Concrete architecture
An overview of projects, products and exclusive articles about Concrete architecture
News • News • 18 Nov 2024
Lahznimmo Architects creates refined and minimal architectural “storehouse” for Powerhouse Museum
In 2018, Sydney-based design studio Lahznimmo Architects was commissioned by Create NSW (a governmental arts and culture body in New South Wales) to design an innovative new storage facility for the Powerhouse Museum’s collection. The result is a refined and minimal architectural “storehouse” built in shimmering aluminum and raw concrete.
Rory Gardiner
Rory Gardiner
Powerhouse is the largest museum group in Australia. Across its 140 year history, it has amassed a collection of more than half a million objects of national and international significance, all of which are now housed in one location: Castle Hill. Powerhouse Castle Hill is part of the “Museums Discovery Centre”, a collaboration al... More
News • News • 11 Nov 2024
Open Architecture designs conical Sun Tower as a “cultural lighthouse”
Beijing-based Open Architecture has completed the Sun Tower, a waterside cultural facility in the Chinese port city of Yantai. The asymmetrical and conical concrete tower appears to have been sliced open, revealing its inner contents and structure. Recalling the age-old practice of sun worship, the Sun Tower is described by Open Architecture as a “cultural lighthouse”, where ancient wisdom and respect for nature integrate with contemporary urban living.
Iwan Baan
Open Architecture
Archeological endeavors show Yantai to be one of the earliest places in China where people worshipped the sun. Open Architecture designed the Sun Tower as a way of celebrating the sun as a natural and life-sustaining entity. The towe... More
Project • By remyarchitects • Private Houses
CR House by remyarchitects
CR House welcomes us with a facade that clearly expresses the project's intention. The front is defined by volumes that intertwine through green spaces, bringing the exterior landscape into the interior. The main entrance is elevated above the ground, providing the social area, which includes the living room, kitchen, and dining room, with uninterrupted views of the golf course.
Alejandro Peral
Alejandro Peral
Alejandro Peral
Alejandro Peral
The lower level is dedicated to the recreation area, with a barbecue area and a pool at ground level, allowing for more direct contact with the golf course. The private area of the bedrooms is divided into two levels above the social sector: on one side, the children's bedrooms and,... More
News • News • 10 Sep 2024
Gianni Botsford Architects’ robust design of Reciprocal House responds to adjoining 1969 extension by “Foster Associates”
Concrete, glass, and steel are used to great effect in the construction of Reciprocal House, a newly completed 280-square-meter (3,014-square-feet) family home designed by London-based Gianni Botsford Architects. Located in a leafy Hampstead mews in north-west London, the home is hidden behind a Victorian pub. Reciprocal House replaces a nondescript, run-down coach house and its smart and robust design responds to an adjoining 1969 extension by Foster Associates (now Foster + Partners).*
Schnepp Renou
James Eagle
Gianni Botsford Architects
Former coach house:
Schnepp Renou
Schnepp Renou
Foster Associates’ lightweight, single-story extension is made up of steel trusses, concrete blocks, an... More
News • News • 9 Sep 2024
New educational facility for Masaryk University resembles an art gallery
Czech architectural studio dílna has designed a new extension for Masaryk University in the city of Brno that resembles an art gallery more than an educational facility. The new building is composed of several stacked white concrete volumes and appears as a contemporary contrast to the surrounding neoclassical architecture.
Studio Flusser
Studio Flusser
dílna
dílna
The extension provides a new home for Masaryk University’s art education program with spaces for both traditional art disciplines and new media, including: cutting, drilling, and welding workshops, a painting studio, and a multimedia studio with complete blackout features and adjustable color backlighting. “All... More
News • News • 12 Jul 2024
Tatiana Bilbao Estudio imagines design of Sea of Cortez aquarium like a ruin reclaimed by nature
In 2017, Mexico City-based Tatiana Bilbao Estudio was invited to design a building that should resemble an aquarium, provide a new landmark space in the seaport city of Mazatlán, Mexico, and represent the Sea of Cortez (a UNESCO World Heritage Site dubbed the “Aquarium of the World”). The studio designed a truly surreal edifice: a place imagined like a ruin — a building from the past or future — that has been reclaimed by nature. It arises from the understanding that humans do not control nature — instead, we are a part of it and must find ways to reconnect with our environment. With construction completed in 2023, the new building now serves as an educational and research center for the Sea of Cortez.... More
News • News • 11 Jun 2024
Pelli Clarke & Partners completes Salesforce Tower Chicago as part of riverfront master plan
Pelli Clarke & Partners has completed the Salesforce Tower Chicago, a LEED Gold-certified office tower that is the final addition to Wolf Point, a 14-year mixed-use riverfront master plan. In the city that built the world’s first skyscraper (albeit just ten stories), the 57-story Salesforce Tower is located in the heart of Chicago’s downtown. The tower sits at the place where three branches of the Chicago River converge and anchors the prominent Wolf Point master plan development.
Jason O’Rear
Jason O’Rear
Pelli Clarke & Partners
Wolf Point was once the home of Chicago’s first commercial settlements in the early 19th century. The land was later all but abandoned (it had... More
News • News • 26 Feb 2024
Stacked boxes create a zigzagging indoor-outdoor plaza in Nanhu District, Jiaxing
B.L.U.E. Architecture Studio (Beijing Laboratory for Urban Environment) has completed Seed Plaza in Nanhu District, Jiaxing, China, a zigzagging indoor-outdoor plaza composed of a series of stacked boxes, set in a semi-rural location. In use as an exhibition and retail space for the local community, the plaza will eventually serve as a community center.
Eiichi Kano
B.L.U.E. Architecture Studio
B.L.U.E. Architecture Studio
In the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic, B.L.U.E. Architecture Studio noticed more and more people wishing to interact with nature and spend time outdoors. This led the studio to think differently about the inherent value of architecture, creating a space in which the urban environment and nature c... More
News • Detail • 23 Nov 2023
Detail: The material essence of Liuba multifunctional service center
Shulin Architects has completed a multifunctional service center in Liuba County, in the southwest of Shaanxi province, China. At the entrance to Liuba’s scenic mountain area and the Qinling Mountains, the service center provides a reception, public toilets, and retail facilities. With a material palette of warm wood, concrete, and natural stone, the meticulously crafted structure offers travelers and locals a place in which to stop and rest.
Zhao Yilong
Zhao Yilong
Zhao Yilong
Based in Zhuantang Town, Hangzhou, Shulin Architects was founded in 2015 by architect Chen Lin. A small architectural studio, the firm places an emphasis on rural construction and traditional culture, materials and nature, the enviro... More
News • News • 2 Nov 2023
Mexico’s HMZ House showcases the sculptural beauty of concrete in domestic architecture
Located in San Luis Potosi, Mexico, at la Loma Country Club, the HMZ House by Architect Lucio Muniain is a two-storey home that showcases the sculptural beauty of concrete and its application in domestic architecture.
Edmund Sumner
Designed for a family of six, the primary construction material is concrete embedded with a beton brut effect. Created using a formwork of rough wooden boards, the organic textures carry over from the exterior to the interior realm. Complimenting this is a restrained material palette that includes dark tzalam wood for fixtures and floors, and black steel for window frames and the library’s spiral staircase.
Edmund Sumner
The architects note that sculpture has always been an... More
News • News • 11 Jul 2023
The architectural “Nonspace” by On Architects “restores local memories of rice paddies”
Korean architectural studio On Architects has designed Nonspace, a project whose aim is to regenerate a village in Gyeonggi Province, South Korea, renowned for its rice and flower farming.
Yoon Joonhwan
Nonspace is described by On Architects as a place that “proposes new life possibilities through an experimental cross-cultural facility, or ‘cross-space’, enabling interactions between diverse cultures.” With fewer young people living in the area and an aging population, the building is an architectural space that seeks to attract visitors.
Yoon Joonhwan
The building’s nine cross-spaces are revealed at intersections across its breadth and depth and offer a range of visual stimuli. The d... More
News • News • 14 Jun 2023
A modernist-style church in Brasilia embodies the city’s original Pilot Plan
ARQBR Arquitetura e Urbanismo has designed the Church of the Holy Family as part of an urban extension of the city of Brasilia. The project’s architectural concept centers on the relationship between spirituality, nature, and community.
Joana França
Joana França
In 1957, Brazilian architect and urban planner Lúcio Costa’s entry for the urban design of Brazil’s new federal capital was chosen in a national competition. Costa’s “Pilot Plan” (Plano Piloto) for the city of Brasilia, located in the country’s hinterland, was in the shape of an irregular cross, analogous to an airplane or dragonfly. A remarkable utopian undertaking, Costa was in charge of Brasilia&rsq... More
Project • By NWLND Rogiers Vandeputte • Offices
Office Park Lokeren
Office Park is developed at the transition between an industrial complex and suburban housing. The project organised the site in long strips running from north to south: a green buffer zone facing the suburban neighbourhood, a strip of parking, an 80-meter-long building zone, and a ditch for natural water infiltration along the side of the main road.
Johnny Umans
Four cores are placed within a simple structure sitting in the building zone. Their off-centre position creates a narrower zone along the southern facade of the building and deeper zones facing the north. This narrow zone is the main circulation zone, providing access towards the office units in between the cores. Its south facing orientation and its proximity to the no... More
News • News • 24 May 2023
The confluence of two rivers informs the design of a new exhibition center in Chongqing
A new Planning Exhibition Center by Tanghua Architect & Associates has been built on a hill in a picturesque part of Chongqing, in central China. The light grey, concrete structure is both imposing and enchanting, its circular form a beacon of architectural innovation and prosperity.
MMCM Studio
Rudy Dong
Liangjiang Collaborative Innovation Zone spans a 6.8-square-kilometer site in Chongqing. Specifically chosen by the Chinese government, it is officially known as “Liangjiang New Area” and will encompass a number of developments. Located in the south of the Innovation Zone, the Planning Exhibition Center sits on a hillock in a natural setting, and offers faded views of the folkloric Longxing Ancient Town.... More
Project • By Drucker Arquitetura • Private Houses
Marilia House
This house located in Marilia-SP was designed for a businessman. It had as basic concept building a condominium with technological resources of environmental sustainability. In addition, the condominium should be constituted by five prototypes of compact houses with rationalization of costs and minimalist architectural proposal. The project should contemplate an expansion of one more room and preserving 40% of the green area in a 348m²site.
Ruben Otero
The living room is the articulating element in this house, one of the prototypes that was built, connecting external and internal areas, allowing a complete integration of ambient and reinforcing the assumption of compactness. Traditional system structure of reinforced concrete wit... More