Minsheng Art Museum by Approach Architecture Studio

The visiting route has been carefully designed to pass through different spaces and programs smoothly by new added staircases, courtyard and corridors in between the old and new walls.

Minsheng Art Museum
Design Team: Approach Architecture Studio
Location: No. 570 Huaihaixilu, Shanghai, China
Status: Completion 2008

MinSheng Art Museum by Approach Architecture Studio is a re-development project located in Shanghai, China. Converting an old factory to a new art space, it is one of the biggest art communalities in Shanghai. There are exhibition space, gallery, art museums, handcraft workshop, etc in this area. The concept of the re-development is to form a contemporary art exhibition space while keeping the industrial appearance as much as possible.

The total construction area of the art museum is around 3000 square meters, while the exhibition space is around 2500 square meters, including a 1000 square-meter exhibition hall and four small exhibition halls with the total area 1500 square meters. Other new functions including storage, reception, cafe, bookstore, offices, VIP room, courtyard, etc.








via Approach Architecture Studio

Marina + Beach Towers by Oppenheim

The emergent building has allowed the creation of an continuous botanical wonderland infused with ambient light. This shaded tapestry envelops the senses with subtle responses to sight, scent and sound.

Marina + Beach Towers
Design Team: Oppenheim
Location: U.A.E.
Status: Estimated completion 2012

For the U.A.E. Marina and Beach towers project, Oppenheim created an high-rise mixed-use building that in addition to the typologies, is a response that is simultaneously building and landscape; a project whose fluidity merges sky and water. This allows for more varied living experiences beyond the capabilities of the normative tower. Basing the unit types on a standard module has allowed its shifted repetition to develop into the woven tapestry of the facade; a surface that responds to every nuanced shift of light, while providing critical protection from the intense sun.

The symbiosis between building and landscape has also resulted in the opening of the promenade into a bazaar of curated retail and dining experiences and the opportunity for the nestling of exclusive yacht and beach clubs.




An integral aspect of this orchestration has been on self sustainability and an embrace of the natural resources. The building form itself becomes a device for luring cool breezes to spaces shielded from the sun, referencing the regional time-tested tradition of wind catchers. Inconspicuously and opportunistically the structure incorporates solar and wind arrays for the generation of some of this building's required energy. Other integral systems deployed towards complete self-sustenance, include various methods for the reuse of the vast amounts of water flowing through the site. Sustainability is imbued throughout the life cycle, where intelligent planning provides innovative opportunities for energy and resource conservation, up-cycling (as opposed to re-cycling), waste, and healthy building initiatives; where ecology and sustainability allow even greater guilt-free luxury, not self denial. The orchestration of all these imperatives has generated an elegance derived from simplicity that addresses all of the needs of development without any of the proliferating exuberance.





The Marina + Beach Towers remind me of The Wave Bølgen Residences.

via Oppenheim

Carabanchel Social Housing by FOA

The architects based their design on a simple concept that is low-cost, sustainable and playful, experimenting with the standard ideas on social housing.

Carabanchel Social Housing
Design Team: Foreign Office Architects
Location: Madrid, Spain
Status: Completion 2007

Foreign Office Architects gave bamboo a leading role in the Carabanchel Social Housing project. There were two main reasons for doing so: it's eco-friendly and it's comfortingly cosy. Operating within a severely limited budget, the Carabanchel Social Housing project is 100 social housing units on the outskirts of Madrid. Regulations set the number of units and the percentages of every size. The maximum height was also a constraint, but not the alignment within the rectangular plot.

Given the adjacency to the future urban park and the North-South orientation of the site, our proposal is to compact the volume within the given height to provide a private garden for the units on the eastern side and to produce double aspect units facing both gardens. In order to achieve this, the units became elongated tubes that connect both facades. Thanks to the compactness of the block, we succeeded in providing fully glazed facades for all the exterior surfaces. The facades have been lined with a 1.5m wide terrace which provides a semi-exterior buffer space enclosed with bamboo screens mounted on folding frames. The screens protect the glazed surfaces from the strong East-West solar exposure, and are able to open to the side gardens when desired.Our target was to provide the maximum amount of space, flexibility and quality to the residences, and to erase the visibility of the units and their differences into a single volume with a homogeneous skin which is able to incorporate a gradation of possibilities.

The primary architectural effect of the building is not dependent on the architects vision, but as an effect of the inhabitants choice, as if the facade was a register at any given moment of a cumulative effect of individuals choices.







via FOA

Slit House by AZL Atelier Zhanglei

Even China's used almost half of world's cement alone in China, Slit house is the first real concrete building in Nanjing, the city which also built 1300 high-rise concrete structure towers in last 25 years.

Slit House
Design Team: AZL Atelier Zhanglei
Location: Nanjing, China
Status: Completion 2007

The Slit house is designed to fit into the historical context formulated in beginning of 20's in centre part of Nanjing city, China, with a new form of concrete facade. The entire structure, even the roof and facade, are made from concrete with five-centimeter horizontal wood textile strips. It is aimed to share the same scale with neighbor buildings of brick build almost 100 years ago.

Showing the transparency of the house in its public part with a deep slit, a stair is used in this project to link two parts and create visual difference. A two-floor-high living area and a lower dining area are divided unexpectedly but naturally. In this way, all the space elements are activated, and three-dimensionalized.





The use of slit is also vital in the whole design. Architectural objects have been long idealized as stable and firm. The Slit House has sent the stereotyped knowledge away and created a new illusion. The silt allows an external, essential confrontation between the main body and its environment, like a black lightning full of energy.
Slit house express itself in harmony with surroundings neighbourhood.







via AZL Atelier Zhanglei

Milly Film by Samyn and Partners

The building presents curved and vegetalised facades that are very private and closed to the neighbours to the north, the east and the south. In contrast, the west facade is entirely glass-walled as if it were one huge partitioned window.

Milly Film
Design Team: Samyn and Partners
Location: Linkebeek, Belgium
Status: Completion 2007

This is a mixed-use construction for a cinematographer that includes production and workspace as well as a residence.

The construction includes the street level of an existing small house. It now houses the entry hall, a large office and a kitchen ; the living-room and the stairway are in the extension to the building.

The professional studios occupy all the cellars as well as part of the second floor.

The remainder of this floor includes the master bedroom with its bathroom, as well as five children's rooms and sanitary installations. They are equipped with a mezzanine protected by textile netting that leads to the glassed-wall facade.





Immense trans-lucid white polyester curtains in widths of 1.6 m suspended from the top of the structure to the ground floor run along this great « window » to ensure shade in the summer months.

Initially conceived as a wall of ivy with a patinated copper roof, the vegetalised facade is finally composed of a selection of exotic plants chosen by the botanical artist Patrick Blanc, and extends to cover the roof.

It was necessary to determine the structure, the insulation, and the water-tightness of the envelope and resolve some building physics issues in order to receive the necessary support systems, irrigation and fertilization systems for the plants that are set into a felt support stapled to rigid PVC panels.








via Samyn and Partners

World Games Stadium by Toyo Ito

The stunning dragonesque roof of World Games Stadium designed by Toyo Ito is practically covered by 8'844 solar panels, be the first stadium in the world to provide power using solar energy technology.

World Games Stadium
Design Team: Toyo Ito & Associates, Architects
Location: Kaohsiung, Taiwan
Status: Completed 2009

When Kaohsiung was granted the right to host The World Games 2009 by the International World Games Association, the organizing committee immediately launched the venue construction project in order to meet International Federation standards.

The whole construction of the World Games Stadium, with a capacity of 40,000 seats, designed by Toyo Ito, only required two years of work, and was finally tested for lighting facilities on January 15, 2009. It took over six minutes to power up the lighting in the stadium, which illuminates the track and field with 3,300 lux. Two jumbotrons screens on each side of the stadium, along with a surround sounding system, make this an international standard soccer field and facility, ensuring that it is the perfect venue for the opening and closing ceremonies, as well as the Rugby 7s and Flying Disc events.




The stadium consists of approximately 8 844 solar panels on a surface area of 14 155m2
intergrated into the roof construction. the form which emulates that of a flowing river,
depending on the sunshine, can cover 75 % of the energy needs. On days when no
competitions will take place, the electricity generated is fed into the grid. with more
than 40 000 seats it is surrounded by a vast new public park including palm trees
and tropical plants.

Moreover, this stadium is notable for its eco-friendliness: the solar panels on the stadium roof generate 1.14 million kWh of electricity per year, thus reducing 660 tons of annual carbon dioxide output. In addition, all the raw materials used in the main stadium are 100% reusable and made in Taiwan.

The World Games Stadium is not only a breakthrough of construction techniques, but also different from the traditionally enclosed stadiums; the open design of the stadium signifies a cordial welcome with cheerful greeting. Furthermore, the planning of the stadium is oriented at north-south direction, with a slight northwest-southeast 15-degree angle; the spiral conforms to the open "C" shape of the stadium. Such design allows the main spectator stand efficiently shelter the field from the southwestern summer wind and the northwestern winter wind. At the same time, such orientation shelters from sunlight, thus providing a more comfortable sport environment.





Visitors arriving from downtown via public transportation walk down a broad boulevarde
before turning into the plaza. at the stadium's narrowest section ticket windows and restaurants
are housed. concourses and upper level seating are supported by a ring of concrete structures.

The building occupies 19 hectares. Beside the main stadium, the surrounding public area, the planning of the aspects, ecology and sports parks, the integration of the bicycle paths, ecological pond and lush vegetation will traverse the green zone, providing visitors access to the natural environment.

Not only does the solar panel system provide electricity during the games, but the surplus energy can also be sold during the non-game period. This is an unprecedented case of solar energy exploit on our island.






via worldgames2009 | Toyo Ito