containing both a 1,000 seat multifunctional theater with fly-tower and full backstage support, and a three-screen multiplex comprised of a 400-seat and two 200-seat Cinemas. Separate entrances and foyers are provided for theater and cinema respectively, however the foyers and circulation are designed so that they can be combined depending on operational preferences.

Complete structural separation between the theater and the cinemas ensures optimal noise isolation for the theater space, which is designed as a first-class, flexible hall with seating on two levels and optimal sight lines and adjustable acoustics. A flexible proscenium type stage with side stages and fly-tower accommodates movable acoustical towers used to close down the stage volume for concerts and operatic theater, but can be easily moved for theater, musicals and other staged events. The stage includes a fore-stage lift that can provide additional seating, an orchestra pit or stage extension as preferred. Horizontally tracking curtains along the walls of the audience chamber can be hidden or deployed to adjust the acoustics of the space.

Second floor plan – click above for larger image 

Urban Valley / Outdoor Cinema

The Urban Valley combines a flexible flat ground surface and large stepped tribunes of the BIFF Hill as seating for a 4,000 seat Outdoor Cinema. The Valley is sheltered by a large sculpted outdoor roof with an LED ceiling surface and is oriented towards a flexible stage and screen area on the outside of the Eastern façade of the Cinema Mountain. Accommodation for purpose built projection screens, stages, loudspeaker and lighting arrays are provided allowing for exterior performances to share the interior theater’s backstage facilities.

Third floor plan – click above for larger image 

BIFF Hill

The BIFF Hill is a ground surface formation creating the tribune seating space of the outdoor cinema and accommodating the concourse, the convention hall, the BIFF-center, the BIFF-offices and the visual media center. Given the flexible organization of the ground plan, it can be easily adapted to the different requirements during festival and day-to-day usage.

Fifth floor plan – click above for larger image 

Red Carpet Zone

During the BIFF festival, or for other special events, the Red Carpet Zone is created by a special drop-off and media-event processional entrance at the Double Cone entrance element. A red carpet can be extended from the Double Cone event space and photo position to the south through the park and along a pier. VIP’s can enter from limousines along the street edge, or arrive by boat from the pier. Various options are provided for the red carpet circulation from the Double Cone to the different event and performance spaces depending on the scenario preferred, including a vibrant spiralling ramp from the staging level of the event space to the VIP restaurant lounge of the upper roof or to the BIFF Hill and Cinema Mountain on upper levels of the foyers. During non-event periods the Red Carpet Zone acts as the symbolic entryway into the Busan Cinema Center complex.

Seventh floor plan – click above for larger image

Memorial Court & Walk of Fame

The Walk of Fame contains the Memorial Court as a public plaza. Our proposal is to imbed sources in the ground surface projecting holographic images of the stars, directors, producers and the like who have been made a part of the Walk of Fame. Their avatars inhabit the memorial court as permanent residents; however their programs can be changed to show variable aspects of information over time or in relation to specific BIFF- events.

During non-event times the Memorial Court is used as a grand entryway to the Cinema Mountain and contains an outdoor dining area of the Double Cone Café overlooking the park and water beyond.

Due to the column-free sheltered roof above, the public plaza of the Memorial Court is a multi-functional event space that can be utilized for BIFF- or Busan City- events without interrupting the day-to-day activities of the Busan Cinema Center, or simultaneously with other events in the additional spaces.

Long section 1 – click above for larger image

BIFF Canal Park

The BIFF Canal Park is proposed as an extension of the open network of public programs into the planned riverside park, and as a linking element between the river and the cinema complex. A new pedestrian footbridge is proposed to connect the Busan Cinema Center site with the park across the Boulevard to the South connecting the Double Cone with the APEC Park. An additional outdoor event ‘bowl’ is proposed surrounded by canals that can provide public and private boat access to the project site. Space for a future extension of the Busan Cinema Center project is proposed as an island among the canals, further integrating the cultural functions of the Busan Cinema Center project with the surrounding public space and landscape environment.

Long section 2 – click above for larger image

Competition (1st Prize): 11/2005

Start of Planning: 01/2007
Start of Construction: 10/2008
Opening: 29/09/2011
Completion: 2012

Cross section 1 – click above for larger image

Site Area: 32,100 m²
Net Floor Area (interior spaces): 51,067 m²
Gross Floor Area (interior spaces): 57,981 m²
Built-up Area: 10,005 m² (without roofs)
Cubage: 349,708 m³

Cross section 2 – click above for larger image

Building Costs: about EUR 100 Mio
Costs per m²: 1.725 EUR/m² (excl. exterior spaces)

Cross section 3 – click above for larger image

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by Coop Himmelb(l)au appeared first on Dezeen.

London Design Festival: white metal chairs are stacked in a tower and clustered on staircases around the V&A museum as part of an installation by Japanese design studio Nendo (+ slideshow).

Above photograph is by Daici Ano

The Mimicry Chairs are made from pressed and punched metal finished in white – an intentionally simple design which stands out from the museum’s ornate interior.

Above photograph is by Daici Ano

Each installation responds to its own space in the museum, with chairs joined together by variously sized backrests to reflect picture frames on the walls, or stacked up high near an outdoor staircase.

“The museum offered us eleven different spaces and they told us to choose one, but we said that we wanted to use all of them,” said Oki Sato of Nendo at the press preview on Friday. “So we took one chair and let it evolve throughout the museum.”

Above photograph is by Daici Ano

Other installations at the museum as part of London Design Festival include Prism by Keiichi Matsuda, a digital installation that visualises data streams from across the city, and The Journey of a Drop by Rolf Sachs, in which drops of coloured ink fall from a great height into a tank of water.

The museum is also showing four pieces of contemporary furniture recently acquired for its permanent collection, including the Bone chaise and its mould by Joris Laarman.

Above photograph is by Daici Ano

The new Dark Noon watch from Nendo has just launched and is now available to buy from the Dezeen Watch Store.

See all our stories about London Design Festival »
See all our stories about Nendo »
See all our stories about the V&A »

Photographs are by Susan Smart except where otherwise stated.

Above photograph is by Daici Ano

Here’s some more information from the V&A:

Nendo’s Mimicry Chairs comprise a series of elegant chair installations appearing in varying locations throughout the Museum.

Japanese design studio Nendo has created a simple chair archetype made from pressed and punched metal painted white giving it an almost ghost-like appearance.

These chairs will be placed within the Grand Entrance and further locations throughout the Museum including galleries, staircases and corridors.

At each site, the chair is modified to mimic the space it inhabits and the objects around it. In some locations visitors may sit on the chairs and observe and appreciate the collections from different perspectives.

London Design Festival map

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The map above is taken from Dezeen’s guide to the London Design Festival, which lists all the events going on across the city this week. We’ll be updating it over the coming days with extra information on our highlights so keep checking back. Explore the larger version of this map here.

Nendo’s climbing wall made from picture frames is included in our book, Dezeen Book of Ideas. Buy it now for just £12.

The post Mimicry Chairs
by Nendo appeared first on Dezeen.

Victims of human trafficking can find refuge behind the faceted walls of this sheltered housing block in the Netherlands by Dutch firm KAW (+ slideshow).

Named Veilige Veste, meaning ‘safe fortress’, the three-storey building in Leeuwarden, Friesland, provides a home for 48 girls that have suffered as victims of prostitution or abuse.

The building was first constructed as a police station in the 1970s and the new diagonally folded facade panels act to both screen the original structure and provide room for additional insulation.

Beatrice Montesano of KAW compares the faceted white squares to diamonds. Unlike refuges “tucked away in anonymous back alleys,” she says that the facade of the Veilige Veste has “a subtle gleam that interacts with its environment.”

Beneath the white squares, wooden panels and large windows regularly alternate along the ground floor elevations.

Offices, meeting rooms and treatment rooms occupy this ground floor, while bedrooms and living rooms for residents are split into six separate groups on the first and second storeys.

Rooms on the second floor surround a roof terrace, which offers a protected outdoor space that the girls can use without having to leave the building.

“A patio in Italy has a very important function,” said Montesano. “That is where the family comes together, where you relax, where you find tranquillity in a busy city. The atmosphere in the patio is always completely different from outside the building; here you sense a much more warm and intimate atmosphere.”

Other refuges we’ve featured on Dezeen include a centre for drug and alcohol rehabilitation in London and a centre for blinded sailors, soldiers and airmen in Scotland.

Here are a few words from the architects about the building’s energy consumption:

Massive Energy Reduction through Passive House

What is revolutionary about the ‘Veilige Veste’, is that this is the first large office block in the Netherlands to be renovated according to the Passive House standard. ‘Passive House’ is a standard for energy efficiency in a building, reducing its ecological footprint. It results in ultra-low energy buildings that require little energy for space heating or cooling. In this case, the fact that the former police stations’ substructure was placed outside the building, meant an enormous energy abuser to be dealt with.

The substructure created a thermal bridge that works exactly like a tunnel sucking in the cold outside air. By wrapping the building with the diamond-cut square panels, the substructure is now within the building and the whole building is covered by a thick layer of insulation. At some points, the façade is over 3 feet thicker now. Thanks to optimal insulation, draft proofing and the use of very little, highly energy-efficient equipment, the ‘Veilige Veste’ consumes exceptionally little power.

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by KAW appeared first on Dezeen.

Irish studio Grafton Architects have acknowledged the influence of celebrated Brazilian architect Paulo
 Mendes
 da
 Rocha on their work by constructing limestone models of his buildings and theirs at the Venice Architecture Biennale.

“When we received the invitation to exhibit, we had just won an architectural competition for a new university in Peru,” explained director Yvonne Farrell. “We acknowledged our influences from South America and on this basis we took the opportunity of celebrating the inspirational quality of the work of Mendes da Rocha.”

Three of the large stone models show details from de Rocha’s Sao Pedro Church in São Paulo and his urban design project for Montevideo Bay in Uruguay, while two others show Grafton’s proposals for the University of Lima and for a School of Economics in Toulouse, France.

The stone structures are surrounded by images of Mendes da Rocha’s Serra Dourada football stadium in Brazil, as well as photography depicting landscapes from Machu Picchu and from the Irish island of Skellig Michael.

Grafton Architects were awarded the Silver Lion for most promising practice at the biennale.

See all our coverage of the Venice Architecture Biennale »

Photography is by Alice Clancy.

Here’s a short description from the exhibition:

Architecture as New Geography

Irish
 practice 
Grafton
 Architects 
used
 the
 invitation
 of 
the 
biennale
 to
 open 
up
 a 
new 
conversation
 with an 
architect 
whose
 work 
they
 had
 long
 admired:
 Pritzker
 Prize
 winner
 Paulo
 Mendes
 da
 Rocha. 
Grafton
 Architects 
recently
 won
 a 
competition 
fo
r a 
university
 in
 Lima,
 Peru,
 and looked
 to 
Mendes 
da 
Rocha’s 
work
 for 
cues 
on
 how
 to
 build 
for
 the
 particular
 climatic
conditions
 of
 this
 place.

After
 a
 dialogue
 with 
the
 Brazilian, 
Grafton
 made
 models
 of
 selected
 works
 focusing
 on 
his
 Serra
 Dourada 
Stadium
 project: 
an 
homage 
that
 becomes 
a 
piece 
of 
design
 research
 for 
the
 idea
 of
 the
 university
 as 
an
 arena
 of
learning,
 working
 with
 Mendes
 da 
Rocha’s
 idea 
of
 architecture 
as 
new 
geography.

This
 exhibition
 demonstrates 
how
openness 
to
 influence
 is 
a 
starting
 point, 
and
 a 
prerequisite
 for
 good
 architecture. 
In 
this
 sense,
this
 room exemplifies 
the
theme 
of
 this 
year’s
 biennale.

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by Grafton Architects appeared first on Dezeen.

German designer Gitta Gschwendtner and Brazilian artist Maria Thereza Alves have planted a garden on a derelict barge in Bristol Harbour using the kinds of foreign seeds that were once mixed up in ships’ ballast before being dumped in the river (+ slideshow).

Seeds of Change is a floating garden on a disused concrete grain barge containing a variety of plants not native to Britain.

Raised beds line each side of the garden and an elevated central path disguises the raised opening where grain was once loaded into the barge.

Through her research into old shipping routes, Alves discovered that ships returning from ports around the world would fill their hulls with earth and stones to stay weighed down on their return journey.

Once back in Britain, the earth – which contained seeds – was offloaded into the river. Alves discovered that if the riverbed were excavated, the dormant seeds could be regerminated to grow into plants.

Inspired by this possibility, Alves and Gschwendtner designed a garden full of the types of plants that might once have had their seeds dumped in the river below.

“Some of the plants are very familiar to us now, like marigold or rocket, but did not exist in Britain prior to shipping trade,” Gschwendtner told Dezeen.

Gschwendtner is also taking part in Seven Designers for Seven Dials, an aerial installation in Covent Garden curated by Dezeen that will be on show throughout London Design Festival, which takes place between 14–23 September.

The designer is also making a one-off three-seater version of her Bodge Bench for the Stepney Green Design Collection curated by Dezeen.

See all stories about Gitta Gschwendtner »
See all stories about gardens »

Photographs are by Max McClure.

Here’s some more information from the designer and artist:

‘Seeds of Change’ is a floating garden; the result of a collaboration between the designer Gitta Gschwendtner and the artist Maria Thereza Alves.

The title ‘Seeds of Change’ stems from an ongoing ballast seed garden project from Brazilian artist Maria Thereza Alves. Between 1680 and the early 1900s, ships’ ballast – earth, stones and gravel from trade boats from all over the world used to weigh down the vessel as it docked – was offloaded into the river at Bristol. This ballast contained the seeds of plants from wherever the ship had sailed. Maria Thereza Alves discovered that these ballast seeds can lie dormant for hundreds of years, but that by excavating the river bed, it is possible to germinate and grow these seeds into flourishing plants.

Working with the University of Bristol Botanic Garden, Arnolfini and Bristol City Council and utilising a disused grain barge, Gschwendtner and Alves have created a Ballast Seed Garden on Bristol’s Floating Harbour, populated with a variety of non-native plants, creating a living history of the city’s trade and maritime past. Gitta Gschwendtner’s design for the ballast seed garden aims to give the visitor an opportunity to experience the garden from various levels and perspectives. The raised bed structure with its sunken paths and seating areas immerses the visitor into the garden, while the elevated central area allows an overview of the entire ballast seed garden as well as its unique position on a floating barge.

The architecture of the garden works with the structural constraints of the concrete barge; the elevated section in the centre conceals and covers the raised aperture where grains were originally loaded into the barge. Sustainability is an important aspect of the project’s objective. Both the garden’s irrigation system – pumped straight from the river – and lighting are powered by solar panels, and the construction material used is sustainable pine treated with an environmentally friendly oil stain to soften the pine’s appearance and preserve it from weathering.

Location: Floating Harbour (north side) between Bristol Bridge and Castle Park Water Taxi stops. Visible from Castle Park. Access by appointment

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and Maria Thereza Alves appeared first on Dezeen.