Walls of different heights and widths create a maze-like sequence of passages and entrances around the main hall of this church in the Philippines by New York architects CAZA (+ slideshow).
CAZA designed the exterior of the church in Cebu City as a complex arrangement of monolithic surfaces to give it an ambiguous form that they say represents the enigmatic nature of religion.
“We imagined it might be something mysterious, perhaps even as odd as the early gothic churches that resisted iconography, presenting their parishioners with an architectural image of a dense mass of buttresses, ribs, vaults and spires,” said the architects.
Walls with a standard thickness but different heights and widths are arranged in a staggered formation that creates multiple routes into and through the building.
“All the walls are placed only in one direction so that the building is completely opaque from one side and totally transparent in the opposite view,” the architects explained. “Anywhere in between these two states is an optical play of light and dark.”
The layered sequence of vertical surfaces creates dynamic patterns of light and shadow both during the day and when they are illuminated at night, while clerestory windows filter light into the interior.
The position of the walls was also determined by a grid based on the position of rows of pews and the space required to sit and kneel.
Additional functional spaces required by the church were integrated into the grid and the walls were constructed around them.
The average height of the walls increases towards the rear of the building to support the roof as it rises above the altar and choir stalls, which are located on a mezzanine level.
Passages around the periphery of the hall lead to the multiple entry points and are punctuated by gaps in the floor, through which trees rise from the sunken gardens below.
What should a sacred space look like today? How should it work? Is there such a thing as a contemporary idea of the sacred?
In spite of a glut of typological clues we choose an anti-form. We did not want legibility. We sought to reinforce the experience of the search. Religions are defined by their mysteries and the stories of individuals who break through.
Our contemporary condition is increasingly defined by a shared sense of exile—we are never entirely at home. The sight of a foreign object that resists iconography and presents with a furtive experience of anticipation might be a version of the architectural sacred.
Our design for the 100 Walls Church in Cebu is an attempt to think through strangeness in architecture. What would it be to see something we don’t know? Like Christ in the Garden of Gethsemane forest, we are puzzled without reason to save us. We need to wander and think through the system by ourselves.
All the walls are placed only in one direction so that the building is completely opaque from one side and totally transparent in the opposite view. Anywhere in between these two states is an optical play of light and dark. The walls are aligned along a grid that follows the spacing of the pews marking the relationship between the two: the minute scale of the individual and the cosmic scale of the universe. The monolithic quality of the walls plays off the fleeting reality of the colored light that filters through the clerestory windows. The sacred is after all inexorably linked to the fact that we are here only for a short time while our architecture aspires towards permanence.
The gothic idea of space might have been one of the most poignant statements of this conundrum. The best churches of medieval Europe sought to present parishioners with an architectural image of a dense and layered mass of buttresses, ribs, vaults and spires – God as both a mystery and a source of enlightenment.
The 100 Walls Church invites us to wander around its grounds and discover sunken gardens, pockets of blue light and an enigmatic profusion of talismanic walls. The multitude of doors and passages is a reminder that there are as many paths as there are lives and that a sacred space today should draw out meaning in its inscrutability.
Location: Cebu, Philippines Completed: January 2013 Size: 8,924 sqm
London studios Grimshaw, Haworth Tompkins and Marks Barfield Architects also made the shortlist to recreate the “spirit, scale and magnificence” of the iron glass and steel structure that was designed by English architect Paxton to host the Great Exhibition of 1851, but was destroyed by fire in 1936.
Backed by Chinese developer the ZhongRong Group, the new exhibition venue will provide the centrepiece of a wider masterplan for the overhaul of the surrounding 80-hectare park.
Possible reconstruction view
“This is a stellar line-up of talent demonstrating the worldwide interest in this unique and challenging project,” said London mayor Boris Johnson, who is chairing the judging panel.
“The rebuild of The Crystal Palace is set to produce an extraordinary new landmark for the capital, which will support the rebirth of this historic park and catalyse jobs and growth in the local area,” he added.
Up to three of the shortlisted firms will be invited to prepare concept designs later this year. An overall winner will be announced shortly after and construction of the chosen scheme could start in late 2015.
Ni Zhaoxing of ZhongRong Group commented: “The expressions of interest and outstanding shortlist demonstrate the wealth and diversity of design talent inspired by the challenge of rebuilding the Crystal Palace in the spirit of the magnificent original.”
Two dance studios at the top of this copper-clad music conservatory in Paris by local studio Basalt Architecture project outwards from the facade to capture plenty of natural daylight (+ slideshow).
Basalt Architecture designed the Conservatoire Claude Debussy for a site on the edge of the 17th arrondissement, where it sits between classic Haussmann buildings to the south and more recent tower blocks to the north.
The boxes containing the dance studios cantilever from the northern facade and appear to reach towards the nearby residential towers.
“Creating a dialogue with the city, dance halls in the upper part seem detached with a particular volume that meets the residential buildings to the north,” the architects told Dezeen. “Largely glazed, they offer soft and uniform light, oriented to the north.”
The conservatory’s entire exterior is clad in a shimmering skin of copper panels, which reference the colour of the nearby sandstone church of Sainte-Odile and the recent residential buildings.
“Copper allowed us to create a facade whose playful folds and perforations play with light by filtering sunlight during the day and sifting light outward at night,” said the architects. “Copper is used as a natural material and its oxidation participates in the life of the building.”
Hinged shutters on the facade facing the busy Rue de Courcelles feature perforated patterns which are arranged in different configurations to produce a random effect and to help shade the studios.
A 300-seat auditorium at the centre of the building steps down from the ground floor to a stage at basement level, with surrounding circulation spaces leading to other facilities including practice rooms and the dance studios.
Wide corridors receive natural light from central skylights and windows surrounding a small courtyard, lending the interior a degree of transparency that contrasts with the monolithic facade.
Windows allow views into some of the dance studios and practice rooms from outside or from internal circulation areas.
Materials throughout have been chosen for their practical, ecological and acoustic properties.
The courtyard on the second floor features wooden decking, walls and a raised planted bed.
The architects sent us the following project description:
Music Conservatory in Paris’ 17th Arrondissement
Building a new conservatory in Paris’s 17th arrondissement is part and parcel of a new urban script that will mark the morphology and profile of this building located on the edge of Paris.
Located on a plot of land between two high-rise buildings, the conservatory stands at the interface of architectural scripts linked to the city’s building heritage. On the edge of the 17th arrondissement to the south Haussmann-style buildings look across at social housing of a more recent period. So the conservatory is located at a strategic point due to its theme, i.e. the 17th arrondissement’s history is closely linked with French music, and building this new edifice has to be worthy of this past.
It is strategic due to its urban location, located as it is on the rue de Courcelles, an important corridor for entering the city with its sight-line extending from the Boulevard Périphérique (ring-road) between two architectural eras and styles.
It is also the beginning of a new building fringe on the rue de Courcelles while waiting for the Consistory building. Aligned along the rue de Courcelles, the project is an oscillation from down to up through the play of external surfaces. It sends a strong signal through the city, a 20-metre-high benchmark in a green alley dominated by vegetation.
Visible from the Périphérique, its architectural treatment identifies it as a value-adding element by separating it from the publicity landscape that exists along the Parisian ring-road. Given its appearance and location, it is in constant dialogue with the city. On the one hand the dance studios in the upper floors with their expansive windows participate actively in the building’s visual signal by standing out from the city with a specific volume that responds to the apartment buildings to the north. On the other side to the south, the building’s pleated skin and its perforations that dialogue with the classic Haussmann-style buildings with their sturdy architecture.
Our project has been designed from inside to outside; we have conceived of the conservatory as a place for exchange, emulation, a crossroads of practices. This is the idea that has driven the project from the auditorium at its heart to the music rooms. Because that is how we have perceived the facilities. A place where people play, learn, dance and create. Sounds and movement emerge from this swirl of activities, this school of practice. Which is how the volumes came to life: a skin perforated by the beat of the melody that emerges and takes shape in the outer walls.
The script is there with the volume folding and undulating in the light and the beat of the perforations that enliven it by day and by night. A place of movement and emulation, the interior and exterior volumes shimmer and move, reinforced by the play of passageways and aerial walkways, the materials sometimes reflecting, sometimes absorbing the light like the paramount acoustics of the place.
Although the exterior volume, an urban signal and catalyst of the rue de Courcelles’ recomposition, is intended to be monolithic with shape and folds that enwrap it–like the works of Christo–we have sought to dematerialise the core interior space to render it impalpable and vital.
The brief asked designers to explore two options for the building: to retain it as a stand-alone library or to extend upwards and convert it into a mixed-use complex. The architects will now work together with library staff to decide the best approach.
“My dream is that people will start to love this building so much that they even bring their books from home to read in the library,” said Mecanoo principal Francine Houben, during the design presentation.
She continued: “We will pay respect to Mies van der Rohe and research what is possible to prepare this building for the library of the future. But most important is bringing out the values of Martin Luther King. My dream is to make this building to reflect his ideals.”
Ten architects were originally shortlisted for the project, including OMA and SOM, and the list was whittled down to three at the end of 2013.
News: construction is set to begin later this year on a new six-storey home for Mexican design and architecture gallery Archivo, designed by emerging studio Zeller & Moye and overseen by Mexican architect and gallery founder Fernando Romero.
Conceived as a “raw exoskeleton” of splayed concrete floorplates, the new gallery in Mexico City will provide extensive exhibition and events space for Archivo, which was launched two years ago by FR-EE principal Fernando Romero to promote industrial design from the twentieth century up to the present.
Zeller & Moye planned the building as a stack of irregular floors that will project in different directions, creating a variety of indoor and outdoor spaces amongst the surrounding jungle-like greenery.
Staircases will spiral around the perimeter of the floors, connecting the various balconies and terraces, while transparent glass walls will be set back from the facade to enclose the spine of the structure.
“Our design for Archivo represents a new building typology in Mexico City,” said Christoph Zeller and Ingrid Moye, whose practice is based in both Mexico City and Berlin.
They continued: “The vertically stacked open floors full of life and activity connect the building with its surroundings, thereby challenging the trend for enclosed facades and stimulating an upcoming neighbourhood through culture and design.”
The new building will accommodate galleries for both permanent collections and temporary exhibitions, as well as a section dedicated to the history of Mexico City, a library, a restaurant and bar, and a number of workshop and events rooms.
Romero explained: “We are aiming to create the premier forum for contemporary design in Latin America, giving voice to young designers, creating dialogue and awareness about architecture and design in the region.”
“Building upon how we approach projects at FR-EE and in Archivo’s collaborative spirit, I wanted the new building to be designed in collaboration with other architects to create the ultimate platform and infrastructure around the collection’s activities,” he added.
Archivo will relocate to the new building from a space it has outgrown at the former home and studio of celebrated architect Luis Barragan.
“After two years, the thought of a new ground-up facility in which to create and design new shows is thrilling,” said gallery director Regina Pozo.
Green spaces surrounding the building will be open to the local community and are expected to be used for activities such as dance classes and urban gardening.
Here’s a project description from the design team:
Archivo by Zeller & Moye in collaboration with FR-EE
‘Archivo’ is a new space for Mexico City offering an exciting mixture of manifold programs, that aims to further enrich the cultural and social life of the metropolis.
Located in the heart of Mexico City, the new cultural hub is comprised of spaces for temporary exhibitions and a permanent collection of design pieces as well as room for educational and communal activities, social events and commercial use. ‘Archivo’ will attract both locals and first-time visitors, and will thus bring new life and regenerative energy into an undiscovered part of central Mexico City.
The building is designed as a raw exoskeleton that opens up to the surrounding jungle-like greenery. Like a tree, the open structure consists of vertical spines and floor plates that branch out horizontally to offer terraces at different levels with views into the green as well as over the city. Its six floors, orientated according to the irregular city grid, can be explored via a generous spiralled route that wraps along the building’s perimeter and meanders up through various functions at each level. Each function is partially located inside, with a portion situated on covered terraces in an unusual semi-open condition benefitting from Mexico’s year-long moderate climate.
Large open stairs connect the terraces, creating a continuous open territory that can be programmed and appropriated by its users as a stage, exhibition display, for social events or to meet and socialise. These activities animate the elevations of the building, clearly visible from the street, and from the inside of the park. The pure structure is completed by glazed facades set back from the slab edge to provide shade and privacy, whilst the more public functions occur along the active edges. A truly transparent and lively building is achieved that emanates outwards to the surrounding city.
‘Archivo diseño y arquitectura’ is an exclusive and vast collection of design items that will be displayed in open galleries enclosed only by glass in clear opposition to the traditional walled exhibition space. This open condition allows visitors to enjoy views into the exhibition areas both at a distance when approaching the building as well as when passing by more closely on the vertical public route. As the final destination point, a new “City Floor” is located on the building’s top level with a publicly accessible exhibition about the history and future of Mexico City against the backdrop of magnificent skyline views.
A wide spectrum of communal life forms an integral part of the project. Inside the green park-like terrain and immediately adjacent to the building, new multi-functional spaces for workshops, dance classes and socialising, as well as outdoor areas for urban gardening, serve as new destinations for the local community.
Project type: Open archive of a design collection and spaces for cultural programs Project name: Archivo Location: Mexico City Architects: Zeller & Moye: Christoph Zeller, Ingrid Moye, Directors Team: Omar G. Muñoz, Marielle Rivero Collaborators: FR-EE: Fernando Romero, Director Program: Permanent & temporary exhibition spaces, library, multi-use space, workshops, commerce and offices Status: In development Size (m2 and ft2): 3,000 m2 / 32,300 ft2 Date: 2013 – 2016 Cost: USD $4,000,000
Mexican architect Frida Escobedo has transformed the former home and studio of painter David Alfaro Siqueiros into a public gallery and encased the entire complex behind a triangulated concrete lattice (+ slideshow).
Young architect Frida Escobeda reworked the complex built in the 1960s by late artist and political activist Siqueiros as a mural painting workshop, creating an art gallery and artists’ residence in the small Mexican city of Cuernavaca.
A wall of perforated concrete blocks was build around the perimeter of the La Tallera de Siqueiros complex, forming an enclosure around the buildings that groups them together but also allows light to filter through.
Two large murals painted by Siqueiros were moved from their original positions around a private courtyard to frame a new entranceway – a move that Escobeda says was key in opening the complex up to the public.
“Rotating the murals ignites the symbolic elements of the facade’s architectural syntax, altering the typical relationship between gallery and visitor,” she said.
In their new positions, the murals provide a framework for the cafe and bookshop, but also help to separate the gallery building from the old house, which now functions as a base for artists in residence.
Siqueiros’s former workshop remains largely unchanged but had been coated with white paint to create a neutral gallery space. Extensions have been built from concrete, with an exposed surface that reveals the markings of its timber formwork.
La Tallera de Siqueiros was one of 14 architecture projects shortlisted for Designs of the Year 2014 earlier this week.
La Tallera Siqueiros generates a relationship that reconciles a museum and a muralist’s workshop with the surrounding area by way of two simple strokes: opening the museum courtyard onto an adjacent plaza and rotating a series of murals from their original position. The space itself was built in 1965 and became the house and studio of the muralist David Alfaro Siqueiros during the final years of his life.
La Tallera is “an idea Diego Rivera and I came up with in the 1920s to create a real muralist workshop where new techniques in paint, materials, geometry, perspective and so on would be taught”. This is how Siqueiros himself defined this workplace, now a museum, workshop and artist’s residency program focused on art production and criticism. By opening up the courtyard, the museum yields a space for shared activity, while also appropriating the plaza.
The murals, originally intended for the outside area, now have a dual role: firstly, as a visual and programmatic link with the plaza by encompassing the public areas of the museum (café, bookshop and store) and secondly as a wall/program that separates the artist’s residence from the museum and workshop.
Rotating the murals ignites the symbolic elements of the facade’s architectural syntax, altering the typical relationship between gallery and visitor. Like the exterior, the gallery space, from both an exhibition design and artistic perspective, though unfolding, generates new relationships and spatial connections.
The distribution of these spaces and the interplay of planes – in murals and walls among others – is revealed in crossing a perimeter lattice that demarcates the urban surroundings – a single horizontal sculptural piece that contains and displays Siqueiros’ work.
Architect: Frida Escobedo Design team: Frida Escobedo, Rodolfo Díaz Cervantes, Adrian Moreau, Adiranne Montemayor, Daniela Barrera, Fernando Cabrera, Luis Arturo García Castro Client: Sala de Arte Público Siqueiros – La Tallera Type: Public building / Museum Adaptation
Consulting: BulAu (Carlos Coronel / Hector de la Peña) Building contractor: Francisco Alvarez Uribe (1st phase), Grupo Mexicano (2nd phase) Construction Supervision: Fernando Cabrera, Javier Arreola, Frida Escobedo Furniture design: Frida Escobedo Total Floor Area: 2,890sqm Budget: $2,240,000 USD Invited competition, 1st. Place Cuernavaca, Morelos Mexico, 2012
Portuguese studio Armazenar Ideias used blocks of white marble to build this cube-shaped mausoleum for a family living in the city of Póvoa de Varzim (+ slideshow).
Rather than replicating the classical structures typically built for Portuguese families, Pedro Matos of Armazenar Ideias wanted to design a more modern and simplistic vault for the Gomes family, who originated from Venezuela.
“There are different values to be represented in architecture now,” Matos told Dezeen. “Not so much the old solemnity and ‘baroque thinking’ associated to death, but a much more simple and essential way to interpret it, detached from the excess of symbolism.”
The architect sourced the purest marble he could to build the walls of the mausoleum, creating a grid of white squares around the rear and sides of the structure.
“The project tries to relate itself with the sacred theme,” said Matos. “The facades carry the weight of a temple and are made of the whitest marble we could find, the colour of purity to Catholicism.”
Some of these panels are slightly displaced, allowing narrow openings to puncture the rear wall.
To contrast with the bright marble, the facade of the vault is made from reflective black glass, intended to reflect the surroundings and give privacy to the interior.
“The black mirror asks everyone to look at themselves before entering,” added Matos.
Darker marble lines the interior of the building and a single brass cross is positioned against the far wall.
Local firm Brasil Arquitetura designed the expansion of the existing Praça das Artes complex, situated in a densely built neighbourhood of São Paulo, around a central plaza and paved thoroughfare that extends to the streets bordering three sides of the site.
A complex arrangement of modular buildings interspersed among the existing urban fabric accommodates various events spaces, facilities and infrastructure for the centre, which is home to several musical and dance organisations.
In some places the new additions project outwards to create sheltered walkways or hover in gaps between other buildings, marking entrances to the centre and presenting a uniform presence on all sides of the site.
“The new buildings are mainly positioned along the boundaries of the site and, to a large degree, lifted off the ground,” said the architects. “Thus, it was possible to create open spaces and generous circulation areas, resulting in the plaza which gives the project its name.”
The historic facades of a former musical conservatory and a cinema have been retained and integrated into the scheme, with the conservatory undergoing a programme of restoration including the renovation of its first floor concert hall and the creation of an exhibition space on the raised ground floor.
“These historic buildings are physical and symbolic records, remains of the city of the end of the nineteenth and the beginning of the twentieth century,” the architects explained. “Restored in all aspects and converted for new uses, they will sustain a life to be invented. Incorporated into the project, they became unconfined from neighbouring constructions and gained new meanings.”
The new buildings are predominantly rendered in concrete coloured with ochre pigment, with a tower housing offices, toilets, changing rooms and building services standing out due to its red pigmented concrete surfaces.
An angular staircase encased in concrete and glass connects the plaza with the first floor of the tower, providing access to the concert hall.
Windows scattered across the facades sit in places where acoustic performance is a key consideration, while floating floor slabs, acoustic walls and ceilings made from gypsum and rock wool also help to optimise acoustics throughout the building.
PRAÇA DAS ARTES Performing Arts Centre – São Paulo
“… one thing is the physical place, different to the place for the project. The place is not a point of departure, but rather a point of arrival. Realising what this place is, is already doing the project.” – Álvaro Siza
Some architectural projects are dominant in large open spaces, in favoured conditions and visible from a distance. Other projects need to adapt to adverse conditions, minimal spaces, small wedges of long plots, leftovers between existing constructions, where the parameters for developing the project are dictated by these factors.
Praça das Artes is part of the latter category. It is not by a voluntary decision or by opting for one or the other approach, by this or the other direction to be taken, that lead us to a conceptual choice and conclusion. It is the very nature of the place; our comprehension of it as a space resulting from many years – or centuries – of socio-political factors that shaped the city.
To understand the place not only as a physical object, as Siza says, but as a space of tension, with conflicts of interest, characterised by underuse or even abandonment, all this counts. If on the one hand the Praça das Artes project has to account for the demands of a programme of various new functions, related to the arts of music and dance, it also has to clearly and transformatively respond to an existing physical and spatial situation with an intense life and a strongly present neighbourhood. Moreover, it must create new public common spaces using the urban geography, local history and contemporary values of public life.
We may say that, in this case, to design a project is to capture and to invent a place at the same time and in the same strategy.
The place of the project
The physical place, in the centre of São Paulo, is made up of a series of plots that are connected in the middle of the urban block and have fronts to three streets. This situation is a result of the mistakes of an urbanism that was always subordinated to the idea of the plot, the logic of private property. As almost the entire city centre, the area is chaotic in terms of building volumes and common sense principles of sunlight and natural ventilation. It is an accumulation of underused or vacant spaces, abandoned, forgotten, awaiting to be of interest to the city once again.
The architecture of the former Dramatic and Musical Conservatory and the Cairo Cinema portray marks and memories of different eras. At the same time, the place presents a privileged situation in view of its surrounding humanity, being full of diversity, vitality, a mixture of social classes, conflicts and tensions typical of a large city, living together and the search for tolerance. Shortly, it is a place rich in urbanity.
The programme
The project has a rich and complex programme with a focus on musical and dance activities, besides public uses of coexistence, which permeate the entire complex.
The module of the Resident Performing Arts companies houses the Professional bodies: the Municipal Symphonic Orchestra, the Experimental Repertory Orchestra, the Lyrical Choir, the São Paulo Choir, the City Ballet Company and the Municipal String Quartet. The module faces rua Formosa (Anhangabaú) and incorporates the façade of the former Cairo Cinema.
The module of the Schools and public uses accommodates educational and common spaces – the Municipal Music School, the Municipal Dance School, a restaurant and common space. The module occupies volumes that lift up from the ground on avenida São João and rua Conselheiro Crispiniano. The street level underneath the building volumes is practically unobstructed. The kiosks along the edge of the plaza, newspaper booths, cafés, snack bars, a library – are a continuation of the existing uses along the street, bringing the urban life to the interior of the new architectural complex.
The module with a large public car parking occupies the underground floors on avenida São João (the former Saci Cinema) and rua Conselheiro Crispiniano.
The module of the Conservatory includes the restoration and adaptation of the former Dramatic and Musical Conservatory and a new tower on the plot next to it, facing avenida São João. On the raised ground floor of the historic building there is a space for exhibitions and events. The concert hall on the first floor was carefully restored to once again stage musical shows. The new tower next to the Conservatory houses the arts collections and historic archives of all the bodies of the project. The addition to the historic building houses the vertical circulation system, administrative offices and building services.
The Project
Since the initial site study, the former Conservatory, restored and converted into a concert hall and an exhibition space, represented the anchor for the project. The new buildings are mainly positioned along the boundaries of the site and, to a large degree, lifted off the ground. Thus, it was possible to create open spaces and generous circulation areas, resulting in the plaza which gives the project its name. This paved plaza can be accessed from rua Conselheiro Crispiniano, avenida São João and, in the next construction phase, also from rua Formosa (Anhangabaú) via a flight of stairs, which connect the different levels of the streets.
The new volumes reach from the centre outwards towards the three adjacent streets. A series of interconnected buildings in exposed concrete, with ochre pigments, accommodate the various functions and is the main element establishing a new dialogue with the neighbourhood and with the remaining constructions that will be incorporated into the project, the former Conservatory and the façade and foyer of the former Cairo Cinema.
These historic buildings are physical and symbolic records, remains of the city of the end of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th century. Restored in all aspects and converted for new uses, they will sustain a life to be invented. Incorporated them into the project, they became unconfined from neighbouring constructions and gained new meanings. The historic building on Avenida São João came into being as a commercial exhibition space for pianos in 1986, then gained an extension to become a hotel and shortly after was transformed into a musical conservatory, even before the creation of the Municipal Theatre, for which it is a precursor, in certain ways, and the training centre for the musicians who would then make up its orchestra.
A new addition to the Conservatory was built, which works as a pivot point for all departments and sectors within the complex. All administrative offices, vertical circulation (stairs and lifts), entrance and distribution halls, toilets, changing rooms, and shafts for building services are concentrated in this building, which is the only one coloured with red pigments. Towards the plaza, a sculptural triangular staircase built in concrete and glass allows for a direct access between the level of the plaza and the first floor, where the concert hall is located.
Besides the coloured concrete, the windows represent an important part of project. They are either externally attached or placed within the opening. In the rooms with special acoustic requirements, the windows are fixed and attached to the building from the outside with 16mm-thick glass; in other spaces awning windows are used.
In order to satisfy the high requirements in preventing the propagation of noise and vibrations, specific details were used, such as floating slabs, acoustic walls and ceilings made of gypsum panels and rock wool, a system called acoustic isolation.
The administrative office areas of the extension to the Conservatory are equipped with a raised floor, which means that electrical, logistical, and communication installations can be adapted freely for allowing a greater flexibility in the arrangements of the work spaces. It was possible to achieve large spans without intermediate columns by using shear walls, thus guaranteeing complete flexibility of the internal spaces and unobstructed external spaces on the plaza level.
The not-yet-realised interior of Herzog & de Meuron’s Elbphilharmonie concert hall in Hamburg can now be toured by computer and tablet users via a fly-through model created by digital studio Neutral (+ movie).
Neutral decided to instead create an interactive 3D model that allows users to take in 360-degree views of different rooms, gradually making their way towards the 2150-seat auditorium at the heart of the building.
“Users experience the spaces as they build up to the grand hall,” said co-founder Christian Grou. “The novel 3D technique developed by Neutral expands traditional architectural narrative, transposing the user into future spaces, giving architects new possibilities for articulating visions long before they become reality.”
Spaces featured include the main atrium, stairwells and a multi-purpose room offering a panoramic view of the river. They can be viewed by visiting the Elbphilharmonie 3D website or by downloading an app for Apple or Android devices.
The Elbphilharmonie is being built over an existing brick warehouse built in 1963 by Hamburg architect Werner Kallmorgen. The new upper section is made of glass and was completed last month.
Elbphilharmonie photographed as the last facade element was set in place
Once open, the building will offer three concert halls, a hotel, apartments and a public square elevated 37 metres above the adjacent river.
Twenty-two years after completing the exhibition venue in its home city, OMA returned to improve the energy efficiency of the building, rework some of the circulation routes and implement new security measures to prevent further break-ins.
“The renovation demonstrates the possibility of updating the building to meet contemporary requirements, whilst retaining the original concept of an exhibition machine,” said OMA partner Ellen van Loon, who led the project.
The refurbishment included adding a second entrance, making it possible to access auditorium and exhibition spaces independently.
Existing reception, restaurant and shop areas were integrated into the main route through the building, which OMA says “will enable the Kunsthal to evolve with the growing need for economic independence of cultural institutions”.
High-performance insulation materials were installed around the iconic glass facades and the roof, while other improvements include energy-efficient lighting, climate-regulating systems and sub-dividing partitions.
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