The stairs

Palazzo’s Centenary Square, the largest public square in the heart of Birmingham, currently lacks cohesion or a clear identity or atmosphere. Mecanoo’s design transforms the square into one with three distinct realms: monumental, cultural and entertainment. These palazzos form an urban narrative of important periods in the history of the city; The Repertory Theatre (REP), a 1960s concrete building, the Library of Birmingham, designed in 2009 and Baskerville House, a listed sandstone building designed in 1936. The busiest pedestrian route in the city, what Mecanoo calls the red line, leads pedestrians into Centenary Square. The cantilever of the library is not only a large canopy that provides shelter at the common entrance of the Library... More

The location of the Haus am Weinberg affords pastoral views of the stepped terraces of an ancient hillside vineyard on one side and cityscape vistas on the other. The volume and roofline of the Haus am Weinberg react and respond directly to the sloping landscape of the site, where the scales and inclinations of the slopes which sculpture the vineyard setting are reflected in the volumetric appearance of the house. The inner circulation, organisation of the views and the programme distribution of the house are determined by a single gesture, ‘the twist’. This central element supports the main staircase as it guides and organises the main flows through the house. The direction of each curve is determined by a set of diagonal movements. Whi... More

The new domicile for public authority Udbetaling Danmark (UDK) in Holstebro manages a series of vital social services, such as state pension and maternity pay, for the entire region of Midwestern Denmark. The building gathers employees from several municipalities in one new administration building, which has to handle and ensure a centralized and efficient service for the citizens. The project’s architectural scope consists of meeting two overall demands. Firstly, the architecture has to radiate high quality and efficiency as well as openness and helpfulness, as the centre administers financial affairs for a large group of citizens. Thus, the project adapts to the surrounding context, while at the same time calling attention to itself an... More

This project is modest addition to the small village of Huairou on the outskirts of Beijing, just under a two hours drive from busy Beijing urban life. On the one hand it forms a modern programmatic complement to the village by adding a small library and reading space within a setting of quiet contemplation. On the other hand we wanted to use architecture to enhance the appreciation of the natural landscaping qualities. So instead of adding a new building inside the village center, we chose this particular site in the nearby mountains, a pleasant five minute walk from the village center. In doing so we could provide a setting of clear thoughts when one consciously takes the effort to head for the reading room. Because of the overwh... More

Zaha Hadid Architects 04 Jockey Club Innovation Tower, Hong Kong Polytechnic University 01 02 The Jockey Club Innovation Tower (JCIT) is home to the Hong Kong Polytechnic University (PolyU) School of Design, and the Jockey Club Design Institute for Social Innovation. The 15-storey, 15,000 sq. m. tower accommodates more than 1,800 students and staff, with facilities for design education and innovation that include: design studios, labs and workshops, exhibition areas, multi-functional classrooms, lecture theatre and communal lounge. The Hong Kong Polytechnic University campus has developed its urban fabric over the last 50 years with the university’s many faculties housed in visually coherent, yet very different buildings. The JCIT c... More

A two-hour drive away from New York, UNStudio has created a holiday house that is lodged languidly between the hills. At the same time it seems to draw itself up to view the landscape. The concept for Villa NM is so simple and effective, it is almost perverted. From the hilly country grew the idea to continue the landscape by creating a split level. In the words of Mr Ben van Berkel: “The house moves on, over and with the landscape.” The first difference in level follows the slope of the hill, the second one moves away from the ground to give a view of the surroundings from a higher perspective. It is a clever idea to bridge the split level by twisting some of the surfaces a quarter turn - a wall that twists on its central axle horiz... More

The Hive is Europe’s first joint university and public library – a unique academic, educational and learning centre for the City of Worcester and its University.  The ‘BREEAM Outstanding’ project was designed by architects Feilden Clegg Bradley Studios with a distinctive and sustainable landscape design by Grant Associates.  Grant Associates’ landscape design brief was to create a high quality landscape environment that would become a distinctive and exciting visitor attraction -  a place which would capture a sense of history and place whilst reflecting on the contemporary themes of sustainability and technological innovation. The landscape is based on a strong narrative derived from the local landscape of the River Severn, Malvern H... More

The past thirty years have seen frantic attempts by architects to escape the domination of the "shoe-box" concert hall. Rather than struggle with the inescapable acoustic superiority of this traditional shape, the Casa da Musica attempts to reinvigorate the traditional concert hall in another way: by redefining the relationship between the hallowed interior and the general public outside. The Casa da Musica, the new home of the National Orchestra of Porto, stands on a new public square in the historic Rotunda da Boavista. It has a distinctive faceted form, made of white concrete, which remains solid and believable in an age of too many icons. Inside, the elevated 1,300-seat (shoe box-shaped) Grand Auditorium has corrugated glass facades at... More

The building is located in a landscape of unique beauty, the result of a natural and evident growth. The mountain, topped by a castle, is covered by a blanket housing through a system of aggregation by simple juxtaposition of pieces generated fragmented target tissue that adapts to the topography. The project proposes to integrate into the environment, respecting their strategies of adaptation to the environment and materials away from the mimesis that would lead to misleading historicism, and showing the time constructively to meet the requirements of the "new people." In this way the house is conceived as a piece placed on the ground, joining in the gap. A piece built on the same white lime, the same primacy of the massif on the op... More

Located on a campus designed along Lac St-Louis in the first decade of the twentieth century, John Abbott College is home to more than 5000 post-secondary students, faculty and staff members. Its new Science Building, designed by Saucier + Perrotte architectes, is a state-of-the-art facility intended to foster the interdisciplinary nature of science, collaborative study and experiments, and the need for formal and informal learning. Designed as a showcase for sustainability, the singular, iconic form promotes a variety of pedagogical approaches through flexible classrooms, laboratories, learning centres, and informal spaces where ideas can be exchanged and creative interaction can unfold. The new building houses the College’s sciences —... More

Collaboration:BIG with Kossmann.dejong, Rambøll, Freddy Madsen andKiBiSi The new Danish Maritime Museum is a subterranean museum built around a dry dock adjacent to Kronborg Castle of Hamlet fame. For a century the site was a shipyard bustling with vessels and machinery, and the dry dock that now forms the centrepiece of the museum’s underground building is a legacy of this yard. Yet until recently, the dock lay in a state of neglect in a decayed post-industrial landscape, a desolate and rather ugly concrete relic of a lost industry. Due to the UNESCO World Heritage status of Kronborg Castle, the museum, formerly located within the castle’s walls, was evicted in order to restore the castle’s original interiors. It was decided that the m... More

Zaha Hadid, english-iraki architect, first female recipient of the Pritzker Architecture Prize in 2004 (Nobel Prize of architecture), just ended in Rome the creation of the MAXXI: National Museum of the 21st Century Arts. Barrisol® Lumière® has been installed in this historical and contemporary museum More

As part of the former Soviet Union, the urbanism and architecture of Baku, the capital of Azerbaijan on the Western coast of the Caspian Sea, was heavily influenced by the planning of that era. Since its independence in 1991, Azerbaijan has invested heavily in modernising and developing Baku’s infrastructure and architecture, departing from its legacy of normative Soviet Modernism. Zaha Hadid Architects was appointed as design architects of the Heydar Aliyev Center following a competition in 2007. The Center, designed to become the primary building for the nation’s cultural programs, breaks from the rigid and often monumental Soviet architecture that is so prevalent in Baku, aspiring instead to express the sensibilities of Azeri culture and... More

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