Hasta La Ideas

Modular panels fold around the exterior of this electricity station in rural Denmark by Scandinavian firm C. F. Møller (+ slideshow).

C. F. Møller was commissioned by Danish energy company Energinet to design the gas-insulated switchgear (GIS) station, used to control the flow of electricity on its way from Dutch wind farms to the Danish areas where it will be used.

The project forms part of a wider government scheme to upgrade the visual appearance of the country’s power grid.

The first switchgear station has been built in Vejen from prefabricated wooden components on a steel frame.

“Since it is a design concept and the first in a series of new stations, the exterior cladding is something that can be varied according to the location and context,” architect Julian Weyer told Dezeen.

“The first station now completed is clad in pre-weathered zinc panels, chosen mainly for their low maintenance, good recycling potential and the interesting play of light as reflected on the folded surfaces,” Weyer added.

Each modular unit of the exterior has a sloping roof and sides that triangulate to add stability.

They create a row of gill-like openings ranged along the sides of the structure, admitting daylight and allowing glimpses of the GIS units from the outside.

“With the progressing daylight, the folded surface creates an ever-changing play of shadows, altering its appearance all day long and all year round,” said the architects.

Exposed wooden fibreboard panels line the interior, contributing to the acoustics of the building.

Other projects we’ve featured by C. F. Møller include a proposal for the world’s tallest timber-framed building, an art and craft museum with a frosted glass exterior and illuminated fracture lines and a state prison in the format of a small village.

Other infrastructure projects featured on Dezeen include a combined power plant and ski slope that blows smoke rings, a biomass power station covered in panels planted with indigenous grasses and pylons shaped like giants marching across the landscape.

See more architecture and design by C. F. Møller »
See more stories about infrastructure architecture »

Here’s some information from the architects:

Gas-insulated Switchgear Stations

The Danish Parliament wishes to upgrade the visual appearance of the Danish power grid. Therefore, C. F. Møller has been hired to create a new design concept for switchgear stations for
Energinet.dk. The first 400 kW station is now ready for operation.

As a result of the new design concept, Energinet.dk has decided not to construct a new large open-air switchgear station in Vejen, Jutland, but instead build a gas-insulated switchgear station – also called a GIS station.

The idea of the design concept has been to give the technical enclosure of the station, placed in the open landscape, a distinct architectonic profile, and at the same time maximise the future flexibility.

This GIS (gas-insulated switchgear) station is one of the nerve centres in the Danish power grid, through which increasing volumes of sustainable energy – mostly wind power – will be transported.
The GIS station is an important part of 175 kilometres of new 400 kW high voltage cable running from Kassø in Southern Jutland to Tjele in central Jutland.

The link has been built to upgrade the power grid and to ensure that wind power from Danish wind farms is transported to the areas where it is needed. The GIS station is linked to a total of six aerial cable systems.

The enclosure has been designed as a series of modules, each consisting of a lightweight shell with a slanted roof and a folded exterior surface which adds lateral stability. Arranged in series, the modules create a transparent, gill-like envelope with triangular openings, letting ample daylight into the interior and allowing glimpses of the GIS units at the heart of the building.

All this gives the design an unmistakeable and strong sculptural and facetted identity. With the progressing daylight, the folded surface creates an ever-changing play of shadows, altering its appearance all day long and all year round.

Client: Energinet.dk
Size: 1,650 m² (450 m²workshops and 1,200 m² GIS building)
Address: Vandmøllevej 10, Revsing, 6600 Vejen in Denmark (and various sites across Denmark)
Year of project: 2010-2013
Design architects: C. F. Møller Architects
Executive architect: Kærsgaard & Andersen
Landscape: C. F. Møller Architects

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by C. F. Møller appeared first on Dezeen.

Zaha Hadid‘s Library and Learning Centre at the Vienna University of Economics and Business opens today and this animation by London visualisation firm Neutral gives a tour of the building.

Located in Vienna’s second district, the Vienna University of Economics and Business (Wirtschaftsuniversität Wien) is the largest University focusing on business and economics in Europe, and the new site will accommodate 23,000 students and 1,500 staff.

Open 24 hours a day, the Library and Learning Centre by Zaha Hadid Architects is one of seven buildings that make up the new campus.

The 28,000-square-metre building houses a library, auditorium, workspaces, classrooms, offices, learning support services, book shop, event spaces and cafe.

The animation by Neutral first shows how the volumes of the design are generated, then begins a tour through the spaces.

“The straight lines of the building’s exterior separate as they move inward, becoming curvilinear and fluid to generate a free-formed interior canyon that serves as the central public plaza of the centre,” said the architects.

“All the other facilities are housed within a since column that also divides, becoming two separate ribbons that wind around each other to enclose this glazed gathering space.”

“Searching for a balance between abstract, conceptual narrative and much-expected photorealism, we blend soundscapes with evocative camera movements and traces of inhabitation – revealing time-based architectural design ideas which otherwise wouldn’t be apparent,” Christian Grou of Neutral told Dezeen.

Zaha Hadid Architects won the competition to design the building in 2008 – read more in our earlier story.

We’ve also recently published photos of Zaha Hadid’s Innovation Tower at the Polytechnic University in Hong Kong, nearing completion, and the firm’s extension to the Serpentine Gallery in London.

See all our stories about Zaha Hadid »
See all our stories about architecture for education »

Still visualisations are by Vectorvision.

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in Vienna by Zaha Hadid Architects appeared first on Dezeen.

News: the entrance pavilion for the Design Miami collectors’ fair in December will comprise a mound of sand with an aluminium roof perched on top.

Designed by New York studio Formlessfinder, the temporary pavilion is conceived as a space that will encourage interaction and play from some of the 50,000 visitors to the annual Design Miami fair, which takes place in Miami Beach.

“We’re hoping to create something that people would want to participate in,” said architect Garrett Ricciardi, who co-founded the studio with fellow architect Julian Rose. The pair expect visitors to lounge on the sand and adapt its shape.

They said the concept was developed in response to two of the city’s characteristics – its abundance of sand, beneath buildings as well as on the beaches, and the trend for cantilevered roofs.

“Formlessfinder’s pavilion takes the sand that is elsewhere so problematic and uses it to advantage,” said the fair organisers. “The sand, which is so destabilising for architectural projects elsewhere in Miami, here becomes the stabilising element of the structure.”

A retaining wall will dissect the pavilion, separating the sandy hill from a seating area furnished with milled aluminium benches.

The sand will also draw cool air into the space, allowing it offer a comfortable and shaded environment for guests.

Design Miami has commissioned a new entrance pavilion each year since 2008. Last year’s structure was a cluster of inflatable sausages, while in 2011 David Adjaye created a wooden structure with a hollow belly.

Other interesting projects using sand include a concept for cooling units and a series of affordable houses in Cape Town.

See more design featuring sand »

Here’s some more information from Design Miami:

New York-based architectural practice Formlessfinder to design a pavilion for Design Miami’s 2013 Design Commission

Each December, Design Miami/ commissions early-career architects to build a designed environment for the fair’s entrance as part of its biannual Design Commissions program.

Harnessing multiple, often unexpected, properties of sand and aluminium, Formlessfinder’s Tent Pile pavilion provides shade, seating, cool air and a space to play for the city’s public. The pavilion appears as a dramatic aluminium roof miraculously balanced on the apex of a great pyramid of loose sand. Milled aluminium benches give resting space in the shade, where visitors will be fanned by the cool air naturally generated by the structure.

Formlessfinder describes itself as a ‘formless’ architectural practice – a studio where an expanded range of ideas, material considerations, construction techniques and user interactions all take priority over the shape of the final building. “Form is often the default lens for thinking about architecture. Even when people think they’re talking about something else, like function or structure, there’s often some kind of formal idea underlying the discussion. We’re trying to shift away from form so that we can explore other qualities of architecture, such as new ways of experiencing space or innovative ways of using materials,” explains Julian Rose, who co-founded the practice in 2010 with Garrett Ricciardi. The pair refer to their practice as a “finder” because it has a multifaceted output, which includes research projects and a forthcoming book. But while the theoretical aspect is important to its work, Formlessfinder still has the creation of physical structures at its heart.

Formlessfinder approaches new projects with an interest in the specifics of geography and the use of available and appropriate materials, committing to use them in a way that allows for re-use. In researching ideas for Tent Pile at Design Miami/ 2013, Rose and Ricciardi ultimately focused on two phenomena very particular to Miami. The first was the ubiquity of sand in the region; those golden grains visible on the beaches also lie beneath the foundations of every building in the city and beyond. Any kind of construction in Miami must take into account the loose and shifting layer on which the final structure will ultimately float. The second was the architectural vernacular of the city; a kind of tropical post-war modernism distinguished by hybrid indoor/outdoor spaces of which the cantilevered roof seemed particularly emblematic. To design the roof and subsequent seating, the architects enlisted the support of materials powerhouse Alcoa and third-generation aluminium fabricator Neal Feay, both of which were integral in giving life to the ambitious truss design of the roof, executed in raw aluminium.

Formlessfinder’s pavilion takes the sand that is elsewhere so problematic and uses it to advantage. The sand which is so destabilising for architectural projects elsewhere in Miami here becomes the stabilising element of the structure, mooring the lightweight aluminium roof, in lieu of an excavated foundation, for the cantilever, while also being a zero-waste material, completely re-usable after its time at the pavilion.

A retaining wall appears to slice the pyramid of sand in half, creating a more ordered space immediately in front of the entrance to the fair. Bench seating in a variety of sizes is provided by large sheets of aluminium fixed to simple wood bases, foregrounding the raw nature of the materials used. Arranged in a 500-ton pyramid the sand has a thermal mass cooling effect – metal fins driven through the retaining wall into the sand will draw the cool temperature into the seating area, and simple fans will create a refreshing breeze rippling out from the wall.

The pavilion acts as a refuge for the more than 50,000 visitors who come to Miami for the fairs each year, as well as inhabitants of the city’s South Beach neighbourhood. It is intended as a public installation that marries the practical requirements of shelter and seating to spectacular creative architectural ideas from a young practice. Formlessfinder’s Tent Pile engages not only with materials and aesthetics specific to Miami, but with the location of the fair within the city – the pyramid of sand is there to be sat on and played in, the cooling fans to be approached, examined and enjoyed. “We’re hoping to create something that people would want to participate in,” says Ricciardi, and the result is a structure designed to be occupied and explored, as much as it is to be admired.

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a pile of sand appeared first on Dezeen.

This bulky concrete school of art, design and architecture was completed by Japanese architect Tadao Ando at the University of Monterrey in Mexico and is one of over 300 projects being showcased this week for the World Architecture Festival in Singapore (+ slideshow).

Housing studios and teaching rooms for over 300 students, the Centro Roberto Garza Sada de Arte Arquitectura y Diseño was designed by Tadao Ando as a six-storey concrete block with a huge triangular void at its centre.

This void exposes the underside of the building, creating the appearance of a twisted structure, and creates a large sheltered entrance for staff, students and visitors below.

Additional openings elsewhere around the building provide outdoor corridors and meeting areas, as well as an open-air amphitheatre.

The six storeys of the building accommodate different creative disciplines. Digital facilities occupy the first two floors, while visual arts can be found on the second floor. Textiles and photography share the third floor, model-making workshops are grouped together on the fourth floor and the top storey is home to the fashion department.

The building was completed earlier this year. It was nominated in the Higher Education and Research award category at the World Architecture Festival and received a commendation from the judges earlier today. Follow Dezeen’s coverage of WAF 2013 »

Japanese architect Tadao Ando is best known for projects that combine raw concrete with slices of light, such as Church of the Light (1989) and Row House (1976). Other recent projects by the architect include a concrete house on the edge of a cliff in Sri Lanka and the Issey Miyake Foundation research centre in Tokyo. See more architecture by Tadao Ando »

See more university buildings »
See more architecture in Mexico »

Photography is by Roberto Ortiz.

Here’s a project description from the design team:

Centro Roberto Garza Sada de Arte Arquitectura y Diseño

Roberto Garza Sada Center for Arts, Architecture and Design (CRGS) is a 6 storey building with height of 5.4 metres between each level. Built in an area of 20,700 square metres. The building has a modulation of supports (columns) arranged in a grid of 9 metres per side, having 3 modules in the short side and 11 in the long one.

The main support structure is based on 4 frames in the long direction, spaced 9 metres one from another, and describing free spaces of about 80 to 65 metres. The main frames are stabilised trough a secondary structure which allows it to have the required stiffness to be structurally stable.

The structural concept is based on the principle of composite action, that is, elements of structural steel-lined concrete and united so that both receive and transmit efforts jointly (the concrete is not only architectural but structural).

The finishes of the building are:
» Granite floors or concrete polishing, epoxy-coated
» Apparent concrete walls, plaster, drywall or resin panel
» Ceiling drywall or prefabricated resin panel

Additionally it has windows of aluminium (profiles with thermal break) and insulated glasses with a low-e face are included in areas of direct exposure to the sun’s rays. The windows system is reinforced by a system of automated blinds and linked to the lighting control system for a more efficient system. Architectural design concentrates most of the windows in three main holes that come from the rooftop to the floors below that allow the natural lighting and ventilation of the building.

The VRV air conditioning system provides high efficiency in electricity consumption for the divided spaces configuration of the building. Lamps are high efficiency and with electronic ballast that is linked to an intelligent system that detects heat, motion and daylight by sensors strategically located through the building. The system regulate the environment of each space providing the lighting required for the development of activities, while they save energy by allowing most of the lighting to be natural.

Electric and voice-data systems feature the best technology, in order to provide users with the most suitable conditions for the performance of academic functions in each space of the building.

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Arquitectura y Diseño by Tadao Ando appeared first on Dezeen.

World Architecture Festival 2013: we’re reporting on the World Architecture Festival in Singapore this week. Category winners from the first day include a whirlpool-shaped aquarium and a sports college perforated with the shapes of athletes.

Winners in today’s categories will compete with the second batch of laureates, which we’ll publish tomorrow, for the World Building of the Year prize to be announced on Friday. Last year the award went to Wilkinson Eyre Architects’ Gardens by the Bay project in Singapore.

The annual World Architecture Festival (WAF) is taking place at the Moshe Safdie-designed Marina Bay Sands hotel and conference centre until 4 October and Dezeen is media partner for the event. The Inside Festival is running alongside WAF and we revealed the day one category winners of the Inside Awards earlier today.

Read on for the list of today’s WAF category winners:

House category winner: The Left-Over-Space House, Australia, by Cox Rayner Architects, Casey and Rebekah Vallance

A three-metre-wide caretaker’s cottage has been recycled and extended into a private family house for parents and two children by Cox Rayner Architects. “There’s a realness and authenticity to the spirit of the house that reflects the owners,” said this year’s panel of judges.

Housing category winner: 28th Street Apartments, USA, by Koning Eizenberg Architecture

Koning Eizenberg Architecture restored a former YMCA building in Los Angeles and added 25 new residential units in a thin five-storey stucco-clad building beside it. “This project demonstrates architecture as an agent for social transformation,”  the judges commented. “The architect was able to knit together historical continuity and something very new, something of high architectural value.”

Office category winner: Statoil Regional and International Offices, Norway, by a-lab

Five aluminium-clad volumes are stacked up like a pile of horizontal skyscrapers at this office complex outside Oslo by Norwegian studio A-Lab – read more about the project in our previous story. The judges said the building is “a comprehensive and integrated project that merges modular construction and cost effectiveness in a modern Scandanavian way, demonstrating a deep understanding of democratic and social values in the new working environment.”

Higher education category winner: University of Exeter: Forum Project, UK, by Wilkinson Eyre Architects

World Building of the Year 2012 recipients Wilkinson Eyre have made the shortlist for this year’s award, with an undulating canopy bridging the spaces between rectangular buildings at the University of Exeter in England. The judges said: “The project creates hugely uplifting spaces for the students with a delightfully detailed timber gridshell roof.”

Display category winner: The Blue Planet, Denmark, by 3XN

Shaped like a whirlpool, this aquarium in Copenhagen by Danish architects 3XN is covered in shimmering aluminium shingles similar to fish scales – read more about the project in our previous story. “It deals successfully with the site and finds opportunity where there is little context. It overcomes significant engineering and technical challenges,” were the judges comments.

Religion category winner: Sancaklar Mosque, Turkey, by Emre Arolat Architects

This mosque in an Istanbul suburb sits in a quiet park cut off from the surrounding area by high walls. “The project captured the spiritual essence of a mosque without being referential,” said the judges.

Schools category winner: Fontys Sports College, Netherlands, by Mecanoo Architecten

This sports college in Eindhoven by Dutch firm Mecanoo features a black brick exterior with perforations in the shape of athletes – read more about the project in our previous story.

Shopping category winner: Emporia, Sweden, by Wingårdh Arkitektkontor

Also triumphing in the Shopping Centres category at the Inside Awards, Swedish studio Wingårdh‘s Malmö emporium has a gaping golden chasm over its entrance – read more about the project in our previous story. “Malls are generally massive; this one, despite its size, does not impose on its surroundings,” the judges concluded.

Future Projects winners

» Health: New Sulaibikhat Medical Center, Kuwait, by AGi Architects
» House: Meditation House, Lebanon, by MZ Architects
» Culture: National Maritime Museum of China, China, by Cox Rayner Architects
» Commercial mixed-use: New Office in Central London, UK, by Allford Hall Monaghan Morris
» Leisure led: Singapore Sports Hub, Singapore, by Arup Associates, DP Architects
» Office: Selcuk Ecza Headquarters, Turkey, by Tabanlioglu Architects
» Masterplanning: Earls Court Masterplan, UK, by Farrells
» Infrastructure: Brisbane Ferry Terminals Post-Flood Recovery, Australia, by Cox Rayner Architects

Keep an eye out for movies from Singapore we’re filming for the latest leg of our Dezeen and MINI World Tour.

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day one winners announced appeared first on Dezeen.