Glassfacadesolutions

The entirely transparent façade of a high-end flagship store on Amsterdam’s upmarket shopping street, PC Hooftstraat, uses glass bricks, glass windows frames and glass architraves in a way to evoke the vernacular of the area with the goal to maintain the character of the site. The 620 m2 of retail and 220 m2 of housing, were designed for investor Warenar. The design unites the ambition of Amsterdam to have large distinctive flagship stores without compromising the historical ensemble. The project, conceptualised by MVRDV, was developed and constructed as part of a multi-team collaboration including Gietermans & Van Dijk Architects, Delft University of Technology, Brouwer & Kok engineers, ABT consulting engineers, Poesia (brand of Ve... More

Inspired by the pulse of Chicago’s artistic energy, Apple has created a new platform for performance in a city charged by music. Located at the intersection of the Chicago River and North Michigan Avenue’s ‘Magnificent Mile’, Apple Michigan Avenue cascades down from Pioneer Court to the river’s edge, creating new connections between the city and the river. The project reflects Apple’s commitment to the cities and communities it inhabits, and is the result of a close collaboration between the design team at Apple led by chief design officer, Sir Jonathan Ive and Angela Ahrendts, senior vice president of Retail and Online Stores and Foster + Partners. Sir Jonathan Ive said, “Apple Michigan Avenue is about removing boundaries between i... More

This project is for a music hall complex including a 4,000 seat multi-purpose hall, a 1,150 seat classical music hall and a school of music, located on Seguin Island in the western suburbs of Paris. As described in Jean Nouvel's master plan for the island, a concrete wall defines the perimeter of the site along the water's edge. Set within this wall is a large multi-purpose hall which is surrounded by a lush green landscape. As the perimeter wall eventually diminishes towards the leading edge of the site, the hexagonal wooden grid shell structure of the classical music hall emerges. Surrounding the grid shell structure is a large triangular solar panel mobile sail. The sail's ability to follow the path of the sun, allows for increased effic... More

The new Basque Health Department headquarters is located at the last site that still remained unbuilt on the administrative and Business Center of Bilbao. Up to now, the institution was suffering the spread of its staff in several buildings, hardly recognizable by citizens, away from each other and uncomfortable for both users and technical services. The aim of the new building is bringing together staff in a recognizable place, in order to increase the efficiency of the service and identify easily the corporation. The project at the same time involves both economic and property profits. The site is located in the crossroad of two important streets of the Ensanche, designed in 1862. The restrictive city rules compel to repeat the shape o... More

Located at a major high-end commercial district at the intersection of Changde Road and Nanjing West Road in Shanghai, a new façade is created for the fashion house Ports 1961’s flagship store. The facade is representative of the future vision of Ports 1961 that brings together its origin and evolution. The design evokes the idea of a landform that resembles an iceberg floating freely in the ocean; the building having a sense of being undulated, expanding and contracting, as if shaped by its environment. The facade demonstrates the possibilities of design experimentation, showing the transformation of form, material and technology, while still bringing aspect of both traditional and contemporary interpretations. The structural grandeur of t... More

Designed in consortium by Menkès Shooner Dagenais LeTourneux Architectes and Provencher_Roy, the CHU Sainte-Justine's “Growing Up Healthy” project enables the hospital to more adequately meet the needs of mothers and children with respect to specialized care and services, while supporting research, education, technological advancement and health promotion. The new, roughly 130,000-square-metre construction increases the institution's total surface area by 65% and houses the Special Care Unit, the Research Centre, a new thermal power station, and a four-level underground parking facility.   The seven-storey building is located to the west of the existing hospital and is connected to it via footbridges and undergroun... More

The DI SIPIO winery in Ripa Teatina, Abruzzo, Italy, near the Adriatic sea. is inserted in a large wine estate and it’s integrated with the pre-existing Seventeenth Century’s villa and the natural landscape. We choose a structure completely underground respect to the floor of the ancient house, to take advantage of the stable temperatures, so the roof became the villa’s garden. Materials and forms are linked to the tradition of the territory: arches made of bricks embrace the two levels underground, sand stones, steel, Cor-ten steel, and finally large glazed surfaces allowed the landscape to enter inside. The Tasting Room is dominated by the texture of the Cor-Ten ceiling slabs, the effects of light, shade and color evoke the image of... More

Hamburg has a new cultural landmark: the Elbphilharmonie, which opens its doors on January 11 and 12, 2017 in Hamburg’s HafenCity. On the banks of the river Elbe on approx. 1,700 reinforced concrete piles a building complex has emerged, which, in addition to three concert halls, will encompass a hotel, 45 private apartments, and the publicly accessible Plaza with a 360° panoramic view of the city. The centrepiece of the Elbphilharmonie is also one of the most exciting structural challenges in Europe at the moment: A world-class concert hall at a height of 50 metres with seating for 2,100, which is decoupled from the rest of the building for soundproofing reasons. The Elbphilharmonie is the perfect symbiosis of architecture and music at a un... More

Living where others go on holidays: In the town Kamperland, located in the Dutch province of Zeeland. In this coastal town, residents and holidaymakers enjoy walks on the beach, romping around in the ocean, and warm evenings with friends. A family of builders chose this idyllic location for its new home. The result is a spectacular residence covering 715 square metres, designed by the architecture firm Paul de Ruiter in Amsterdam. Jeroen Musch From the very beginning it was apparent that the unusual landscape needed to be conserved as much as possible. In addition, the builders used typical regional characteristics as their orientation when designing the home. You can understand the villa's architecture when you consider the province,... More

Situated on a volcanic Peninsula this remote cottage is set into a rock escarpment in a tiny boulder strewn South Pacific cove. It is a shelter designed as a honeymoon retreat for paying guests and consists of a lobby, living/sleeping and a bathroom. The retreat is built using all local materials and is constructed largely from rock quarried near its site with in-situ poured concrete floors and an earth turfed roof. The structure is integrated into the escarpment above to protect its occupants from falling debris. The cottage is self-sustainable in respect to on-site water harvesting and wastewater treatment and energy. The project incorporated an extensive reforestation and re-vegetation sub project. The cottage was originally designed... More

The project brief called for a new boutique office and the reconstruction of a pair of heritage-listed shophouses. WOHA was commissioned only after their demolition to reconstruct the shopfront (up to 7.5m depth) in accordance with Singapore's Urban Redevelopment Authority's conservation and planning guidelines, and to design an entirely new, contemporary rear wing. As the original floor levels with their low ceiling heights were retained, the front end of the shophouses was deemed more suitable for meeting rooms, while the service end accommodated a mechanised carpark. The idea was to strategically lift up the open plan offices within the upper 4 floors where the floor plate size is maximised, higher headroom is gained, better views ar... More

How would you describe this building? The Artist’s warehouse is a monolithic Modern structure. Its orthogonal plan is divided into 3 zones: Firstly, the cantilever with the balcony in the South, where the entrance is situated, secondly, the artist’s workspace and finally the attic in the North which serves as a storage space. A straight staircase connects the two levels, while the cantilevered concrete steps can serve as exhibition stands for the artist’s work. What were the most important wishes of the client? The most important demand was an open space structure of a significant height suitable to the needs of the Artist in order for him to hang paintings and construct huge sculptures. Another wish has been the integration of the... More

When Caltech’s senior administration suddenly changed, REX’s design for the Annenberg Center for Information Science and Technology was canceled. Two months later, the CEO of Vakko (Turkey’s pre-eminent fashion house) and Power Media (Turkey’s equivalent of MTV) approached REX with plans to design and construct a new headquarters by the year’s end using an unfinished, abandoned hotel. The requested timetable would normally have been absurd. However, the unfinished building fortuitously had the same plan dimension, floor-to-floor height, and servicing concept as the Annenberg Center’s “Ring” (the so-called “Sheep”). By adapting the Construction Documents produced for the Annenberg Center to the abandoned concrete hotel skeleton, constr... More

The Cité de l’Océan et du Surf is a museum that explores both surf and sea and their role upon our leisure, science and ecology. The design by Steven Holl Architects in collaboration with Solange Fabião is the winning scheme from an international competition in 2005 that included the offices of Enric Miralles/Benedetta Tagliabue, Brochet Lajus Pueyo, Bernard Tschumi and Jean-Michel Willmotte. The building form derives from the spatial concept “under the sky” / “under the sea.” A concave “under the sky” shape forms the character of the main exterior plaza, the “Place de l’Océan”, which is open to the sky and sea, with the horizon in the distance. A convex structural ceiling forms the “under the sea” exhibition spaces. Two “glass bou... More