Research

As we come out of the pandemic, many companies are thinking about the future of work and what it takes to provide a welcoming office environment. This confidential client decided to develop Refreshed, a coffee bar on the top floor of their mid-rise office building. This whimsical oasis serves hundreds of employees by providing a place for relaxation, socialization, and caffeine. Marco Zecchin The newly renovated Coffee Bar, a collaborative design between our architectural, interiors and Media-Objectives studios, aims to initiate moments of discovery and spontaneous collaboration, reflective of the company’s product. A California Trail Blazers theme found throughout the rest of the building is incorporated into Refreshed through... More

A World unto Itself, a Smart Hive Because he shared the adventure of its design with its future occupants, the Air Liquide Research and Development Center has a special place in the career of Michel Rémon. "France is your origin, but the world is your territory" – this was the founding statement of the admiring architect to the men and women of the Air Liquide Research Center. And this is how the project began. With these scientists whose research benefits the entire planet, Michel Rémon "invented" a unique workplace. The combination of skills of the designer and the researchers thus gave the Claude-Delorme Center the media status of a "world unto itself", emblematic of the Air Liquide group’s know-how. ©... More

A research & development project in collaboration with Pomeroy Academy, Pod Off-Grid is a prototypical modular development strategy that aims at realising future communities which exist entirely off the grid in open water. Modules consists of several sectors, including residential, civic, and agriculture, as well as Utility Units, which generate electricity, provide water filtration, and waste treatment. The project has been featured as the subject of a book, exhibition and various TV info-documentary shows. More

Oregon Health and Science University’s Knight Cancer Institute sought a state-of-the-art cancer research facility that would support and facilitate a team science approach. Reducing the number of research floors and increasing the size of each floor allowed us to incorporate communicating stairs, which form functional and visual connections between floors and between research teams. The experimentalist laboratory and office suites are organized in interconnected “neighborhoods.” These neighborhoods retain the modest scale researchers prefer, while providing the flexibility to reallocate space as needed. The extensive use of glass walls creates visual connections that reinforce the collective identity of the Knight Cancer Institute and... More

On an elevated site, Milstein Family Heart Center bows gently outward toward the view, drawing attention to the extraordinary landscape of the Hudson River and New Jersey Palisades beyond.Despite the necessary density of the plan, natural light is plentifully present in the interior. With its flanking neighbors, the new building reads as part of an ensemble of different but complementary parts.Diagnostics, ambulatory surgery, cardiac catheterization laboratories, medical practice suites, critical care units, and an education/conference center have been added to the existing facility. The continuity of medical departments and functional synergies are facilitated with multi-level connection. The resulting seamless complex provides an exceptio... More

Theatres Tilburg commissioned Studio Samira Boon to create a site-specific installation of Archi Folds in its main concert hall. The installation was inaugurated on 8 September 2018, during a special gala of Stichting Kunst en Onderneming Brabant (KoBra), marking the start of Theaters Tilburg’s 2018/2019 season.   Thanks to its shape and adaptability, Archi Folds able to transform the large main concert hall of Theatres Tilburg into an intimate space suitable for smaller concerts and gatherings.   Buildings are generally created to be permanent. By contrast, Archi Folds can be seen as a next step in creating a more flexible architecture. Archi Folds creates a dynamic and flexible environment, a so-cal... More

ArchiFolds, winner of the Creative Heroes Awards, is an innovative series of textile structures inspired by traditional Japanese folding techniques: “Embedded origami patterns afford natural movement characteristics, growth and metamorphosis” explains Samira Boon. The textile structures are the result of extensive and ongoing research by Studio Samira Boon in collaboration with TextileLab and Prof. T. Tachi from the University of Tokyo.ArchiFolds embodies Samira Boon’s vision on healthy environments as spaces that: “are flexible and dynamic like natural systems. Adaptive textiles are able to accommodate and regulate changing needs on spatial circulation, efficient energy usage and acoustic ambience.” By transla... More

In the tradition of the nearby Thomas Jefferson–designed Virginia State Capitol, the new VCU School of Medicine gives architectural voice to its societal purpose and provides inventive accommodation for the medical school community.Occupying a site within the dense, urban MCV Campus in the heart of downtown Richmond, the project called for a strategy that would open the building to its context while defining the building mass with a number of discrete, well-scaled components. An inviting and efficient diagonal pedestrian circulation path through the building resolves a disjuncture between the symbolic center of the campus to the east and its functional center to the west.The sequence of spaces from the entrance on 12th Street includes the c... More

The extension of the Panum complex has been designed with the aim of creating the best possible environment for modern research and teaching. A parallel objective has been to create a building which will stand out as an identity-creating, sculptural linchpin for the entire Panum complex and the university's Nørre Campus (i.e. the North Campus) as a whole. The new complex is also intended to act as the generator of a positive urban development in its immediate neighbourhood and in relation to the entire city. At sixteen storeys tall, the Maersk Tower will provide the complex with a unifying and dynamic focal point in a clear and readable form. But just as a tree has its root network, the tower rests upon on a series of smaller buildi... More

The GoodLife Fitness Family Autism Hub is a provincial knowledge centre will incorporate state of the art resources for research, information, learning, assessment, treatment and support addressing the lifespan needs of individuals with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) and their families across British Columbia.The concept involves a building that acts as a Centre and provides services to regions across the province through a “hub and spoke” concept. The ‘hub‘ will be operated by the Pacific Autism Family Centre Society.An initial space program was developed for the Centre and its satellites. The total area for the Centre proposed is 60,000 sq. ft. Program spaces identified for the Centre include: a knowledge centre; vocational and post secon... More

3.000 patients capacity per day, 1.000 beds in individual rooms, 260.000 m2 surfaces, the new Valencia Hospital, “La Fe” is the main health project made in Europe in the last decades. The hospital, that was recently opened, has been a challenge for architects, designers, inner designers and dealers taking part in the project. It is considered the World leader in Health technology, the building is formed by four main blocks which link together the different Research, Medical care, Teaching areas as well as the different facilities. Actiu has taken part in this “flagship of the European Health” through the advising, spaces distribution and the production and installation of the furniture in several working environments, customer service... More