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News: Japanese architect Sou Fujimoto has unveiled his design for a mixed-use retail building as part of the developing Miami Design District.

Fujimoto‘s proposal features a facade covered with glass fins, which references the tropical rain that falls in the city during the summer.

Arcades on two levels will be enveloped by the glazed structure, which links the storefronts with a pedestrianised courtyard in the southern part of the Miami Design District.

“We believe the proposal will create an emblematical environment for the area surrounding Palm Court. The daily experience of our harmonised facade-corridor will enrich the city experience,” said Sou Fujimoto.

The building is already under construction and is scheduled for completion in 2014.

Sou Fujimoto designed this year’s Serpentine Gallery Pavilion and provoked a debate about the validity of unpaid internships by telling Dezeen they were seen as a “nice opportunity” in Japan.

Also in Miami, Zaha Hadid has designed a sixty-storey residential skyscraper with a concrete “exoskeleton” structure, Herzog & de Meuron has created a tower with a parallelogram-shaped plan, and OMA has been awarded the commission to renovate the Miami Beach Convention Center.

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Here’s some more information from the Miami Design District:

Miami Design District Unveils Plans for Building by Sou Fujimoto

The Miami Design District is proud to announce the commission of a new mixed-use retail building located in the neighborhood’s Palm Court. The latest development’s building façade is designed by award winning Japanese architect Sou Fujimoto. The project, one of the cornerstones of the pedestrian-centric area is scheduled for completion in 2014.

Inspired by the flowing movement of waterfalls and Miami’s tempestuous rain squalls, the building’s two-floor structure will feature an elongated series of glass fins extending from the rooftop down to the open courtyard creating a dynamic visual spectacle and alluding to the prevalent aquatic nature of the city. Spanning approximately 17,000 square-feet, the building’s façade encompasses first and second floor arcades creating a unique pedestrian experience under the structural waterfall. The retail housed within this project is part of Palm Court – the District’s southern pedestrian promenade. The addition of Fujimoto’s building furthers the Miami Design District’s dedication to create vibrant public spaces where art, commerce and community harmoniously coexist.

“We called on Fujimoto, one of the most exciting architects working today, to design the building and contribute his vision to the overall aesthetic of Palm Court. We are firmly committed to distinctive architecture and design as a way to realize our vision of enhancing and ultimately transforming the neighborhood. Creating engaging mixed retail and public spaces is integral to a thriving community. Fujimoto’s building will contribute well to the unity of design, fashion, art and architecture within the Design District,” said Craig Robins, President of Dacra.

One of today’s most forward thinking international architects, Sou Fujimoto is known for delicate, light structures and permeable enclosures. Inspired by organic eco-systems, such as forests, nests and the caves, Fujimoto’s signature creations exhibit a vibrant interplay between nature and architecture, blending the internal and external. Among Fujimoto’s projects in Japan are the Final Wooden House, T House and House N – in which one almost transparent volume is nested inside another – the Musashino Art Museum and the Library at Musashino Art University. In 2013, Fujimoto was selected to design the Serpentine Gallery pavilion in London, one of the world’s most ambitious architectural commissions.

“We believe the proposal will create an emblematical environment for the area surrounding Palm Court. The daily experience of our harmonized facade-corridor will enrich the city experience.” said Sou Fujimoto, about his design.

The Miami Design District is a unique, 18 square-block neighborhood just north of downtown Miami comprised of creative experiences and is committed to the unity of design, fashion, art and architecture. The development is owned by Miami Design District Associates, a partnership between Craig Robins’ company Dacra, and L Real Estate, a global real estate development fund focused on luxury retail driven mixed-use projects in which LVMH is a minority investor.

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for Miami Design District appeared first on Dezeen.

News: the number of people riding the Wilkinson Eyre-designed Emirates Air Line has dropped by half since last year, fuelling criticism that the project is not fulfilling its intended role as a key part of London’s transportation infrastructure.

According to Transport for London, passenger numbers on the Emirates Air Line for the week ending 21 September 2013 were 25,046, compared with 47,604 for the week ending 22 September 2012.

The figures are the first to give an accurate indication of the cable car’s popularity one year on from its launch, discounting the inflated numbers that resulted from last summer’s London Olympics when weekly passengers reached over 180,000.

The cable car, which links the O2 arena at Greenwich Peninsula with the ExCeL centre at the Royal Docks, was described before its launch in June 2010 as “a unique and exciting new addition to London’s transport network,” by Transport for London commissioner Sir Peter Hendy.

However, the ridership statistics suggest that it has not been embraced by commuters and remains well short of its capacity to transport 2,500 people an hour in each direction. Critics of the £60 million project have pointed out that the cable car’s current route can be made using London Underground’s Jubilee line in two minutes for half the price.

Sir Peter Hendy has admitted he is unhappy with the numbers, pointing out that “passenger journeys for periods 3, 4 and 5 were 4 per cent down against budget.”

Commenting on the possible future of the cable car, leader of the Liberal Democrats at the London Assembly Caroline Pidgeon said: “If the cable car is to have any success in the long term it should either be run and operated as a privately run tourist attraction, or instead operated as an integral form of public transport, where people with a travelcard or a relevant pass can use it for free.”

Measures are being taken to address the poor ridership, including selling advance tickets online and partnering with the O2 arena to offer combination tickets that include different attractions.

Other projects by Wilkinson Eyre Architects on Dezeen include an elliptical timber-clad museum for a Tudor warship on England’s south coast, and last year’s World Building of the Year – Gardens by the Bay in Singapore. See more Wilkinson Eyre Architects »

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numbers fall by half appeared first on Dezeen.

News: Arizona architect Nick Tsontakis has unveiled plans for a house that will straddle a mountain and be shaped like a manta ray (+ slideshow).

The $30-million two-storey building is designed by Nick Tsontakis to sit on top of Mummy Mountain in Arizona.

“The overall form of the home is reminiscent of a manta ray – even though this was not intentional – and from the air the structure looks like it’s swimming on top of the mountain,” Tsontakis told Dezeen. “I wanted to make the house design memorable and simple. It is organic, soft and liveable.”

Tsontakis told Dezeen that he came up with the concept to capture views of both the McDowell Mountains in Scottsdale to the north and of Camelback Mountain and the city lights in Downtown Phoenix to the south. “It meant that I would somehow have to infuse the house into the mountain,” he explained.

A number of local guidelines restricted the scale of the design, said the designer. “We were not to exceed the height of the top of the mountain in the centre of the home and we had to draw a 20 degree line from the [mountain’s] pinnacle in all directions, which the house could not penetrate,” he explained.

Once completed, the property will contain six bedrooms and eight bathrooms, and will boast views across Paradise Valley from a series of viewing decks.

A ten-car garage located on the upper level will be accessed via a sloping road. On the same level there will be an entry hall and a pair of two-bedroom guest wings.

Stairs and elevators will descend to the main ground level, which will accommodate a master wing on the north side and a large living area to the south.

“The two wings will be connected with a tunnel bored through the mountain from north to south, and on the east a 2000 square-foot entertainment hall would be carved out of the mountain,” added Tsontakis.

The property is currently listed by Russ Lyon Sotheby’s International Realty and is due for completion in 2015. Tsontakis told Dezeen that “the project is not under construction yet”, but that he is in conversations with “several interested parties.”

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See more residential architecture »

Renderings by Nick Tsontakis AIA Architecture and Interiors.

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to straddle an Arizona mountain appeared first on Dezeen.

Complex wooden lattices provide a stage set for archery competitions and boxing matches at this pair of university buildings in Tokyo by Japanese studio FT Architects (+ slideshow).

Located on the campus of Tokyo’s Kogakuin University, the two structures are both dedicated to sporting activities and called for column-free spaces built from low-cost materials.

Katsuya Fukushima and Hiroko Tominaga of FT Architects used locally sourced timber for the construction of both buildings.

They said: “We have salvaged the purity of traditional Japanese timber composition, simply made up of horizontals and verticals, which has been somewhat disregarded ever since the advent of modernism in Japan.”

“Small timber sections, normally reserved for furniture making, were chosen for the archery hall, and timber members deemed defected because of insect damage, for the boxing club,” they added.

A simple bolt-and-nut assembly was used for both frameworks, but required meticulous accuracy to ensure that each grid is made up of only perpendicular elements.

Other projects by Tokyo studio FT Architects include a house pierced by eight concrete columns.

Another sports centre recently completed in Japan features an exposed timber frame and huge clerestory windows.

See more sports centres »
See more architecture in Japan »

Photography is by Shigeo Ogawa.

Here’s some more information from FT Architects:

Archery Hall and Boxing Club, Kogakuin University, Tokyo

Structure & Space – medium-span, column-free

The project consists of two buildings, an archery hall and a boxing club, standing a few hundred metres apart on the grounds of Kogakuin University in west Tokyo.

The formal rituals of Kyudo (Japanese archery) and the very physical nature of boxing may appear worlds apart. However, surprisingly, the two built facilities share a number of commonalities.

The University’s brief was for low-cost structures made of locally sourced timber to provide accessible and inspiring spaces for the students. By chance, both facilities called for a column-free space of 7.2m by 10.8m, a size that is comparable to a sacred hall in a traditional Japanese temple. In order to achieve this span, without columns and using low-cost methods of timber construction, it was necessary to come up with an innovative timber solution. We began the project by investigating a number of structural forms that would be appropriate for each sport.

Underlying Principles

Through collaborative exploration with timber experts, from researchers, manufacturers to suppliers, we derived at timber materials that are not commonly associated with structural or architectural usage. Small timber sections, normally reserved for furniture making, were chosen for the archery hall, and timber members deemed defected because of insect damage, for the boxing club.

We have salvaged the purity of traditional Japanese timber composition, simply made up of horizontals and verticals, which has been somewhat disregarded ever since the advent of modernism in Japan. Delicate lattice frame composed of slender ties beams and posts for the archery hall, and a bolder, stepped frame, was employed for the boxing club. Here, timber, a historical material, has been reanalysed and transformed into a new building material.

Contrast/Complement

The two structures have been constructed employing a simple, lo-tech method of bolt-and-nut assembly. However, due to the scale of the space and simplicity of construction, the execution had to be meticulous, in order to produce spaces that are out of the ordinary.

For each building, the main subject is the 7.2m x 10.8m space and the timber structure, merely its backdrop. The powerful presence of the timber structure emphasises the stark transparency of the void below. The whole is only achieved by the juxtaposition of these two contrasting and complementing qualities.

Departing from the same starting point, the two buildings have arrived at a shared architectural theme via two different structural and spatial solutions.

Completion: 2013
Location: Tokyo, Japan
Principal use: archery hall (Japanese archery=Kyudo) and boxing club
Total floor area: archery hall 106.00 sqm, boxing club 92.75 sqm
Structure: wood
Architect: FT Architects/Katsuya Fukushima, Hiroko Tominaga

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by FT Architects appeared first on Dezeen.

This luxury apartment building in Hong Kong references the local vernacular of overcrowded high-rise towers covered in ad hoc extensions.

International architecture firm Aedas designed the serviced apartment building for a small site in Mongkok, which is one of the world’s most densely populated neighbourhoods.

The architects drew on the local tendency to add balconies to apartments in tower blocks to maximise views, but “reinterpreted these structures in a modern way, using irregular protrusions to create unobstructed views for each apartment.”

Aedas also added a living wall to the bottom of the facade that was “inspired by the home gardens which people create on the balconies”.

The living wall will introduce greenery to the busy street and will be supplemented by planting in the area vacated by setting the building’s podium back from the street.

Also in Hong Kong, Zaha Hadid’s Innovation Tower for Hong Kong Polytechnic University is nearing completion and Herzog & de Meuron has been selected to design a visual culture museum in the new West Kowloon Cultural District. See more stories about Hong Kong »

Aedas recently won a competition to design a twisting 33-storey skyscraper for Shanghai, China, and is working with Dutch firm MVRDV on the design of a new business district in the city.

Here’s a project description from the architects:

Aedas designs a serviced apartment building in one of the most densely populated places on the planet

With a population density of 130,000 people per square kilometre, Mongkok, a neighbourhood in Hong Kong, is one of the most densely populated places on the planet. Aedas was appointed to design a serviced apartment building in this hyperdense district, whose construction work commenced recently.

Standing on a site of 614 square metres, which is challengingly small, the building will offer serviced apartment accommodation to occupants. In the early post-war years, it was common to create illegal iron balconies for residential units in Mongkok to acquire maximum view. Aedas reinterpreted these structures in a modern way, using irregular protrusions to create unobstructed views for each apartment.

Inspired by the home gardens which people create on the balconies, Aedas designed a green wall that seemingly protrudes from the solid façade of the podium to further connect the building with the historical cityscape. This green wall will also enhance the quality of life for the neighbourhood by increasing the provision of greenery at the pedestrian level.

The building is set back from the street to allow more opportunities for planting, which creates a breathing space in the middle of the dense neighborhood and provides rare greenery. It also transforms the outdoor landscape space into an urban backdrop for the building’s public areas such as an entrance lobby on the ground level and a transit lift lobby on the second floor.

The design sets an example of contemporary interpretation of traditional architecture.

Project: Composite Building at No. 78-88 Sai Yee Street
Location: Hong Kong
Architect: Aedas
Client: Good Standing (Hong Kong) Limited
Site area: 614 square meters
Gross floor area: 5,514 square meters

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by Aedas appeared first on Dezeen.