Metal facades

A learning space for the Internet ageLocated in the leafy city of Ibaraki in northern Osaka Prefecture, this project forms the core of the Ibaraki Smart Community, which occupies the 185,000 m2 site of a former Toshiba factory. The 40,000 m2 facility will serve as a new campus for about 3,600 students at OtemonGakuin University, or about half the student population.   As Internet technology, artificial intelligence, and mobility improve and students no longer need to be on campus to attend school, what form will universities take? Our task as architects was to think about how to design a learning site that would inspire students to make that trip to campus. Since ancient times, Japan’s shrines and temples have held a mystery an... More

A large retail chain like Baumax conducts professional customer research and plans processes and product presentations in its own departments down to the smallest detail, such as storage rack millimeters and the font on the price tags. The architects' room for maneuver is limited on the inside. The focus remains on the large shape, structure, development and orientation of the building. You don't have to worry about the design of a restaurant area, for example, that is up to others. The glazed, open, friendly sides in the south and east look towards the city. Closed, tidy, with sheet metal facades, the other fronts face the motorway. In the hardware store, which uses every centimeter to spread the patchwork carpet of the product hodgepodge,... More

Openness and Sustainability: the Brunner Innovation Factory The hybrid innovation centre built by HENN for furniture company Brunner in Rheinau has been officially opened. The multifunctional building combines production, assembly, office and catering areas. The modular wooden structure of the hall underlines the project's stringent requirements when it comes to sustainability, natural aesthetics and recreational quality.   A multifunctional and hybrid innovation centre As the architect and general planner, the special challenge for HENN with the Brunner Innovation Factory was to combine different programmes spatially and functionally. In the hybrid innovation centre, development, design, prototyping, production, open workspaces, s... More

A new conceptual project of a business center in the city of Nur-Sultan. The ambitious building, reminiscent of the architecture of the future, includes a 32 storey tower with ultra-modern office spaces, company museum, commercial premises, a spacious parking lot, attractive public spaces and an extensive city park.   The concept of a new business and financial center is based on the proportions of plastic, smoothly flowing into each other, forms and futuristic design. The rhythm of the lamellae and the perforation of metal facades reinforces the sound of the main compositional idea - a smooth dynamic aspiration upwards. The unusual plastic form of the architecture also dictated the principles of shaping the internal spaces of the bu... More

The new building is aligned on rue Castagnary and recedes in an L-shape towards the adjacent building in the north. Its medium scale ensures urban continuity and the density in this quarter. The building is covered by an envelope of white metal blades, consistent with the dominating color of the quarter. Its vocabulary is contemporary and in line with the finesse and attention to detail some housings in the neighborhood. The rhythm of the openings and the large vertical apertures are inspired by Parisian windows. The ground level and the first three upper floors follow the alignment of the sidewalk but the façade inclines from the last two levels onwards. The height of the building corresponds to the height of its neighboring buildin... More

Architect’s description The opera house is the realisation of the winning competition entry. Four diagrams, which were part of the entry, explain the building’s basic concept. ”The wave wall” Opera and ballet are young art forms in Norway. These art forms evolve in an international setting. The Bjørvika peninsula is part of a harbour city, which is historically the meeting point with the rest of the world. The dividing line between the ground ’here’ and the water ‘there’ is both a real and a symbolic threshold. This threshold is realised as a large wall on the line of the meeting between land and sea, Norway and the world, art and everyday life. This is the threshold where the public meet the art. ”The Factory” A detailed brief was develope... More

Located in Saint-Louis (Alsace, France) in the “Three Borders” region and in the inner suburb of Basel, the “Forum” dedicated to replace the old “Palais des fêtes” of the town, is a cultural facility designed to host associative, sporting and cultural events. The land, vast enough, is located close to the city center of Saint-Louis in an area mixing different scales and uses: it remains a residential area mainly made up of low height houses mingled with some characterless large-sized collective buildings, but it also includes offi ces and workshops for small companies, as well as a kindergarten and a primary school. The project has been designed to fi t between these different built scales, in the smoothest possible way, by... More

The relationship between building height and sustainability is a subject that currently occupies the minds of many city planners. This is because the city cannot expand infinitely into the landscape. In France, however, "village" urbanism seems to be adamantly resisting the vertical city, without truly considering its potential. One of the objectives of our project is to quell these hesitations. Benefiting from an exception to the 37 meter building height restriction in Paris, the tallest building of our project is 50 meters tall. Covered with plants from wild natural areas, our tower is a tool for seeding: it allows the wind to spread class one purebred seeds into the urban environment. Its height is a key element for its capacity to r... More

The relationship between building height and sustainability is a subject that currently occupies the minds of many city planners. This is because the city cannot expand infinitely into the landscape. In France, however, "village" urbanism seems to be adamantly resisting the vertical city, without truly considering its potential. One of the objectives of our project is to quell these hesitations. Benefiting from an exception to the 37 meter building height restriction in Paris, the tallest building of our project is 50 meters tall. Covered with plants from wild natural areas, our tower is a tool for seeding: it allows the wind to spread class one purebred seeds into the urban environment. Its height is a key element for its capacit... More

The existing Flevocentrale power station at Lelystad is to be replaced. At the new station, electricity will be produced by state of the art methods using advanced high efficiency steam and gas turbines. Each of the four planned units consists of a turbine room linked to a steam boiler. The boilers were designed with opal glass facades to serve as beacons for nearby shipping traffic. The layered abstraction of the expanded metal facades emphasizes the utilitarian character of the structure. At night, however, the building’s lights produce an almost ‘domestic’ effect in the flat polder landscape. More

An internationally successful businessman, furniture designer and film director, Ernst Koller shaped the international aluminium and metal world like no other. The Nestlé administration building in Vevey (1958), the Iraqi Central Bank in Baghdad, the Hoffman-LaRoche skyscraper, and the World Health Organisation building in Geneva are just some of his many creations. Among his most important inventions are doubleglazing (1929), integrated wood and metal windows (1937), light metal windows and facades (1955), whole-metal facades, prefabricated building, exposed building styles and minimalist skeleton building styles. The constructionist and pioneer of modern building died in his residence in Binningen (Basel Land) in 2002. The innovative s... More

An internationally successful businessman, furniture designer and film director, Ernst Koller shaped the international aluminium and metal world like no other. The Nestlé administration building in Vevey (1958), the Iraqi Central Bank in Baghdad, the Hoffman-LaRoche skyscraper, and the World Health Organisation building in Geneva are just some of his many creations. Among his most important inventions are doubleglazing (1929), integrated wood and metal windows (1937), light metal windows and facades (1955), whole-metal facades, prefabricated building, exposed building styles and minimalist skeleton building styles. The constructionist and pioneer of modern building died in his residence in Binningen (Basel Land) in 2002. The innovat... More