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"

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