Architects: Francis-Jones Morehen Thorp
Location: Sydney, Australia
Landscape: FJMT
Cost Consultant: Davis Langdon Australia
Structural & Civil Consultant: Taylor Thomson Whitting
Mechanical & Electrical Consultant: Lincolne Scott
Hydraulic Consultant: ThomsonKane
Environmental consultant: Advanced Environmental Concepts
Acoustic consultant: Arup Acoustics
Facade Engineer: Connell Mott MacDonald
Builder: AW Edwards Pty Ltd
Project Manager: Capital Insight
Project Area: 14,480 sqm
Project Year: 2006
Photographs: Andrew Chung courtesy by FJMT

The School of Information Technologies building (SIT) transforms a derelict site adjacent to one of Sydney’s major arterial roads into a new campus gateway. It also sets a new benchmark for the University of Sydney with respect to environmental initiatives and excellence in the provision of contemporary workplace and teaching environments.

The building is a sophisticated integration of multimedia, technology, communication, architecture, arts, landscape and ecology. It evokes a strong sense of identity for the school and the university as a whole, and projects a contemporary image of technology, openness and engagement with the campus and wider community.

On the north side of the building, a layered glazed facade counteracts the noise and pollution of Cleveland Street and a unique ‘frit’ within the glass minimises solar gain. These create appropriate indoor workplace conditions whilst presenting a contemporary image of transparency and interaction. On the south, a curved stainless steel facade integrates a unique perforated metal screen to protect against unwanted solar gain and glare. The building’s unique form allows for the creation of generous landscape zones for passive recreation and ‘extend’ the use of the building into adjoining campus areas.

SIT is predominantly a building accommodating the contemporary workplace environment of the School of Information Technologies and allied private industries. The building lends itself to a mixture of individual offices, collaboration areas and open-plan work spaces — mirroring those typically encountered in private enterprise. Excellence is sought in providing state-of-the-art work environments with a particular emphasis on health and sustainability, collaboration and interaction.

The floorplate is configured as two wings about a central atrium and interconnecting stair. Social hubs are located within the naturally ventilated atrium / support zone and aids in knowledge transfer through informal interaction and meetings.

A holistic and integrated approach to sustainability was developed with reference to the Green Star Office Rating Tool. The building uses active chilled beams to provide an energy efficient approach to environmental control as well as furthering a commitment to health and productivity, and individual task lighting is provided to reduce levels of ambient light.

The main foyer is centred within this atrium allowing the extension of Engineering Walk into the School and visually connecting Cleveland Street. Vertical connections are located within the foyer, facilitating easy access to upper levels and interconnecting the public facilities. Each level has a “bridge” connecting the eastern and western sections across the Engineering Walk axis. The building incorporates a strong commitment to sustainability.

The form developed to foster links with Engineering Precinct, Seymour Centre and external environment. The form constitutes a layered facade along Cleveland Street (a buffer to the noise and pollution). This is broken at the Engineering Walk axis to visually connect the precinct with the neighbourhood and announce the main entrance, then extends to the west to embrace the Seymour Forecourt. To the south, the building’s curved stainless facade incorporates a screen to refine the proportions and assists in controlling glare. This creates zones for passive recreation and extends building usage to the adjoining campus areas, and forms a new forecourt to the adjacent Seymour Centre.

Environmentally Sustainable Design

The building sets a new University benchmark, with respect to environmental initiatives and excellence in the provision of contemporary workplace and teaching environments. Design intent has been benchmarked against the GBCA GreenStar office model. Although the rating initiative currently only exists for offices, the University showed great vision in adopting it for the project and achieved a 4 star GreenStar credit rating, placing the building within the top quartile of ESD office developments within Australia. Below are listed some of the many initiatives:

• Holistic and integrated approach providing a new benchmark in sustainability for the University
• Approaches and initiatives developed with reference to the GreenStar Office Rating Tool
• Active multi service chilled beams with enhanced ventilation provide throughout all offices and open plan workspaces
• Mixed mode mechanical ventilation, through the use of automated louvers providing natural air flow in the large atrium spaces
• Natural ventilation provided to central atrium and social hub collaborative zone
• Glazed interconnecting stair creating a ‘vertical street’ to reduce reliance on lifts
• Enhanced access to natural light and view
• PVC minimisation and use of recycled materials
• Sophisticated layered glazed facaded and integrated external shading to control solar gain
• Reduced levels of ambient artificial light by incorporation of individual task lighting
• Considered material selection in relation to embodied energy and whole of life costing analysis
• Incorporation of solar hot water, energy efficient fittings and zoning
• Incorporation of bicycle parking and shower/change facilities

Architects: Giancarlo Mazzanti
Location: Santa Marta, Colombia
Design Team: Susana Somoza, Andr√©s Sarmiento, N√©stor Gualteros, Oscar Cano, Lucia Largo
Structural Engineer: Nicolas Parva
Project Year: 2011
Photographs: Jorge Gamboa

Starting from the special understanding of Malaguzzi Loris pedagogical philosophy, was born the idea of creating an element that suggests 3 interrelated centralities, and which cause a range of situations and experiences among children, teachers and family.
Moreover, in pragmatic terms there is a need to generate progressive growth for future linkage more children to the Center, is thought to employ a modular system (based on the 3 centers) which can be added modules depending on the needs and expansion possibilities in terms of available area.

Following the morphology of the site, a chain system is created, based on a module type that holds the architectural program requirements and spatially follows the education center. Therefore creating meeting places for the free entertainment that involves learning.

The module type is characterized as a flexible and neutral space that allows the development of multiple activities within it. It relates with the nearest external surroundings [indoor and outdoor yard] allowing a close relationship among all children and teachers.

Architects: Kengo Kuma & Associates
Location: 2-294 Torii Matsu Machi, Kasugai-shi, Aichi Prefecture, Japan
Client: GC Corporation
Site Area: 421.55 sqm
Built Area: 233.95 sqm
Total Floor Area: 626.5 sqm
Cooperation for Design: Design Department of Matsui Construction
Structural Design: Jun Sato Structural Design
Photographs: Daici Ano

This is architecture that originates from the system of Cidori, an old Japanese toy. Cidori is an assembly of wood sticks with joints having unique shape, which can be extended merely by twisting the sticks, without any nails or metal fittings. The tradition of this toy has been passed on in Hida Takayama, a small town in a mountain, where many skilled craftsmen still exist.

Cidori has a wood 12 mm square as its element, which for this building was transformed into different sizes. Parts are 60mm×60mm×200cm or 60mm×60mm×400cm, and form a grid of 50cm square. This cubic grid also becomes the grid on its own for the showcase in the museum.

Jun Sato, structural engineer for the project, conducted a compressive and flexure test to check the strength of this system, and verified that even the device of a toy could be adapted to ‘big’ buildings. This architecture shows the possibility of creating a universe by combining small units like toys with your own hands. We worked on the project in the hope that the era of machine-made architectures would be over, and human beings would build them again by themselves.

Architects: Orts-Trullenque
Location: Alicante, Spain
Client: CIEGSA (school infrastructures dept, Generalitat Valenciana)
Head Architects: Marta Orts – Carlos Trullenque
Assistant Architect: Ana ábalos
Structural Engineering : Javier Cases, Architect
Civil Engineer : Ricardo Casal
Mechanical Engineering: GIA (Luis Sanchis – Agustí Vila)
Contractor: UTE Proinsa-Chm
Photographs: Diego Opazo

This project was conceived to imbue a sense of place into a typology so frequently decontextualised by its location and its enclosed envelope. On the one hand, the buildings of this school occupy part of the site perimeter, thus functioning as an inhabited boundary connected to its most immediate surrounding environment. On the other hand, the north-east area of the site is set aside for an outdoor space, a plaza containing the access and bestowing the building with the basic public character, beyond its scale. Functionally speaking, the project proposes a clear floor plan, arranged according to uses into fragmented parallel strips, joined by a crossing longitudinal axis which articulates the whole and orders the interior flow. The horizontal volumes, the courtyards, the colours and plants, round off what must necessarily be a welcoming optimistic place.

Architects: Studio Ricatti – Pierpaolo Ricatti
Location: Breganze, Italy
Collaborators: Marco Chilese (Project Manager), Laura Canazza, Giulia Gallo, Anna Griggio, Paolo Omodei Salè, Diego Rossi, Marco Saterini
Engineering: Jacobs Italia SpA
Project area: 87,000 sqm
Photographs: Daniele Domenicali, Aerodata (aerial views)

The new Diesel Headquarters is located in an area previously occupied by a mechanical industrial plant. The project can be defined a low-rise hybrid building which keeps together different functional programs: offices, warehouses, exhibition spaces, an auditorium, a kindergarten, a canteen, a fitness center in addition to covered parking car and technological plants.
The result is a small creative town whose community shares working spaces but also common ones, those where emerge the effective sense of working together and sharing different skills.
This led us to conceive the intervention as a real urban project, crossed by streets and articulated into several squares: the result is a state of exceptional functional density within the scattered sprawl that characterizes the entire region.

This makes it immediately recognizable without using any formal complication. For this reason we wanted to create nor a landmark neither an icon-building. We have been working, instead, on the concept of  “locus” in order to make clear the role of this island into a regional scale, into the larger metropolitan archipelago.

Riccardo Mariano designed the ‘Istanbul Disaster Prevention + Education Centre’ as a reflection of earth-related phenomena. The surrounding site lifts to form a volcano-like structure. From the inside, coloful lights pour upwards, a reflection of man-made energy. Although the nearby landscape contains a creek while the north has civil infrastructure, the building is located on a flat topographical surface allowing the low profile center to visually emerge.

The interior façade consists of drawings which were derived from a typical islamic pattern, based on the hexagonal grid, the system modulates the light, adding color as it passes through its different densities. The built-in light gets stronger as it gets closer to the top, allowing for it to be seen from a distance at night.

Structurally, every sector works as an independent entity connected to the next by cracks and joints. This principle is based on the observation of the geometry of fractures in solid material. Overall, the building is a fragmented mass made out of simple substructures. Outside, the gravel from the surrounding site is continued onto the façade. The material acts as installation for noise and temperature while visually tying the building into the landscape.

programme : centre de formations

maître d’ouvrage : EDF

architecte : ECDM

localisation : Saclay (91)

superficie : 25 000 m² SHON

concours : 2011

Urbanité rurale

La réalisation d’un bâtiment dans le projet d’aménagement de Paris Saclay est une occasion unique pour constituer un des jalons du futur pôle d’excellence constitué sur le plateau. La spécificité du site, ses qualités présentes et en devenir en font un territoire d’avangarde stimulant.

Le paysage est le point de départ d’un projet pensé avec le sentiment obsessionnel d’être entouré par la nature. Le vide de construction domine, l’espace est large, distendu. La consommation du territoire est ici centrale quand se répandre serait banaliser le support. Notre travail premier est de donner de la valeur à l’abondance d’espace. Aussi nous avons souhaité mettre en scène, donner à voir cette économie de consommation de territoire en proposant une architecture compacte, une volumétrie qui s’efforce de consommer avec modération un territoire de grande valeur. Ici la richesse c’est l’espace. Il s’agit donc d’un bâtiment conscient de son foncier, aussi précautionneux de son site que s‘il avait été pensé dans un environnement rare et dense. La densité, la pression ici, c’est le paysage qui fédère et sature l’architecture. Nous sommes en présence d’une ruralité-urbaine, d’un aménagement paradoxal qui voudrait que l’on ait les avantages, les caractéristiques de la ville et de la ruralité en un même lieu.

Il en résulte un projet dense compact, une volumétrie qui fédère la diversité du programme. Le bâtiment est traité comme un ilot cadré par des ilots de verdure, un bâti s’inscrivant parfaitement dans un territoire géométrisé. L’organisation de notre plan masse participe à la structuration d’un paysage, un cluster ou les constructions ne sont pas des objets solitaires mais les éléments d’un tout. Nous travaillons dans une logique d’ilot, ilot bâti répondant à des ilots plantés dans un travail où les plantes constituent des masses, des ensembles au même titre que le construit.

La nature n’est donc pas un entre-deux mais un contraste. Il y a donc un campus organisé dans une unité de lieu, une entité non fragmentée mais organisée en strates, se développant dans un système de repérage simple qui donne unité et lisibilité à chacun des programmes. Des masses construites répondent à des masses végétales à l’intérieur d’un territoire géométrisé, fait d’alignements, de tracés viaires, de perspectives dans une logique de ville, dans une logique d’urbanité végétale, d’un paysage urbain proposant un nouvel équilibre entre minéral et végétal.

Destination

C’est un lieu de destination dont il s’agit, un lieu qui possède et cadre sa propre temporalité. Aussi la question du temps organise le propos architectural. L’idée de contenance, d’intermède où l’on vient passer de quelques jours à quelques semaines nous oblige à qualifier fortement un moment qui doit rester comme une expérience singulière, un passage qui ne se banalise pas. Lieu de destination, le campus met à distance le quotidien pour mieux concentrer le propos du stage. Le campus met à distance le cadre de travail, la famille, les habitudes en définissant un environnement, un cadre de vie que chacun doit pouvoir s’approprier.

Il y a une intériorité profonde, dense, que nous souhaitons mettre en scène, une architecture proposant une sociabilité inscrite dans la culture de l’entreprise. Aussi notre proposition porte plus sur la définition d’un cadre de vie collectif qui doit rester sans équivalent dans la vie quotidienne.

Ce travail sur le temps, sur des séries d’épisodes traversés dans un moment et un espace définis font du campus un vaisseau, un contenant, un lieu d’aventure. Plus que le luxe, c’est la mise en œuvre de valeurs partagées qui constitue une ambiance extraordinaire, un marqueur des passages à venir. – http://ecdm.eu

At the virgin beach front area where Min River meets the Pacific Ocean, and adjacent to Fuzhou Changle Airport, Netdragon Websoft Company’s new headquarters building is currently under construction, embedded in it, the grand visions for the future of the company. Nearly 700 employees and their families will move from the center of Fuzhou city to this new campus. A 50,000m² land which used to be an eel farm will become their new living quarters. This is a very interesting and young community of people. Their work is to create wonderful virtual worlds that entertain millions of people. In real life and on this land of their new dreams, they need a unique living area and a brand new collective life style.
A building with hybrid functions and in the shape of a Hongshanosaurus, 450 meters in length and 30 meters in height (flight path height limit), extends in a gentle curve along the edge of the site, forming the longest possible interface with the ocean front. Almost every unit in this residential building has a great view to the ocean. Structurally and layout wise, this mega building actually consists of 12 effectively independent medium rise residential towers. The towers are linked at the 6th floor and 8th floor, the rooftop by a series of public corridors and walkways. The walkways at the 6th floor connect together 12 public sky gardens. Each of the sky gardens is unique in their spatial characteristic, building material, and also in their functions. In and around these shared spaces, staff may together cook, do their laundry, play and socialize, raise a veggie patch, enjoy an outdoor movie, gaze out to the ocean, and share their thoughts and dreams. On the 8th floor, the roof top, 35 luxury villas are linked together by a street up in the air. Each villa is unique, yet all are derived from 6 basic unit types. Each unit possesses their own roof top garden and balcony, and of course spectacular ocean view.This type of commune living is in many ways a new iteration of the collective housing that was so prevalent in China during the last century, reflecting the socialist ideals and aspirations from that age. This mega building allows the majority of the site to be preserved and cultivated into a sizeable eco-habitat forestry park. Within this park is distributed a series of individual follies, they provide for the daily needs of the employees and also shared recreational facilities. It is here that nature and human habitation achieve the most beautiful balance of co-existence.
The Netdragon Commune project is an architectural experiment investigating how to restructure relationships between people and nature, and also relationships amongst people themselves. The project seeks to create a high quality eco community for the future at a comparatively low cost.

On a site almost without context because of its vast scale and open development plans, the Istanbul Disaster Prevention and Education Centre represents a new beginning for the Expo area adjacent to the Atatürk International Airport. Today, the area is a typical example of a generic, market driven development without a common goal. It consists of tall isolated buildings trying to express their individuality rather than performing as a coherent whole. The site is situated in a void between city and airport, where public space is nonexistent, isolated buildings are surrounded by their own private sea of parking.

The new Istanbul Disaster Prevention and Education Centre (DPEC) reverse current planning standards, making the ground surface completely public by elevating the building and letting the park flow freely below. The horizontal, neutral volume stands out in a context of tall and intricate buildings.
The Istanbul DPEC is contextual through its contextlessness. It is a universal building, a prototype for the new typology of a globally oriented Disaster Centre.

Manifested in a monolith is a world of knowledge, supported by individual elements on the ground, one of them a statue, representing mankind and its importance of supporting the collective science. Like the original Atlas, this statue also carries a “world”. The floating monolith, impermeable to disaster, stands in contrast to the rich interior.

The building provides shade for the garden beneath, where people pass through or spend time before or after the visit. While the building is a smooth singular object on the outside, the ground is intimately programmed and makes a contrast to the scale-less exterior floating above. The garden offers natural qualities of water and greenery, a fountain blows water through the atrium, providing cooling and reflecting the light into the offices and café.
The site introduces a robust, connective park which can absorb and adapt to future neighboring buildings and institutions.

MASTERPLAN

CAMPUS

BLOCK

RESTAURANT

SOLITAIRE

architect: shift architecture urbanism
advisor: ABT
location: tilburg, the netherlands
visualisations: A2 studio
design masterplan: .fabric & lola
client: landgoed de groene kamer
program: eco-retail, leisure, education, public space & landscape prizes
campus: 1st prize
block: 2nd prize
restaurant: 2nd prize
pavilion: 3rd prize

Landgoed de Groene Kamer

Landgoed De Groene Kamer seeks to develop a new type of country estate in the southwest of the city of Tilburg where eco-retail, nature and recreation are brought together. A place where city and countryside meet, both physically and programmatically.

Shift’s proposal, Topos, focuses a radical integration of architecture and landscape.

Green boulevard

Topos transforms the flat body of earth in the existing master plan of .Fabric and LOLA into a differentiated earthwork. The boulevard, the squares and the buildings are placed in and on this earthwork. The body of earth is used as an instrument for place making and therefore becomes topographic. Each retail cluster is embedded in a specific three dimensional earth shape to create a sequence of differentiated places (topos). Shopping on the green boulevard becomes a natural experience in which the division between city and countryside, between architecture and landscape, is dissolved.

Square

The entrance square is formed by a bowl-shaped earthwork which opens towards the parking arboretum. The circular shape embraces the visitors and welcomes them into a different world that invites for exploration. The various buildings situated in, on or under the earthwork bowl can be accessed from the square. Each building typology has its own specific connection with the earthwork and the surrounding landscape.

Block

The block houses a so-called landwinkel, a large shop where local food products are being sold. It functions as one of the anchor programs of the whole Groene Kamer development and is therefore prominently placed on top of the earthwork. The omnidirectional block manifests itself as a transparent greenhouse with a “wooden sculpture” inside.

This sculpture is designed as a cross shaped volume which allows for open corners in the building. The corners function as indoor gardens that literally bring the outside inside and vice versa. The cross volume is carved open on the ground floor, introducing a continuous and flexible floor plan that connects the corner gardens.

Campus

The campus is designed as a distinct and recognizable cluster of three retail buildings, literally embedded in the landscape. The entrances of the buildings are oriented towards the inside of the campus, to create a shared court that seduces the visitors inside. All buildings have a maximum transparency towards the shared interior. The other, more closed, facades are provided with a continuous horizontal strip window that follows the topography of the earthwork. This strip window introduces a new “constructed” horizon which dramatizes the three dimensional character of the earthworks both from the inside and from the outside.

Restaurant

The restaurant manifests itself as a triangular carve through the body of earth. The carve accommodates an open entrance towards the square, a covered middle part with the seating area and a large terrace towards the south. The other functions of the restaurant are situated in the body of earth adjacent to the carve. Foldable window panels allow the complete south façade to open up, erasing the border between inside and outside.