Suspended Night Club in Hong Kong / Urbanplunger

The project by the young architectural studio Urbanplunger has been recently awarded the third prize in the Night Club Hotel in Hong Kong international competition. The main idea is to create a suspended building structure to comply with the extremely compact planning in Hong Kong. The whole structure is elevated above the ground by leaning on the nearby buildings.

The nature of the design allows for a green square underneath the building and increases the area of the existing recreation zone. The visual and functional aspects of the building consist of three main parts: 1. Nightclubs. The lowest part of the building. 2. Public mid levels with lobby and security access to the hotel. A Spa centre with a semi-Olympic sized swimming pool along with a business centre, store, restaurant etc. makes up the central part of the building. 3. Hotel. The upper part of the building. All the floor slabs have the same depth and size but the structure tapers inwards towards the top. This allows for balconies in single and double rooms and terraces in suites, aerial villas and the presidential suite.

Circulation strategy
The building is linked to the ground by lifts that go up to the lobby through the nightclub zone which is open to the public. From the lobby customers are able to gain access to the hotel, spa centre etc. The structure is an architectural parasite that leans on its neighboring buildings and uses their internal infrastructure.

Construction
The entire load of the construction is transferred onto the buildings it leans on via the load-bearing frames that form the “wings” of the building. This allows for the vertical and horizontal structures to be made from light and strong composite materials.

House of Jazz in San Francisco

This project designed by Surasuk Pattanapanitchakul at the Academy of Art University in San Francisco intends to illustrate the synthesis between nature, urban and architecture, which supports and collaborate to each other, showing the soul of interconnection which increasingly synthesize with the space, in order to show how architecture can act as an instrument.Traditionally, music defined as aural element expressed through time. architecture as instrument explores the idea of music as defined by visual expressed through time, specificially shadows cast as the sun traverse the sky visual representation of temporal experience-thecycle of the day.Structure as instrument explores the idea that the structure itself is an orchestra and the ever-changing and continual shadows that fall across it and beside it are music experience by users.

In the context, the sun is the conductor, light are the musician roadside element are the instrument, and the shadow they cast are the music.The hybridization of jazz music which interacts with architecture is the main goal of this project, all each brilliant note which performs from the nature will amazingly increase performance through the space which morphs based on sound quality.The geometry design specially to maximize openess, flow of activityfrom the urban context to the interior space, creating the interconnection to each function start from the main plaza to the sky lounge on the top floor.Jazz, always changing, yet retains part of its original formation at it roots. Jazz is a musical style that change with the times and the various outlooks of it listeners. One reason that Jazz remains popular and alive is its ability to adapt to the world it lives in.The project intends to show the idea of cultural combination through art between Asian culture and American culture. This would introduce a new perspective to the Fillmore neighborhood, which is the center of blues and jazz in San Francisco. This factor combined with the high density of Asians residents in the area would convert Fillmore in the new Asian art destination in San Francisco.

Slough Bus Station / Bblur Architecture

Part of a masterplan for the revitalization of the area, the Slough Bus Station is a 130 meter-long canopy structure that accommodates bus driver facilities, a waiting room and a ticket office, along with additional service facilities. The primary function of the project is to create a transport interchange with the rail station providing new, safe, efficient and enjoyable public transport facilities. The tubular structure of the station wraps a two-storey building and covers the public route from the rail station through to the center of Slough.

Matthew Bedward, one of the founding partners of Bblur Architecture states: “We took the opportunity to significantly improve pedestrian permeability between the train station and the town centre. Our client tasked us to create a memorable front door for Slough. The form of the building derives from the idea of different wavelengths of light inspired by Astronomer Royal, William Herschel’s discovery of infra-red waves in 1800 while a resident of Slough.”

The building is clad in aluminium shingles creating a softly textured metallic surface which constantly changes character with the varying light conditions. When the Heart of Slough master plan is complete the bus station will be surrounded by five 8 to 14 storey office buildings. The Bus Station is an urban object with the design considered from all aspects, passengers underneath and office workers viewing from above. Its sculptural form and the design of the hard landscaping will provide a counterpoint to the rectilinear corporate architecture. The associated public realm and infrastructure works are currently on site and due for completion early in 2012.

Lucasfilm’s Singapore Headquarters is inspired by Star Wars

Lucasfilm’s Singapore Headquarters is a narrow V-shaped building, enveloped by a glass skin that resonates with mythological aesthetics of the famous movie franchise. The sleek elevations facing the streets shelter a lush garden space situated at the center of the site. The public garden reveals the building’s inside as a vibrant environment, with its terraces overgrown with foliage, the timber and natural stone paving. Architects at Aedas designed an office building that will also assume the appearance of a movie inspired ecosystem.

The new facility will hold offices for nearly every division of Lucasfilm, including the movie studio itself, video game developer LucasArts, Lucasfilm Animation, and Lucasfilm Television. It’s an eight-storey complex that will house a state-of-the-art theater, which can be used for screenings, premieres or other events. Next to the theater will be a conference wing for use by LucasFilm or other offices.

The envelope structure comprises a low-iron glass layer and a second metallic-frit dot layer underneath, achieving a high degree of reflectivity, while allowing for daylight to reach into the offices without soaking up solar heat gain. The interior courtyard is more private and uses clear low-iron glass for a maximum utilization of natural lighting.

Vernon’s Vectors: Designing a New City

It is understood that cities and buildings are largely shaped by a dynamic flow of interrelated cultural, social, political and economic forces – the nature of possible interfaces between architecture and its various settings within the contemporary city. Rather, Vernon’s Vectors is a re-interpretation conceived by Daniel Cheng Lee and Jae Hwan Lee of how a building may deal with architecture on an urban scale. Rather than relying on the surrounding context of the city to begin addressing the project’s behavior, a singular yet versatile design system is implemented to influence the surrounding context to create an iconic image for the city – an inside out approach to urban systems.

From an initial urban analysis of Vernon, California, the notion of the curve is extracted, abstracted, and injected back onto the city as a generative component. The spline is then exploited to create a tower and museum with intelligence gained from the high-rise and medium building studies. Specifically, The programmatic spaces found within the tower and museum are parametrically generated by means of controlled rotational repulsion that are extruded in the Z axis to create three dimensional space. The tower vertically tackles issues of the blend between interior space vs. exterior envelope, structural feasibility, figure-ground relationship and scale through coalescence and dispersion. The museum, on the other hand, uses the curve to address atmospheric effect and scale via a fiber optic lighting system in which the shapes of the extruded profile faces are determined by gallery spaces and circulation. These processes are threaded together in hopes of creating an iconic figure for the city of Vernon.

Metropolitan 20 Competition Entry / Zeybekoglu Nayman Associates

The proposal for Sofia’s new Metropolitan Station 20 on line one was designed byZeybekoglu Nayman Associates. The design strategy seeks to take advantage of the intense relationship between Obikolna Street and the future station. Organized along a glass spine that covers the space below ground level, the station is meant to capture as much natural light as possible.

Architects state:” The sun penetrates down through sculptural skylights illuminating the entire station in a warm glow. The use of daylight as an architectural element assists orientation for passengers and provides a sense of security.   It allows for the atmosphere of the station to be transformed by the color of the sky.  Underground the station is efficient, easy to read and comprehend through its organized masses.  The descent down to the metro is designed as an elegant, modern addition to the street life above. Public access areas on B1 contain places to sit, shop, and dine. Open to all, this level has direct access to both sides of Obikolna Street through a new pedestrian underpass.  Ticketed areas on B2 including the platforms are separated by a series of turnstiles that lead to zones of vertical transportation.

This design demonstrates a spatial coherence between the two worlds above and below.  Gracefully shaped glass geometries define a modern sculptural addition to the outdoor-indoor environment. During the day the outside is brought into the station and at the night the glowing illumination from within becomes part of the street scene.”

Beach and Howe Twisting Residential Tower in Vancouver / BIG

This Beach & Howe Tower proposal was designed by Bjarke Ingels Group (BIG). According to Vancity Buzz, the project  would be part of the rezoning strategy for the site, adopted by the city of Vancouver.

“The proposal is for a mixed-use development. On the Howe Street side, there will be a 49-storyresidential tower with a 9-storey podium which includes market rental housing, commercial uses, and a childcare facility. The building height is at 150 meters and will be the tallest building on the southern end of downtown and the 4th tallest building in the city, unless the Ritz Carlton site gets developed before this, in which case it would be the 5th tallest.

On the Granville Street and Pacific Street side, is a 6-storey building providing retail (including a grocery store, drugstore and liquor store) and office space.

The project area is 653,046 sq. ft.
– 424,800.9 sq. ft. strata residential
– 68,245.4 sq. ft. rental residential
– 67,814.9 sq. ft. retail
– 63,885.9 sq. ft. office space, and
– 6,996.8 sq. ft. childcare

The building will contain a total of 600 residential units including 180 market rental units, 713 parking spaces, 8 loading bays and 270 bike spaces.”