The path of an architect, Part 2

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Belgian ‘Museum Aan de Stroom’ Completed in Antwerp

Belgian ‘Museum Aan de Stroom’ Completed in Antwerp

The new Museum Aan de Stroom (MAS), designed by Rotterdam-based Neutelings Riedijk Architects as a sixty-meter-high tower landmark in Antwerp, Belgium, has recently been completed. During one week in May, the public could visit the new building on guided tours. Now the MAS will be closed for another year to move the collection and set up the exhibitions. Official opening is foreseen in Spring 2011.
MAS seeks to become a contemporary museum of, for and about the city and the world. Visitors will discover how Antwerp and the world have been indisputably linked with one another for hundreds of years. In it, they will recognize hand prints as the traces left by others among us, and vice versa, they will understand Antwerp’s imprint on the world. The new museum gathers ethnological, maritime, ethnic and art historic collections in a new surprising story, so MAS announces.
Following is a description of the museum is from Neutelings Riedijk Architects:
THE LOCATION
The new museum is between the old docks in the heart of “Het Eilandje”. This old port area is the major urban renewal project in the center of Antwerp and is developing as a vibrant new city district.
THE BUILDING
The MAS is designed as a sixty-meter-high tower. Ten gigantic natural stone boxes are piled up as a physical demonstration of the gravity of history, full of historical objects that our ancestors left behind. It is a storehouse of history in the heart of the old docks.
Each floor of the tower is twisted a quarter turn, so that creates a huge spiral staircase. This spiral space, which is bordered by a wall of corrugated glass, is a public city gallery. A route of escalators carry visitors up from the square to the top of the tower. The spiral tower tells the story of the city, its port, and its inhabitants.

At each floor the visitor can enter the museum hall and go into the history of the dead city, while on his way to top breathtaking panoramas of the living city itself unfolds. At the top of the tower are a restaurant, a party room and a panoramic terrace, where the present is celebrated and the future planned.
MATERIALS AND ORNAMENTS
Façades, floors, walls and ceilings of the tower were completely covered with large slabs of red Indian sandstone hand cleaved, making the image of a monumental stone sculpture. The four colors of the stone slabs based on a computerized pattern are dividend on the façade.
The spiral gallery is lined with a huge curtain of corrugated glass. With its play of light and shadow, transparency and translucency of the undulating glass facade brings a lighthearted counterweight to the gravity of the stone sculpture.
To soften the monumental tower volume a pattern of metal ornaments has been put like a veil over the façade. The ornaments are shaped like hands, the logo of the City of Antwerp. Inside the building, this pattern continued through metal medallions, molded by a design of Tom Hautekiet with a text of Tom Lanoye.
THE SQUARE
The Museum square at the foot of the tower is an integral part of the design. The square is decorated in the same red stone as the tower and surrounded by pavilions and terraces, as an urban space for events and outdoor exhibitions. The central part of the square is half sunken and forms a framework for a large mosaic of Luc Tuymans.
Project Details:
Program: New Development | Museum for City History Antwerp, Museum, Restaurant, Party Room, Pavilions, Plaza
Surface area: 19,557 m2 Floor surface, 11,415 m2 Outdoor construction
Construction costs: € 33.409.000 (including construction of the pavilions and plaza, excluding design, scenography, VAT, fees and indexing)
Location: Hanzestedenplaats | 2000 Antwerp | Belgium
Design: International Competition | 1st Prize | April 2000
Start construction: October 2006
Realization: February 2010
Architectural design: Neutelings Riedijk Architects | Rotterdam | The Netherlands

The path of an architect, Part 1

Department of Architecture’s Hilton Pattaya

more info visit :http://www.archicentral.com/department-of-architecture%E2%80%99s-hilton-pattaya-27553/

Located in the Pattaya beach, the Hilton Hotel offers one of the freshest and most luxury concepts available in the region. The Department Of Architecture’s architects are the responsible of creating outstanding design in the most important parts of the building. These parts are the First Floor lobby, the Main lobby, the bar and various recreational areas. The building has been effectively rated as outstanding thanks to the great designing skills of these architects. The team spent a lot of time on creating the plans and designing brand new concepts of interior designing. It is for sure that most of the things that are available in the Hilton hotel are not available in any other place in the world. This is because the architects on the team set the objective of creating unique styles that would be never seen before by people. The building has a great view to the beach in front of it. This was a reason for the architects to create an interior design that had something to do with ocean and tropical climates. The team started from scratch with a clear concept in mind. This is what they have managed to create; a top quality building that offers great luxuries to people visiting it. Of course, the hotel is more expensive than a common Hilton hotel in a normal city.
For example, the lobby and the bar are both a combination of waves and sandy colors. The walls and roof give a very soft sensation, which gives a great effect to the bar, especially during the night time. The place is perfect for those moments of music and crowd. However, while the pace is almost empty, It gives a very calmed sensation that can be enjoyed at any time of the day. The lobby, which is the first thing people, sees when entering the hotel has to be one of the most sensational things inside the building. Let’s remember that the first impression is always very important when it comes to hotels. People never expect any good experiences from an hotel that looks mediocre from the first step inside. So, the lobby was a very important place to design. However the Department of Architecture is extremely good at its job. The lobby is considered to be one of the most thematic and attractive places in the area.
When designing an interior, it is very important to consider several things. Some architects are only worried about the way colors are combined, and whether they match or not. However, there are other things to carry about. For example, it is very important for an interior to be inviting and personal. If an interior feels somehow indifferent, it will be very hard to make people feel comfortable inside. A combination of colors, textures and appreciation angles is what makes an interior a nice place to be in. The team has managed to accomplish all those goals and design the best lobby of all Hilton’s history.
Other linking parts in the hotel, which are usually nothing more than hallways, are very well decorated as well. There are ceiling arrangements that include very unusual light patterns all over the place. This gives it a very wavy, ocean like style. This is what makes the place very thematic, as it is located in front of the beach. The place has been designed to be both simple and complex at the same time. This way the concept is kept fresh, but also very luxury.
The Hilton Pattaya is definitely a place to visit sometime in the next couple of years.

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(Stoke-on-Trent Bus Station Competition Public Choice Awarded To Austin-Smith: Lord)

Austin-Smith: Lord has recently taken the public choice prize for the Stoke-on-Trent Bus Station Competition.
Austin-Smith: Lord was one of six architectural practices chosen from over 43 international entrants to participate in a limited invitation design competition for the new £15m Stoke bus station. Other shortlisted practices included Wilkinson Eyre, John McAslan + Partners, Grimshaw, BDP and Zaha Hadid.
Following the formal submission the team were delighted to see that the practice had topped both the Council’s own public vote and The Architects’ Journal’s peer vote when the schemes were anonymously placed on websites for an ‘X-Factor’ style vote on the preferred solution.

“It was good to get the recognition of the public and our peers, however we do take this kind of thing in the spirit in which it was intended. It was a welcome diversion to come in and see how we were doing whilst we waited for the interview and it gave us a lift knowing we were obviously doing something right,” explains Transport and Infrastructure Cornerstone, Richard Cronin.
Unfortunately the practice was unsuccessful in the final selection with Grimshaw Architects being appointed by the Council and the Developer for the adjacent East West Centre who are partially funding the scheme.
An upbeat Richard Cronin had this to say, “It was a pleasure to take part in such a challenging and interesting exercise and to see how the other teams approached the problems posed by the site both in terms of its operational layout and its historical mining use. We knew that looking at a drive-through solution was a riskier option but genuinely felt it was the right solution for that site, utilising the ring road, and ensuring separation of the passengers from the buses was key to our approach. We pride ourselves on our ability to take another look at the problem to try and see if there is a better way of doing it. That’s what we as Austin-Smith:Lord bring to clients in the sector, it’s about a full understanding of the operational issues and an ability to analyse the patterns of use to deliver the safest and best architecture at the right price.”
The Austin-Smith:Lord team consisted of JMP Transport Engineers, Curtins Structural Engineers, Hilson Moran, Gleeds and RLB. Following the 40 day period to prepare detailed submissions, which included proposed layouts and external designs, residents were consulted about the designs and their views formed part of the selection process with the final decision being made by a panel of judges.
Selection criteria included a number of factors including each design’s philosophy in relation to the context of the site, delivery within budgetary constraints, response to the management of pedestrian flow and potential pedestrian/vehicle conflict and maximizing the capacity of the site.
Austin-Smith:Lord were the only team to suggest an alternative to the Drive In-Reverse Out layouts specified within the brief by proposing an innovative drive-through solution which was felt would provide a significantly lower accident risk, given the nature of the site. Building on the successful layout at Wolverhampton Interchange, which was designed by Austin-Smith:Lord in 2009, the team developed a strategy for a 14-bay drive-through facility which met and exceeded the operational capacity requirements of the brief, together with an additional strategy to expand by a further 30% capacity in future, if required.
The project location was entirely appropriate for designing a ‘stand-out’ building and the City’s history of pottery and chinaware (with manufacturers such as Spode and Wedgewood) was echoed in the design of a flowing carapace of lightweight ferroconcrete to suggest the qualities and delicacy of fine bone china, whilst providing a shelter from rain and snow to the pedestrian concourse. Natural ventilation, rainwater harvesting and air-source heat pumps were incorporated into the design to meet sustainability requirements.
Although function and safety were critical, the regenerative effects that the new bus station could bring were immediately clear. An orientation was developed to place the main entrance to the bus station on the link between the civic buildings and the proposed precinct to the east. An advantage of the revised bus routing was that this link could be kept truly pedestrian, free of all traffic, with the exception of the occasional service vehicle. This also enabled a free flow of pedestrians from the bus station into the proposed market square to the north, which in turn, connects to the city centre.
A robust cost plan, developed closely with Gleeds, incorporating tender returns from another similar local scheme, ensured the £15m budget was not exceeded.
The new, 7,300m2 public transport interchange will act as a catalyst for future regeneration which will unlock delivery of the new £250m East West precinct development by Realis Estates. Construction is planned to start on site in 2011 with completion in 2012.

DUBAI CITY

"The world biggest hotel - the first 10-star hotel"

How to architect & golaces

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Meudon-la-Forêt’s New Cultural Center- Serero Architects

 more info: http://www.archicentral.com/serero-architects-to-design-meudon-la-forets-new-cultural-center-26832/#more-26832

Serero Architects To Design Meudon-la-Forêt’s New Cultural Center

Winner of the competition for the new cultural center of Meudon-la-Forêt, France, is architectural firm Serero Architects. They designed a building wrapped by an organic concrete shell.
The project will be presented at the mediatheque of Meudon from June 22nd until July 10th, 2010.

The following is a detailed project description from Serero Architects:
Windows derived from tree canopy
The project is inspired by nature and more specifically by the tree, not in its simple symbolic shape, but in its deep link with architecture: in the relationship between structure and envelope, between redundancy and optimization, strength and fragility.

The interaction between the surrounding natural space and the minimalist volumes of the existing buildings conceived by the architect F. Pouillon influenced the main trajectory of our approach. The building follows the orthogonal grid of the district while developing a close connection with the ground space. The project is organized around a central nucleus created by a theater of 300 seats. Its peripheral envelope is lifted above the hall to reveal the inside spaces and circulation.

Trapezoidal windows are placed on the whole surrounding of the building avoiding the traditional “black box” effect of a theater located in the middle of an urban environment. In opposition with the unique window used by F. Pouillon for all the housing of the district, we conceived a system of free formed windows, the geometry of which is derived from the canopy of trees.

Separating spaces without closing them
Our purpose is to create a place of a remarkable quality; on the one hand it opens on the surrounding urban context and on the other hand has a strong identity. The periphery of the building is composed of two levels with reception and meeting spaces, the ground floor, offices, and art studios upstairs.

This project is conceived from the inside out, resulting in the manipulation of the ground and the roof which delimit spaces. The building is cantilevers above the reception hall, the square allowing to protect a large glazed surface from the sun and rain.

Studio spaces flooded with natural light
All the spaces of circulation and reception are widely bathed in natural light, either by the curtain wall of the reception hall, or by the sheds on the roof of the studios, which play an important role in the definition of the spaces inside the building. The variation in the size of wall aperture and windows gives a quality of foliage to the bright atmosphere. Illumination inside the main hall changes throughout the day.

At the end of the day, lamps installed in these sheds, which are connected to photosensitive cells, will compensate gradually for the lack of natural light. Offices and working spaces are lit by multiple window apertures of free forms which allow every work space to have one or two views of the outdoor and landscaped spaces.

An intelligent skin
The building is clad in an architectonic skin of white concrete which will integrate bits of gravel and limestone of Meudon in its composition. Conceived as a performative skin, the roof is an important element of this project and integrates devices for controlling the internal light and thermal atmosphere of the building. On the south side of the slopped roof, photovoltaic panels will be installed to harvest part of the electrical energy consumed by the building.

Project Details:
Team: SERERO architectes / David Serero, Bastien Casasoprana, Noriko Harada, Yoichi Osawa, Fabrice Zaini
Site: Meudon, France
Client: City of Meudon
Landscape designer: OLM, BET Structure et Fluides: Scoping; Stage Equipment : SCENE; BET HQE : RFR Elements;
Acoustic engineer: ABB Acoustique; Graphic Design : Atelier 59
Area: 1,850m² + 6,350 m² outiside
Budget: 5,970,000 €

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Performing Arts Building For Le Rosey

more info visit:http://www.archicentral.com/bernard-tschumi-architects-selected-for-new-building-at-le-rosey-26975/

Bernard Tschumi Architects has won an international invited competition to design a new center for the performing arts at Institut Le Rosey, the renowned boarding school in Switzerland. The new building will be named Carnal Hall after the school’s founder, Paul Carnal.
Le Rosey is located on the shores of Lake Geneva, near Rolle. Among the most prestigious educational institutions in Europe, the school is alma mater to diplomats, business leaders, and royalty.

The existing campus has a cohesive, traditional architecture marked by mansard roofs and a wedge-shaped campus plan that opens onto the site, defining an open-ended court.
The design began with the question of how to expand the campus with a contemporary building, fostering a dialogue between tradition and modernity, while updating the arts and performance facilities for a new generation of students.
The winning scheme proposes a low, stainless-steel dome that defines the site and spatially organizes the disparate parts of the program: an 800-seat concert hall, a black box theater, conference rooms, a learning center joined to a library, a teaching center, practice rooms for music and the arts, and several relaxation spaces featuring a restaurant, a cafe, a student lounge, and other amenities.
A series of side openings articulates the periphery of the dome, and a terrace is cut into the center near the apex, offering views of Lake Geneva. The main interior space is the concert hall, with programmatic zones around its periphery that are articulated into an architectural promenade.
From the campus, the keystone-shaped terminus of the quadrangle forms a ceremonial entrance to the project and the slope of the dome echoes the undulating landscape near Rolle. The reflective steel will provide a distinctive identity and a landmark for the school and the region.
The building’s compact shape minimizes its external surface area, acting as a thermal shield. This provision reduces energy consumption and shelters the large interior spaces under the dome with a minimum of material. The reflective polished steel offers additional energy savings over traditional cladding materials and shelters the glazed areas from sun and inclement weather.

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Datong Sports Park In China

Populous To Design New Datong Sports Park In China

more info visit :http://www.archicentral.com/populous-to-design-new-datong-sports-park-in-china-26992/

Populous has been selected to design a new sports park in the historic city of Datong, in the northern Shanxi Province, near Beijing, China. This is the second major sports hub for Populous in China.
The sports park which includes a 30,000 seat stadium, an 8,000 seat arena, a 1500 seat natatorium and a multiuse training hall, is part of a larger plan by the Datong Mayor to regenerate the historic old city and create a new city centre with other development including a city hall, museum, convention centre.
Inspiration for the new Datong Sports Park has come from both its impressive cultural heritage and the stunning rugged beauty of the surrounding landscape outside the city. The rich valleys, escarpments and weathered mountain faces surrounding the Loess Plateau outside Datong City rival the brutally etched Judean desert as it stretches towards the Dead Sea. The colour and texture of the mountain ranges are comparable to the landscape of the Grand Canyon in America.

The win for Populous, which has its Asian base in Queensland, comes as its first sports park in Nanjing celebrates five years of successful operation. Populous won an IOC/IAKS Gold Award for the design of Nanjing, built for the 2005 China National Games, and the catalyst for a major city centre development.
The Sports Park in Datong will provide work for 10 professional staff in Populous’ Brisbane office. The firm’s senior principal Paul Henry said the win reflected Populous’ future strategy in Asia.
“Our strategy in China as elsewhere in Asia hinges on producing world class design in the Queensland office, and investing in the development of long term Client relationships.
China recognizes the value sporting venues have as gathering places for modern communities yet, which also reflect the unique qualities of each particular city.”
Populous Principal Andrew Colling says the inspiration for the unique design in Datong has come from the surrounding Yungang Grottoes or Cloud Ridge Caves, “These shallow caves just out of Datong are symbolic of the rich cultural heritage of the region, which has evolved over several thousand years. The visitor approach and entry to the stadium is like entering the nearby caves, with the sandstone bases clad in a series of irregular titanium shells.
The Datong Sports Park provided the opportunity to celebrate a number of strong, unique features in the city’s history and cultural character combined with the more humanistic ideals and ambitions embodied in the design of modern sports parks.”