The PleXus Tower emerges from the banks of the West Hong Kong Harbor as a distribution of disjointed structures amidst the neighboring historic ferry terminal. The structure starts out as distributed pods that connect with the city’s transportation fabric. The misfit arrangement of these structural pods is bridged together by pipelines over the water, working in harmony with the existing terminal. Though situated on the water’s edge, residential & commercial spaces are completely accessible by car… all the way to the top! Hit the jump to see how —>
Located at the water’s edge next to the Macau Ferry Terminal, the tower’s design varies in both its circulation and organization to control the speed at which it receives and negotiates the flow of traffic to optimize movement around and inside the structure.
As you move inward from the receiving pods, the main structure begins to evolve its own function. First is a horizontal parking structure on the lower levels of the main building, which is accessible from the connected highway networks to efficiently receive car traffic. As you move up the main structure, business and shopping space is available, all accessible by car to the highest level of the tower. The upper reaches of the towers are set aside for residential space, high above the noise of the city, providing a living area that incorporates spectacular views of the dynamic city skyline. A heliport on top of the structure can receive air traffic from above.
The solid form on the south side of the main tower receives solar energy during the day, providing power to the building. The skin is breathable with numerous openings designed to overlap each other, undulating throughout, allowing carbon dioxide to easily filter out from the designated parking areas on the lower levels. Each parking level will also utilize foliage to further filter carbon dioxide from the air helping to reduce pollution in Hong Kong.
The PleXus Tower was conceived as a segmented but highly connected network of major transportation functions, as well as a conventional housing program. The shift in the way the tower design is read, as well as in the functionality of each segment, provides greater programmatic control. Residences are accessible yet private, parking is convenient, and circulation through the ground-level public space provokes interest. At night, lights will glow from the panels, reminding us of the connections these segments share as well as blending in with Hong Kong’s unique night skyline.
Designers: Chris Thackrey, Steven Ma, Bao An Nguyen Phuoc, Christos Koukis, Matus Nedecky, & Stefan Turcovsky
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Japanese architect Tsubasa Iwahashi has added hanging plants and a shed-like meeting room to an office in Osaka, which workers can take a peek at through boxy windows (+ slideshow).
Tsubasa Iwahashi Architects renovated the corridor of 11 office units on one floor of a building in Osaka’s Nishi-ku district. Entitled Hut on the Corridor, the garden-inspired project creates a common area where employees can take time out from their work.
The main intervention is a wooden hut in the centre of the space, which can be used as a meeting area or a quiet chill-out zone. This structure has only three walls, so people step inside by walking around to its rear.
The hut doesn’t have any windows, but a large skylight helps to bring in light. There’s also a small peephole in one corner that reveals the feet of anyone walking by.
“Going up you take off your shoes, so in a manner different from the communication that takes place in each private room, the hut of wood creates new value, connections and ideas,” said Iwahashi.
New domestic-style windows were added between the corridors and the office units. Each one features a boxy wooden frame, where plants and other items can be displayed.
The garden aesthetic is emphasised by hanging baskets suspended from the ceiling. The architects also made a small perforation in one wall to suggest a mouse hole.
Signage is kept to a minimum. A simple floor plan is marked onto the walls of the hut to provide directions, while male and female toilets are symbolised by a pair of cartoon faces.
Here’s a project description from Tsubasa Iwahashi:
A Hut on the Corridor
Like the street and square of the city, was thought people going back and forth, to try to place that meets nearby the place, is the beginning of our image.
We have renovated the common area of one floor of the rental office building built in ’40s in the city, a small company lined. Up the stairs, step into the legs to the floor, a small hut will appear in front of you.
We have expanded the part of the narrow existing corridor, and we have created a hut that get together. From a mere corridor, the hut changes the state and landscapes the place.
Going up you take off your shoes, so in a manner different from the communication that takes place in each private room, the hut of wood located in the centre of the floor creates new value, connections and ideas.
The corridor was regarded as an external space, lighting and planting the hut is located, the image of the external light, through a window facing there, and then insert the sunshine in each private room. Coupled with people going back and forth, and green hut glimpse through the window of a private room, reminiscent of the street landscape of the city.
For adjacent building is close, it is intended that in the private room you can not feel the sunlight directly, to provide a new external environment.
I hope that while they use, environment as grow up, with the passage of time, depending on the season, the landscape as a hut go deeper.
New York architect Louise Braverman has completed an arts centre in the Portuguese town of Botica dedicated to the work of abstract artist Nadir Afonso, who grew up nearby (+ slideshow).
The Centro de Artes Nadir Afonso was designed by Louise Braverman to reflect its location on the boundary between Botica and the surrounding countryside. Situated next to a major new motorway intersection on the outskirts of the town, the building is separated into two parts, with cultural facilities facing the road and exhibition spaces at the rear.
Glazed walls enclose the corner of the ground floor facing the busy road, offering a welcoming glimpse of an interior that features a photomural of the artist.
A cantilevered roof juts out above the entrance and shelters this corner of the centre, while a rectangular box projecting from the upper section of the facade frames a view through the building.
The ground floor space is filled with colourful furniture that complements enlarged versions of the artist’s sketches, arranged in a continuous band above the glass walls of the reception.
From the lobby, visitors can access a library, a cafeteria, a multi-purpose events room and ground floor exhibition halls at the rear of the building.
The ceiling above the library curves down to accommodate the banked seats of an auditorium above, which can be accessed via a staircase leading up to a balcony.
The portion of the centre containing the galleries is partly embedded in a steeply sloping hillside and is covered in a turfed roof featuring paving arranged to reflect the geometric patterns prevalent in Afonso’s art.
A short flight of steps provides access to the upper storey of centre from the roof garden, while a long staircase along one side of the building enables those passing to catch a glimpse of the art.
This staircase is flanked by a retaining wall constructed using stone salvaged during the site excavation, which can be seen from inside the galleries. These large chunks of stone were laid without mortar using a technique called cyclopean masonry.
“Since the exhibition walls are shorter than the exterior walls, visitors can view the art against a background of the surface of the rustic stone of the recycled cyclopean retaining walls, creating a unique feeling of viewing art within a lavish grotto,” said the architect.
The space between the exhibition halls and the retaining wall enables daylight to reach the interior, but minimises direct sunlight that could damage the artworks.
A gap between the two parts of the building at the base of the staircase can be used as an outdoor dining space for the cafeteria.
Louise Braverman Architect designs Centro de Artes Nadir Afonso, An Art Museum That Links an Emerging Urban Center with its Pastoral Environs
Merging architecture and landscape, the recently completed Centro de Artes Nadir Afonso links an emerging urban centre with its pastoral environs. The 20,000-square-foot single artist museum fuses a light, lucid contemporaneity with the rich materiality and sustainability of Portuguese design to honour one of Portugal’s most beloved native sons, the artist Nadir Afonso (1920-2013).
As well as paying homage to the artist, who formerly practiced architecture with Le Corbusier and Oscar Niemeyer, the Centro, along with the artist’s foundation in nearby Chaves, will serve as an engine driving economic, cultural, and community development in the region. Sliced into a steep hillside, the new museum is divided into two distinct, but connected, parts: a light-filled cultural center looking out upon the intersection of a national highway and City Hall; and, nestled in the back, a vast, below-grade exhibition space topped by a green-roof park.
The Urban Face
In the double-height Entry Hall, a photomural of the artist and a continuous band of his sketches provide punches of bright colour visible from the street. From here, the exhibition hall, outdoor café, children’s library and stairway to the auditorium beckon, as does the exterior auditorium that is designed to encourage informal civic engagement.
The Pastoral Side
Embedded in the hillside below a sustainably planted green roof, the exhibition hall is the heart of the museum. Since the exhibition walls are shorter than the exterior walls, visitors can view the art against a background of the surface of the rustic stone of the recycled cyclopean retaining walls, creating a unique feeling of viewing art within a lavish grotto. While encouraging the perception of an indoor/outdoor layering of space, the proximity of the walls to the interior both blocks degrading direct sunlight and allows indirect daylight to reduce the museum’s carbon footprint. The green roof park, designed in the spirit of Nadir Alonso’s geometric patterns and the tradition of Roberto Burle Marx, also naturally modulates internal temperature while offering aesthetic delight to the community.
Architects: Louise Braverman, Architect Location: Rua Gomes Monteiro, Boticas, Portugal Architect in charge: Louise Braverman Design team: Artur Afonso, John Gillham, Yugi Hsiao, Jing Liu, Snow Liu, Medha Singh Area: 1858 sqm
Local architect: Paulo Pereira Almeida, Arq. Consulting architect: Artur Afonso, Arq. Landscape architect: Maria João Ferreira, Arq. Structural & plumbing engineer: JP Engenharia, Lda. Electrical and mechanical engineer: M &M Engenharia, Lda. Fire safety engineer: Palhas Lourenço, Eng.
Cette série d’oeuvres réalisée par Michele Durazzi, est une série d’illustrations appelée « Was ist Metaphysik? ». Ces illustrations conceptuelles explorent les différentes formes de l’architecture dans une couleur unique : le blanc. De magnifiques créations à découvrir dans la suite de l’article.
Virtual reality has made huge strides over the past few years, but for pioneers like the scientists at the MIT Media Lab, digital simulations have begun taking actual, material shape….
Nous avons recensé sur Fubiz une série de photos montrant des pièces secrètes derrière des portes cachées. Fonctionnelles et minimalistes, c’est une manière intelligente d’avoir son jardin secret à l’intérieur de sa maison. Une compilation de pièces secrètes à découvrir en images et en légendes dans la suite.
Le studio de design Piet Boon a récemment accompli la transformation de la chapelle d’un ancien hôpital militaire d’Anvers en un restaurant au design magnifique. Proposant différentes ambiances, ce réaménagement invite à se mettre à table dans un lieu atypique et propose une expérience gastronomique unique.
Architect and photographer Marc Gerritsen designed this house for himself on a Thai island, with an skeleton-like structure that frames sea views (+ slideshow).
Nestled into a hillside amidst the nature reserves of Koh Samui, Naked House gives Marc Gerritsen an escape from his busy city life, which sees him travel frequently between Taiwan and other Asian countries.
“Life in Taipei is very hectic, and I needed a place to escape. I really wanted a quiet area and a fantastic view,” said Gerritsen. “The house was a return to the basic values in life: good clean air, wide-open space, quiet solitude.”
The five-storey house is formed of a series of levels that cascade down the hillside, protruding like the tiers of a staircase.
Gerritsen chose very basic materials to emphasise the location and view. The base of the house is concrete, while a galvanised steel frame rests on top to contain the two upper floors.
“There are no embellishments. The focus is on the space rather than the materials,” said the architect.
An open-plan living space occupies the ground floor, fronted by wooden-framed windows that slide back to overhang the facade. These windows open the space out to a large terrace with wooden decking, a tiled swimming pool and concrete planting boxes.
The living space contains a simple kitchen with low-level cupboards on one side, a seating area on the other, and a dining area sandwiched in between. There is also a patio shaded by the flat steel roof canopy.
An exterior concrete staircase leads up to a master bedroom, which perches at the top of the house. This is a self-contained structure that also features sliding windows, balcony and an over-hanging roof.
An open-air en suite sits alongside the bedroom, offering panoramic views of the surroundings from the bath and shower.
Another staircase wraps around the outside of the house, tracing the curve of the hillside from the living space down to floors below.
An exposed room with a swinging sofa occupies the space below the deck, along with a steam room.
The next floor down contains two symmetrical bedrooms, where large sliding wooden doors reveal huge bowl-like baths, while the final floor houses houses an office and a maid’s room.
Here’s a description from Marc Gerritsen:
The Naked House
The main thing about this location is the expanse of the surroundings and the quietness. Life in Taipei is very hectic, and I needed a place to escape. I really wanted a quiet area and a fantastic view. Having an open plan living room, with doors that can totally slide away, which look out at the pool and the ocean – that’s something I’d been thinking about for a long time. With this plot, I was able to put the pieces of the puzzle together. The house was a return to the basic values in life: good clean air, wide-open space, quiet solitude. With these basic values you can be in a space that is uncluttered, and your mind can become still. That’s also the reason behind the very basic materials that I have used: concrete, wood, steel and glass. There are no embellishments. The focus is on the space rather than the materials.
I originally planned three stories: two bedrooms on the bottom; the pool, living area and kitchen on the middle level; and an office on top. But I’ve added a bathroom on the living room level, a laundry room and pantry. I wanted a simple kitchen, with no overhead cupboards or tall fridge, so the pantry is good for storage. I added a freestanding open-air bathroom, as the top room became a magnificent master bedroom, which needed an en-suite.
The tank and plant room became a large open room with a swing bed, underneath the deck I added a steam room, and the space below the bedrooms now houses an office and maid’s room. So it ended up being five stories – the result of a work in progress.
My work over the last few years as an architectural and interior photographer has taught me what not to do. Looking at all the incredibly fine detailed properties I photographed in Asia. I thought: “Is this really necessary to be comfortable? If I walk on a concrete floor or if I walk on a marble floor, is it going to make my living experience so much better?” No. You just need a floor to walk on. I am interested in a return to basics, in a luxury monastic way of living.
Avec près de 40 étages, cette tour incroyable est un projet imaginé par Zaha Hadid Architects et qui proposera pas moins de 780 chambres & suites. Prévue pour 2017, cette structure qui sera à coup sûr impressionnante se démarque et propose un aménagement à la hauteur de l’ambition de la ville de Macau, qui veut se présenter comme la ville des rêves.
Alors que la plus grande partie de la librairie Saraiva de São Paulo est une structure linéaire traditionnellement artificielle, la section des enfants s’écarte de la tradition dans les domaines du confort, du dynamisme et de l’imagination. En effet, Arthur Casas a créé le monde des merveilles pour les enfants.
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