Hasta La Ideas

Gigantic tree-like columns support the overhanging roof of the Qatar National Convention Centre by Japanese architect Arata Isozaki, captured in these new shots by Portuguese photographer Nelson Garrido.

The building was designed by Arata Isozaki to reference the Sidrat al-Muntaha, a holy Islamic tree that is believed to symbolise the end of the seventh heaven.

A pair of sprawling steel columns create the illusion of two trees in front of the large rectangular glass facade, supporting a roof canopy that extends out to offer shelter to a public plaza in front of the building.

“The tree is a beacon of learning and comfort in the desert and a haven for poets and scholars who gathered beneath its branches to share knowledge,” said the architects.

Located on the 1000-hectare campus of the Qatar Foundation in Doha, the Qatar National Convention Centre opened to the public in December 2011. It is the largest exhibition centre in the Middle East and can accommodate up to 7000 people in its three main halls.

Visitors enter the building through a large reception hall that spans both the full width and height of the building. Steel-clad staircases beyond lead to floors both above and below ground, and are flanked by a wall of colourful tessellated shapes.

Other spaces include a 4000-seat conference hall, a 2300-seat theatre, nine exhibition halls and a series of 52 meetings rooms that can be used for various events and activities.

Japanese architect Arata Isozaki was awarded the RIBA Gold Medal in 1986. His best-known works include the Oita Prefectural Library and Kamioka Town Hall, while more recent projects include the Maranello library in Italy and a modular office block in Spain. See more architecture by Arata Isozaki »

See more photography by Nelson Garrido on Dezeen, or on the photographer’s website.

Read on for more information from the design team:

Qatar National Convention Centre

QNCC was designed by the renowned Japanese architect Arata Isozaki. Officially opened on 4 December 2011, the Qatar National Convention Centre (QNCC) is one of the most sophisticated convention and exhibition centres built to date, boasting iconic design bearing the ‘Sidra Tree’.

The spectacular façade resembles two intertwined trees reaching up to support the exterior canopy. The tree is a beacon of learning and comfort in the desert and a haven for poets and scholars who gathered beneath its branches to share knowledge.

QNCC was conceived with a focus on sustainability. The Centre was successfully built according to U.S. Green Building Council’s Leadership in Energy and Environment Design (LEED) gold certification standards. The building is designed to operate efficiently with innovations such as water conservation and energy-efficient fixtures.

A member of the Qatar Foundation, QNCC features a conference hall of 4,000-seat theatre style, a 2,300-seat theatre, three auditoria and a total of 52 flexible meetings rooms to accommodate a wide range of events. It also houses 40,000 square metres of exhibition space over nine halls, and is adaptable to seat 10,000 for a conference or banquet. The Centre’s stunning architecture and cutting edge facilities are ideal for hosting local, regional and international conventions and exhibitions, gala events, theatrical productions and banquet functions.

The post Qatar National Convention Centre
by Arata Isozaki appeared first on Dezeen.

The curved wings of this house in Kuwait converge around an outdoor swimming pool (photos by Nelson Garrido).

Designed by Spanish-Kuwaiti studio AGi Architects, the three-storey house comprises two curling blocks, each with cantilevering upper storeys.

An access corridor creates a spine through the centre of the building, providing entrances at both the front and back.

Other projects by AGi Architects include a house that emits a cooling mist – see more here.

Here’s some more text from the architects:

Mop House

The site can be accessed from either side of the surrounding streets to allow for both a private and a public entrance. After moving along a curved wall that guides the visitor from the exterior of the plot into the center, one reaches the main entrance into the house.

Upon entering through the main door frame, the space opens up to reveal the swimming pool and the public living areas of the house.

The form of the residence is reminiscent of the movement patterns of a mop, from which flexible volumes are organized diagonally around a central axis.

This axis twists upwards to generate spaces that are channeling the vision in different directions: the front side of the house, side gardens and angles of the back street.

The circulation surrounding the patio on the first floor contrives of a succession of living spaces, which not only communicate to one another, but also relate visually the interior of the patio to the exterior.

The first floor overhangs to shade the rooms on the ground floor, and the patio is designed to define a break in between the volumes of the house, which subtly reveals a side garden.

The residence was originally planned to house one family with two small children, however in the future it could be divided into two units. The structure of the house and the distribution of the circulation, as well as the positioning of the entrances and lift allows for guaranteed privacy between parents and children in the prospective future.

Type: Housing | 1300 sqm
Location: Kuwait
Date: 2006-2011
Client: Private
Cost: Confidential

Design Team: Joaquin Pérez-Goicoechea, Nasser B. Abulhasan
Architectural team: Gwenola Kergall, Georg Thesing, Lucía Sánchez Salmón, María Eugenia Díaz, José Ángel del Campo, Daniel Muñoz Medranda, Hanan Alkouh, Nicolás Martín
Engineering: Babu Abraham, Abdul Hafiz Mohammed
Drafting: Robert Varguese, Naseeba Shaji
Consultants: Arturo Macusi, Joseph TomasInterior Design: AGi architects
Supplier: Gunni & Trentino

Architectural photographer Nelson Garrido has sent us these photographs of a museum with a carved stone facade in the Côa Valley, Portugal, designed by Portuguese architects Camilo Rebelo and Tiago Pimentel.

Located on a world heritage site with impressive mountain scenery, Museu de Foz Coa displays local Paleolithic art.

The interior walls of the museum are of exposed concrete, with light reflected around the spaces by triangular mirrors.

More photography by Nelson Garrido on Dezeen »

More stories about museums on Dezeen »

Here is some more information from the architects:

The Museum of Art and Archaeology of the Côa Valley, by Camilo Rebelo and Tiago Pimentel, two young Portuguese architects, was built to hold and promote Paleolithic art discovers in Côa Valley.

Being perhaps man’s first land art manifestation, Côa engravings were classified as World Heritage Site in December 1998.

The Museum design concept starts with the idea of conceiving a museum as an “installation on the landscape”.

Like a “stone carved in the landscape” with a monolithic triangular shape which results directly from the valley’s confluences, the building resembles an aircraft carrier.

The museum entrance platform was conceived as a contemplation moment of the awesome and impressive scenery of mountains, valleys and Douro and Côa rivers.

In the interior spaces the architects further developed the concept of “carved stone” creating pathways and spaces that evokes the ambience and intimacy of caves in which light and possible visual relations with the outside appear in a timely and unexpected way.

The joint between the concrete and the local stone’s texture and color, using concrete made with shale pigment of local stone, was the solution found to materialize the concept of “stone carved in the landscape” giving the museum building the expression of a rock which is integrated and makes itself part of the landscape.

See also:

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Lille Métropole Musée by Manuelle Gautrand	Mimesis Museum by Siza, Castanheira & Kim	Liangzhu Culture Museum by David Chipperfield

Photographer Nelson Garrido has sent us some images of  a house designed by AGi Architects located next to a beach in Bnaider, Kuwait.

Called Star House, the side of the house facing the beach has floor to ceiling windows, affording panoramic views of the sea.

The design was initially for three detached houses, but the client decided on a single residence with two bungalows and a boathouse.

Photographs are courtesy of Nelson Garrido.

See more photography by Nelson Garrido »

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The following information is from the architects:

Project Description

Nestled into the landscape, this beach house blends with the natural topography of the coastline of Kuwait. It slowly unfolds itself to the visitor, as it is approached from the desert.

Upon entry, one gets glimpses of the sea whilst going down to the public space of the chalet. On this lower level, the house extends into the landscape and the sea, accentuated by an infinity pool in the garden.

The private side of the house, located at the entry level, is concealed from the visitors by a bamboo wall. Bedrooms and private living spaces remain isolated from daily activities.

A three-way stair, placed at the center of building, organizes the different flows of family, friends and guests.

The organizational and formal structure of the beach house is dictated by the ability to maximize views to the sea.

The initial design was master planned for three detached dwellings, each with extensive sea views while simultaneously achieving privacy from one another.

The client, instead, opted for a single house, two bungalows and a boathouse, with possible plans for expansion in the future.

Click for larger image

Project Name: Star House
Type: Housing | 5000 sqm
Location: Bnaider, Kuwait
Date: 2007/2009
Client: Private

Design Team: Dr. Nasser B. Abulhasan, Joaquin Perez-Goicoechea, Georg Thesing, Bruno Martins, Alfonso Gomes, Daniel Muñoz Medranda,
Robert A. Varghese, Abdul Hafiz Mohammed, Moyra Montoya Moyano

Company Profile

AGi architects is an international design firm providing comprehensive services in Architecture, Planning, Urban Design, Interior Design, Design Research and Consulting. An integration of skills allows the creation of places that provide lasting value for clients through distinctive and imaginative solutions. AGi architects was established in 2005 by Joaquin Perez-Goicoechea and Nasser B. Abulhasan.

Click for larger image

AGi architects has introduced exceptional design, management and technical approaches to its projects in the Europe and the Middle East from its offices in the cities of Madrid and Kuwait. With a multidisciplinary staff of over 30 professionals including architects, planners, landscape architects, interior designers and other specialists, individual members of the design team can be carefully selected to reflect the necessary skills for the scope and scale of the project. Great emphasis is placed on continuity so that work is client driven rather than project centered. Clients work with architects they know and over time, the team is able to develop a thorough understanding of the clients’ business objectives and priorities and is able to make more effective contributions to their projects.

Click for larger image

See also:

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Black & White House by AGi architects	More photography by Nelson Garrido	More photography on Dezeen

Photographer Nelson Garrido has sent us his photographs of a visitors’ centre by Paulo Gomes that’s nestled into the rock face at an archaeological site in Murça, Portugal.

The back wall of the interior is formed by the rock itself, while a glazed facade affords views down the hill.

The concrete structure houses an information point, reception, cafe and toilets, plus a display of objects excavated from the site.

The text that follows is from the architect:

This building project works for the infrastructure to support the archaeological site of Crasto Lofts, consists of building for the reception and interpretation center, parking, paths to visit the site and outdoor equipment and safety signage route.

The archaeological site is located on a hill with 590m elevation on the ridge, southeast of the village of Haystacks, and the area of the “hot land” of the county Murça.

In September 1995 held the first archaeological work to support IPPAR, the National Board for Scientific Research and Technology and the Municipality of Murça – City Hall.

The draft recovery of archaeological study and dissemination of archaeological site was the construction of a building for the reception of visitors and interpretation of the site, defining the routes of access, signage and support equipment and a car park.

Location of archaeological and occupation process

The Castro Lofts is situated in the parish of Haystacks, county Murça and occupies the summit of an imposing quartzite massif located between the villages of Haystacks, and Monfebres Varges. The perspective view of the sunset, we can retain from the cold land of the county, shows a lot of sharp ridge as a gray crystal. Incorporates an archaeological area exceeding 2.5 hectares in area bounded by a stone embankment.

The Crasto was occupied during the following periods:

1 – In the Chalcolithic from the beginning to the end of March. Rd millennium, the structures are implanted a constructive upper deck (sort of “Acropolis”), between 575m and 590m in elevation, much-upright, sustained and flanked by a powerful stone embankment . Another platform, bottom, between 565m and 570m in elevation, is developed around that slope, surrounding the central hill district in north-east, and is, in turn, bounded by an even more powerful stony slope, which separates this built space surrounding area. In both structures are residential structures in the 3rd millennium BC.

2 – During the Iron Age, in 300 BC, the site was chosen for implementation of a “village”. This is a village of farmers, shepherds, metallurgists and manufacturers of glass ornaments. During the year 400/500 that their occupation lasted, on both platforms space “urban” has been subject to constant changes.

3 – Around the first century, its inhabitants built a system of walls on the top line of the embankments of the Chalcolithic period. There are two walls: an inner, fitted with a monumental entrance and surrounding the upper deck or “Acropolis”, one external, which borders the village from outside.

Central reception and interpretation

The building intended to accommodate the interpretive center of the archaeological site, located northwest of the fort hill.

The concept of the project study is organic food demand and an installation process of animal “asado”. The shape is a parallelepiped long to prepare a route. It nests in the depression between two hills, squeezing his hard parallelepiped shape against the rock mass and seeing the gross cubic structure torn threads against the laminated shale.

If we see, who first built here, superimposed stones to the slopes to define an “outside” and an “inside”, who came here later built small vertical walls on the tops of hedges and stone walls in place to defend itself.

At present, this structure is here to welcome, explain and explain. The place is not just a refuge, the village, the factory. It is place to find men, spaces and times that are a part of us.

The building is worked in the constructive expression of mater as a tent, reinforced concrete, supported by the front glass and metal sections with my back to the burrow fraga.

The entrance is where the curtain rises. Is made by the glass surface, directly into the reception and exhibition hall, which also serves as access to outdoor living space overlooking the entire landscape north of Castro.

The space hosts a small exhibition consisting of different materials and objects from the archaeological dig, and has a video installation where they spend several times the recovery site. The building will have sanitation facilities for visitors as well as a space bar linked to the reception. The interior space is open and fluid and enclosures are the only sanitary facilities and space for the water tank.

Access to the parking building will be only pedestrian and road winds its aim is to lead the visitor to observe more carefully the site and relationship with the extraordinary air gap Tua River valley. The technical building is located 30m north of the main building, would be fully buried. This building will install a generator capable of supplying electricity to the main building.

Architectural project: Paulo Alexandre Gomes Fernandes
Project Expertise: Norvir-Consultores de Engenharia, SA

See also:

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Suncheon International Wetlands Center by G.Lab*	Kielder Observatory by Charles Barclay Architects	More photographs by Nelson Garrido