Fun buildings
An overview of projects, products and exclusive articles about fun buildings
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
Project • By Neutelings Riedijk Architecten • Museums
Netherlands Institute for Sound and Vision
The Netherlands Institute for Sound and Vision divides into three distinct elements, each designed as a separate volume: the national archives, where all the audiovisual material ever produced since the early days of Dutch radio and television is preserved, the TV and Radio exhibition centre for the public and a research institute for professionals.
The audiovisual archives - that need rigorously strict climatic conditions but no daylight - are conceived as five underground vault floors. The exhibition rooms are organized in a huge ziggurat shape floating in the air. The institute’s offices are housed in a simple slab on the side. Together these three distinct volumes form one giant cube, half above ground and half under ground, whil... More
Project • By VTN Architects (Vo Trong Nghia Architects) • Private Houses
Stacking Green
Whoever wanders around Saigon, a chaotic city with the highest density of population in the world, can easily find flower-pots crampped and displayed here and there all around the streets. This interesting custom has formed the amused character of Saigon over a long period of time and Saigonese love their life with a large variety of tropical plants and flowers in their balconies, courtyards and streets.
The house, designed for a thirty-years-old couple and their mother, is a typical tube house constructed on the plot 4m wide and 20m deep. The front and back façades are entirely composed of layers of concrete planters cantilevered from two side walls. The distance between the planters and the height of the planters are adjusted according... More
Project • By MVSA Architects • Shops
Shoebaloo Amsterdam
SHOEBALOO, a designer footwear boutique in the Netherlands, has three shoe shops in Amsterdam and is as popular for its shoes as for its cutting-edge interiors. One of the shops is situated in the ultra chic P.C. Hooftstraat. Despite being only 100 square meters, the shop’s high-end shoe collection speaks in measures, including Gucci, Prada, Fendi and miu miu.
The shop in the P.C. Hooftstraat started up 12 years ago and the first interior was designed by Borek Sipek. Looking for something new, something special, offering a completely new shopping experience the client commissioned Meyer en Van Schooten Architecten to remodel the interior.
The exterior as well as the interior of the remodelled shop are in many ways contrary to the o... More
Project • By Heatherwick Studio • Pavilions
Shanghai Expo 2010 British Pavilion
The UK Pavilion at the 2010 Shanghai Expo expresses British creativity and environmental engagement at the biggest event of its kind since the Expo phenomenon began in 1851 with the Great Exhibition at London's Crystal Palace. Since then, there have been more than 50 Expos – which have also been known as World’s Fairs or World Expositions – and the most spectacular have included those at Chicago in 1893 and Paris in 1900. The latter attracted 50m visitors, a record at the time, setting an early benchmark for a country’s portrayal of innovation and progress.
Held under the auspices of the Bureau International des Expositions, the Shanghai Expo will be the largest the world has ever seen. Staged on a 5.28km2 city centre site beside the Hu... More
Product • By Studio Roosegaarde • DUNE
DUNE
DUNE is a public interactive landscape that interacts with human behavior. This hybrid of nature and technology is composed of large amounts of fibers that brighten according to the sounds and motion of passing visitors.
Our most recent version is filled with hundreds of interactive lights and sounds. DUNE investigates nature in a futuristic relation with urban space by means of looking, walking and interacting.
DUNE 4.1 is a public, interactive landscape placed in the Maastunnel as in-situ commission for Rotterdam City of Architecture 2007.
DUNE 4.2 is a new, permanent interactive landscape situated alongside the Maas River in Rotterdam, NL. This sixty-meter-long public artwork utilizes fewer than 60 watts of energy as it intui... More
Product • By Studio Roosegaarde • LUNAR
LUNAR
The interactive artwork, LUNAR features a series of interactive light objects placed at the Youth division of Mental Health Care GGz in Breda, the Netherlands. Filled with LEDs and interactive technologies, the objects are designed to ‘come to life’ by emitting sounds and color upon detection of children’s touch.
By intervening with the existing architecture, LUNAR creates an informal play between children, their therapy and the building.
Specifications: 2010-2011. Tubes of diameter 30cm, heights 100-160cm. Molded objects, LEDs, electronics, sensor and software. Google Map (open for public via appointment). Client: Commission for the Mental Health Care GGz Breda, developed with SKOR| Foundation for Art and Public Domain. More
Project • By SO – IL • Exhibitions
Pole Dance
In this proposal for MoMAPS1 ’s Young Architects Program we take the opportunity to further contemporary explorations to create sensory-charged environments, rather than finite forms. Especially in the case of envisioning a temporary structure for the PS1 courtyard, which needs to perform two seemingly contradictory tasks (calming and carousing), a worthy proposition will need to consider the choreography of situations rather than object-making.
We designed a participatory environment that reframes the conceptual relation between humankind and structure. It consists of an interconnected system of poles and nets whose equilibrium is constantly affected by human action and environmental factors, such as rain and wind. Upon discovery of its... More
Building transformation Gangnam Style
Just before a Korean pop-song became a global success on YouTube for the first time in history, and Gangnam became world famous as the nouveau riche hangout of the South-Korean capital Seoul, MVRDV was commissioned by Woon Nam Management Ltd. to redefine a building on Gangnams chic Apgujung Road. Even though the Chungha building was completed in the 1980’s it was already outdated in a street dominated by flagship stores. The transformation, which added an extra level, was completed in just 9 months.
The Chungha building had become a rotten tooth in a fast changing streetscape dominated by single brand stores, this building contains a collection of brands in one. On the previous façade, a motley collection of fonts competed for the attent... More
Project • By By Will Alsop • Exhibition Centres
THE PUBLIC
The Public represents a radical gesture for community architecture, born from the conviction that art and architecture can be catalysts for regeneration and renewal. On five principal levels, the building is intended to give great scope to exhibition designers, artists, educators and users of all kinds, while encouraging and challenging all users to work in innovative ways. The Public is intended to inspire new ideas from its creative users rather than simply make way for them. The building itself is a statement of its creators' belief in art, in the broadest sense, as a means to empower communities and individuals, and to permeate lives in surprising and beneficial ways.
Among its many functions, The Public hosts exhibitions of local an... More
Project • By By Will Alsop • Universities
THE SHARP CENTRE
A distinctive cultural force in Ontario, OCADU's impetus to expand comes with a growing recognition at national level of the contribution of the creative industries to Canada's modern economy. The decision to employ Alsop was based upon a significant track record in the design of cultural buildings of enduring effectiveness and appeal which also offered iconic representation of the client body as the school enters a new age.
Following the appointment, Will Alsop instigated a series of client workshops in which early concepts were developed with college staff and students. During this time, conventional ideas of teaching, learning and architecture were explored as the group sought to redefine their new college of art and design. The parti... More
Project • By MZ Architects • Offices
ALDAR Headquarters
Driving along the desert road and with the anticipation of reaching Abu Dhabi a shining element captures one eye from a distance. As one moves closer to the object, it becomes obvious that the extensive blurring of scale generally experienced in the desert landscape is once again apparent but this time through an iconic man made creation: the HQ.
THE IDEA
In the wake of the construction boom of Abu Dhabi and in an effort to put the area on the map, MZ Architects were commissioned the design of the Aldar HQ, a building that will change and expand the Abu Dhabi skyline forever. This architectural icon was to shine at the center of Al Raha Beach Development, also a project by Aldar and a newly envisioned microcosm that would bring new life... More
Project • By Bloom Games Ltd • Parks/Gardens
Bloom
BLOOM ‐ a crowd sourced garden / London Olympics 2012 Commissioned by the Greater London Authority as part of Wonder series that are celebrating Olympics and Paralympics, BLOOM is designed and developed by Alisa Andrasek and Jose Sanchez from The Bartlett School of Architecture at UCL. Designed in neon pink (the official Olympics color), BLOOM is conceptualised as an urban toy, a distributed social game and collective “gardening” experience that seeks the engagement of people in order to construct fuzzy BLOOM formations. An initial aggregation developed by the designers will show participants the possibilities of the system through the main “portal” of the game constructed by designers. People are able to add the pieces to the initial stru... More
Project • By T2.a Architects • Apartments
Simplon A
Located in the south western part of the Hungarian capital of Budapest, Simplon_A was built as the residential part of a mixed-use development and has quickly become a colourful new piece of the neighbouring urban landscape.
The building was rounded at the corner by a gesture that evokes the architecture of the early modernism, such a rhythm of the facade boxes appears in many modern apartments of the surroundings that were built in the 1960th. One of the main design concepts was to create a continuously changing building facade that is highly responsive to the everyday use. All apartments have large, open facades and all have a well-utilizable, covered terrace - loggia. The large openings of the facade are shaded by adjustable aluminium... More
PENSON for Google at CSG Covent Garden London
One of Europe’s leading interior design and architecture studios PENSON has delivered Google’s new super HQ at Central Saint Giles, Covent Garden, London. The 160,000sq.ft HQ covers an amazing variation of floors including the Main Reception, a Lala Library, Gymnasium, Cafés & Restaurants, a Town Hall and many other trinkets all with long reaching panoramic views of London’s skyscape. It’s simply awesome.
CSG brings Google’s sales and other departments nearer to their clients. This interior is at the opposite end of the spectrum to PENSON’s other recent release of the Google Engineering HQ at Victoria, which incidentally caused quite a stir globally for its visual affair with the “Space Odyssey’s” and “Starship Enterprise’s” of this worl... More