Library and Learning Centre in Vienna by Zaha Hadid Architects

Zaha Hadid Architects have won a competition to design a library and learning centre for the University of Economics & Business in Vienna, Austria.
The 28,000 square metre building forms the central part of a new campus for the university.
The learning centre will include a library, tutorial rooms, administration offices, student centre, book shop, cafeteria, and event space.
The project is due for completion in 2012.

Zaha Hadid Architects wins competition for the Library and Learning Centre at the University of Economics & Business, Vienna, Austria

Zaha Hadid Architects have been selected as the architects of the Library and Learning Centre (LLC) at the University of Economics & Business, Vienna. The new Library and Learning Centre will be the centerpiece of the University’s new campus and provide a significant upgrade to the University’s services. In addition to the new library, the LLC will also provide a language laboratory, tutorial rooms, administration offices, student centre, book shop, cafeteria, clubrooms and event space.

The new Library and Learning Centre rises as a polygonal block from the centre of the new university campus. The LLC’s design takes the form of a cube with both inclined and straight edges. The straight lines of the building’s exterior separate as they move inward, becoming curvilinear and fluid, generating a free-formed interior canyon that serves as the central public plaza. All the other facilities of the LLC are housed within a single volume that also divides, becoming two separate ribbons that wind around each other to enclose this glazed gathering space.

“I am delighted to be working in Vienna as I have a close affiliation with the city. As a centre of research, the Library and Learning Centre is forum for the exchange of ideas. It is very exciting for us to be part of the University’s expansion.” states Zaha Hadid.

Rector of the University of Economics & Business, Christoph Badelt said “A library and learning center should be more than a mere library in the classical sense: it is a research and a service facility, a workplace and lounge, a place of communication and a traffic hub, at one and the same time. With its breathtaking architecture, the design by Zaha Hadid manages to combine all the key functions of study in a most wonderful way. It is a vision that embodies this innovative concept of a university.”

PROGRAM: The LLC comprises a “Learning Center” with workplaces, lounges and cloakrooms, library, a language laboratory, training classrooms, administration offices, study services and central supporting services, copy shop, book shop, data center, cafeteria, event area, clubroom and auditorium.

CLIENT: University of Economics Vienna

ARCHITECT: Zaha Hadid Architects
Design: Zaha Hadid and Patrik Schumacher
Project Architect: Cornelius Schlotthauer
Project Team: Marc-Philipp Nieberg, Kristoph Nowak, Enrico Kleinke, Stefan Rinnebach, Niels Kespohl, Jan Hübener, Romy Heiland, Richard Baumgartner

CONSULTANTS:
Structural Engineers: Arup Berlin
M&E Engineers: Arup Berlin
Façade Engineers: Arup Berlin
Cost Consultant: ATP Wien
Fire protection: HHP West, Bielefeld
Render Studio: Vectorvision, Leipzig

SIZE: 28.000m² net area
42.000m² gross area (205.000m³)
136m length,

The Stone Towers by Zaha Hadid Architects

The Stone Towers by Zaha Hadid Architects for Rooya Group of Egypt is located in the Stone Park district of Cairo. Providing office and retail facilities to a rapidly expanding Cairo, the unique 525,000sqm Stone Towers development also includes a five-star business hotel with serviced apartments, retail with food and beverage facilities and sunken landscaped gardens and plaza called the ‘Delta’.

Hisham Shoukri, CEO of Rooya Group said “There is a overwhelming need in Egypt for developments of the highest international standards required by the serious and growing investment climate of the country - ultimately contributing to making it a hub for multinationals in the region. The Stone Towers needed an architect with daring ideas, innovation, international expertise and experience…it needed Zaha Hadid.”

Ancient Egyptian stonework incorporates a vast array of patterns and textures that, when illuminated by the intense sunlight of the region, creates animated displays of light and shadow. The effect is powerful, direct and inspiring. The facades on the North and South elevations of each building within Stone Towers adopts a rich vocabulary of alternating protrusions, recesses and voids to enhance the deep reveal shadow lines that accentuate the curvatures of each building within the development and animate the project throughout the day.

“I am delighted to be working in Cairo, states Hadid. “I have visited Egypt many times and I have always been fascinated by the mathematics and arts of the Arab world. In our office we have always researched the formal concepts of geometry - which relates a great deal to the region’s art traditions and sciences in terms of algebra, geometry and mathematics. This research has informed the design for Stone Towers.

“With a large-scale project such as the Stone Towers, care must be taken to balance a necessary requirement for repetitive elements whilst avoiding an uncompromising repetition of static building masses.” states Hadid. “The architecture of Stone Towers pursues a geometric rhythm of similar, interlocking, yet individually differentiated building forms that creates a cohesive composition.”

Client: Rooya Group
Architect: Zaha Hadid Architects
Structural Engineer: Adams Kara Taylor
Gross Building Area: 525,000 m2
Site Area: 170,000 m2

A winning design in Dubai

Nakheel invited architects to make a concept master plan design for Palm Jebel Ali, just off the coast of Dubai. The winning design submitted by Royal Haskoning and D103 International consists of a surface area of 300,000m² to be used for sports activities, residential housing, a retail sector, and office buildings. In addition, public parks, marinas and an iconic bridge were part of the design brief. The winning design is a joint effort between Royal Haskoning’s design teams in Bangkok, Amsterdam and Dubai. Royal Haskoning has been working on various projects in the United Arab Emirates, including Palm Jebel Ali, Palm Jumeirah and The World Island, since 2000. Other activities, such as spatial development, environment, maritime, infrastructure, structural engineering and building services projects are foreseen in the very near future. Royal Haskoning’s activities in Dubai and the Middle East are co-ordinated from the company’s office in Dubai.

Most Leaning Building In The World Designed By RMJM

Capital Gate, the iconic leaning building in Abu Dhabi, reached halfway point. The mixed use building, designed by international architects RMJM, is currently under construction and will lean 18 degrees westward; 14 degrees more than the Leaning Tower of Pisa.

The Capital Gate (‘feature tower’) is a spectacularly cantilevered building which adds its unique form to the Abu Dhabi skyline. A dramatic steel and glass façade shrouds the 35-story building which sits on 490 piles which have been drilled 30 meters under ground to accommodate the gravitational, wind and seismic forces caused by the distinctive lean of the building.

To make this possible, the central core of the building slants in the opposite direction to the lean of the structure, and it straightening as it grows. It sits on top of a 7-foot-deep concrete base with a dense mesh of reinforced steel. The steel exoskeleton known as the diagrid sits above an extensive distribution of 490 piles that have been drilled 100 feet underground to accommodate the gravitational, wind and seismic pressures caused by the lean of the building.

A gigantic internal atrium, including a tea lounge and swimming pool suspended 263 feet above the ground, has been constructed on the 17th and 18th floors, the halfway point of the 35-story, 525-foot tall tower.

Capital Gate will house Abu Dhabi’s first Hyatt hotel – Hyatt at Capital Center, a presidential-style luxury, 5-star hotel and will provide 200 hotel rooms for Abu Dhabi and will serve ADNEC’s (Abu Dhabi National Exhibitions Company) visitors and exhibitors as well as international business and leisure travelers.

Proposal For ‘Planetarium de Montreal’ Competition By Saucier + Perrotte

The future Rio Tinto Alcan Planetarium will be a new star in Montréal’s creative, design and cultural sky. On October 22th 2008, the executive committee has given the go-ahead for the launch of an international architectural competition, to design this new scientific museum scheduled to open in spring 2012.’

The new facilities will carry the name Planetarium Rio Tinto Alcan de Montréal, underscoring the important contribution of the business group, which is investing four million dollars in private funds in this project.

This is Saucier + Perrotte’s finalist proposal for the ‘Planetarium de Monteral’: a black mantle connecting the different programmatic pieces.

The architect’s description:

‘Suspended between two worlds: on a large scale, that of the space and stars; and closer to Earth, that of man and matter, rises the future Planetarium. It transports us elsewhere and invites to discover a snapshot of Evolution, an allegory of the matter in shaping, of a state in evolution, from rough to precious. In a time rooted neither in the present nor the future, the matter in transformation, perforated and distorted is the symbol of this perpetual mutation.

Inspired by this matter, the entire project presents to its visitors the different states of the matter, and the transformations of the planets thereby take place in the heart of the tour. This matter allows the visitors to live an immersive, sensitive and emotional experience and, at the same time, to understand astronomical phenomena.

A sun if the earth of this galaxy: the Theater no.1. The light which shines from it creates a signal from the Pierre De Coubertin Avenue, and in the heart of the project it leads the planning of the project. The public spaces of the Hall put the visitor in the heart of this system, immerse him in a world of discovery, contemplation and knowledge.

The matter, disconnected from the ground, creates the interior spaces and conceals all the technical and structural elements inside its thickness. It contains the Planetarium scenography system. Inside its upheaval, the matter reveals the main museological elements. The two theaters appear encrusted in the matter. Others small spherical elements are used to describe the spaces, give directions and gather people.

Designed in accordance with principles of sustainability, established in the heart of the touristic and scientific de Maisonneuve area, the Planetarium positions itself as a singular and particular architectural element. Conscious of the important part it has to play, it demonstrates respect in its relation with the other elements on-site such as the Biodome and the Olympic Stadium. It strategic position and its shape allow it to become a complementary signal in the qualification of this major museum area.’