Daring cantilevers
An overview of projects, products and exclusive articles about daring cantilevers
Balancing Barn
The MVRDV project is built on a beautiful site by a small lake in the English countryside near Thorington in Suffolk. From the road, the barn is almost invisible; the front being only 7 metres wide, with a pitched roof, faces the long straight driveway approach, suggesting a small house with a traditional shape. The volume, however, has a length of 30 metres. At the midpoint it starts to cantilever over the descending slope; a balancing act made possible by the rigid structure of the building; resulting in 50% of the barn being in free space, and giving a wide view over the Suffolk landscape, adjacent lake and surrounding gardens. The long sides of the structure are well hidden by trees allowing privacy inside and around the barn. The exter... More
China Central Television (CCTV) Headquarters
Today OMA participated in the official construction completion ceremony for the China Central Television (CCTV) Headquarters in Beijing, which will start to be used later this year. Designed by OMA as a reinvention of the skyscraper as a loop, construction on the building began in 2004. At approximately 473, 000m2, CCTV – accommodating TV studios, offices, broadcasting and production facilities – is OMA’s largest ever project and its first major building in China.
Philippe Ruault
CCTV defies the skyscraper’s typical quest for ultimate height. Rising from a common platform, two towers lean towards each other and eventually merge in a perpendicular, 75-metre cantilever. The design combines the entire process of T... More
Project • By b720 Fermín Vázquez Arquitectos • Parks
Veles e Vents Building and America's Cup Park
The Veles e Vents Building, the 2007 home of the America’s Cup, the prestigious international yacht race the, was finished within a remarkable 11 months of receiving the commission in June 2005. The building and surrounding park became the focal point for all followers of the world’s premier offshore racing competition, and received particular attention as the site of the first America’s Cup held in Europe in over 150 years. The centrepiece of the reorganisation of Valencia’s port, the Veles e Vents Building proved a resource for all America’s Cup contestants and sponsors as well as a venue for spectators to view the cup races.
The general concept behind the design of the building is the importance of the horizontal plane. Structura... More
Project • By PLASMA STUDIO • Masterplans
Flowing Gardens: Xian International Horticultural
The World Horticultural Expo has become instigator and hub for the redevelopment of a large area between the airport and the centre of Xi’an. The ancient capital of the Qin Dynasty city, home of the Terracotta Army is today a major business centre for the vast interior of the Chinese mainland. Plasma Studio, in collaboration with GroundLab, won this international competition with a radical self-sustainable vision. The project comprises of a 5000m2 Creativity Pavilion, a 4000m2 Greenhouse and a 3500m2 pedestrian bridge set in a 37 ha landscape. The Expo opened in 2011 to approximately 15 Mio visitors. Accomodating and channeling the given flows of visitors whilst offering them choices and variety, Flowing Gardens unfolds into many sinuo... More
Project • By Atelier Hapsitus • Offices
Design Competition for BLC Bank Headquarters
BLC Bank Beirut began a new departure in 2007 with a different administration, an impetus that gave rise to rapid growth and imposed the need for a new headquarters. The competition design brief required a building that would be a landmark in the urban texture of Beirut. The presence of the existing building at the corner of the site was an enigma. It occupied a key corner position of the site, and was required by the client to be incorporated within a new design. With the ‘landmark’ concept as a driving force, Hapsitus proposed a solution created by the cantilevering of a new structure above the existing structure to make an urban gate addressing the city. More
Project • By Revery Architecture • Theaters
Arena Stage
The new Arena Stage in Washington, DC effectively doubled the size of the existing facility and incorporates state-of-the-art technology and modern amenities. Inspired by the vision of Arena’sArtistic Director,Molly Smith, for ‘a theatre for all that is passionate, exuberant, profound, deep and dangerous in the American spirit.’ the new Arena Stage at the Mead Center for American Theater delivers a true centre where audiences for all three theatres and the full Arena family (artistic, technical, outreach and administrative) can come together and interact.
This complex renovation and expansion project involved the heritage restoration, preservation, and technical upgrade of the two existing historic theatres from the... More
Project • By Architecture Republic • Private Houses
The Plastic House
A house is excavated and a space created. The insertion of an object allows inhabitation.
The house is on a terrace whose split-section is native to Georgian Dublin; a grand parlour to the front with smaller rooms to the rear at half-levels one up and one down from the street.
The project begins with removal - of the existing extension, internal walls and earth – bringing the entire house to lower ground-floor level. This opens the volume of the house as a double-height vessel, full of light.
A cruciform object is inserted; a piece of architectural furniture which spreads tree-like from a concentrated base. Services such as kitchen, toilet, storage and stairwell are housed within this trunk - providing for living and dining in the space... More
Project • By Lucio Morini • Museums
Provincial Museum of Fine Arts EMILIO CARAFFA
The renovated Emilio Caraffa Museum, which annexes the former Physical Education Institute building (IPEF), is part of a larger complex that includes the new Palacio Ferreyra Museum. The new Caraffa Museum includes a great variety of exhibition rooms, mainly for temporary exhibitions, as well as facilities for the technical support of the complex (that is, for cataloguing, classification, research, restoration, safekeeping, library, administration, exhibition, curation, programming, design, etc.).
The original project for the building now housing the Museum was commissioned to Hungarian architect Johannes Kronfuss, who developed the design circa 1915 using a Neoclassical approach. However, when construction ended in 1916, only a fourt... More
Project • By MVSA Architects • Offices
ING Group headquarters
The headquarter offices for the ING Group occupies a long, narrow site adjacent to the motorway ring around Amsterdam. The location is at the junction of two areas, the cosmopolitan high-rise of Zuidas and the green zone of De Nieuwe Meer. The building has been kept low on the green side, with the cantilevered auditorium as a projecting element, and rises towards the urban side.
The building rests on stilts measuring 9 to 12,5 metres in height, so that travellers on the motorway still have a glimpse of the area behind the building. This arrangement also means that none of the offices in the building have their view blocked by the motorway embankment. The entrance zone is ensconced between the stilts.
The new headquarters symbolizes th... More
Project • By UNS • Cultural Centres
Tea House on Bunker
The project involves the reprogramming of a historical and derelict building through renovation and addition. The original bunker is part of an intricate water management system that enabled the inundation of land in case of attack situated in a classic, Dutch polder landscape.
Stables and polo fields now surround the building and the new addition is intended as a large space with facilities to support a meeting space or business retreat. The existing 1936 bunker remains intact except of a portion of the concrete roof where the new structure connects whilst the new addition is like an umbrella, an addition that could be removed and does not damage or permanently influence the historic structure. The metallic addition appears to have grown... More