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.

This property adjoins a large lake in a small town situated a few hours from Mexico City. To take full advantage of the relationship with the surroundings, a system of elongated rectangular volumes was used, with one side of each completely open toward the lake. The sloping plot and the amount of surface to be realized led to the creation of three volume stacked in a zigzag pattern, generating spacious open terraces and irregular, sheltered patios between them. From the street, the residence looks like a traditional construction; the use of roof tiles, wood, natural stone, and the plastered facade with small openings, grants it the regional character that is required by urban planning requirements. From the lake, the home becomes a composition of rectangular elements with large glass surfaces; like a series of typical modernist volumes, stacked in a dynamic configuration.

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.

Uploaded by SouthKoreaOptimism on 23-08-2010

Burj Khalifa is known as Tower of Dubai
Built: 2004-2009 by Samsung Corporation
Cost: US$900,000,000.00
Designed by: Skidmore, Owings, & Merrill
Type: Skyscraper
Stories: 189
Maximum height: 2683 feet / 818 meters
Location: No. 1, Burj Dubai Boulevard, Dubai, United Arab Emirates

“The goal of the Burj Khalifa Tower is not simply to be the world’s highest building; it’s to embody the world’s highest aspirations. Such a project goal by necessity requires pushing current analysis, material, and construction technologies to literally new heights. However, as such a building height has never before been attempted, it is also necessary to ensure all technologies and methods utilized are of sound development and practice. As such, the designers sought to be able to use conventional systems, materials, and construction methods, modified and utilized in new capacities, to achieve such a lofty goal. The Tower is 828m in height, and is the world’s tallest building in all three categories defined by the Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat. In fact, Burj Khalifa is approximately 319m taller than the previous record holder, Taipei 101 in Taiwan. The construction of the Tower began in January 2004, with its official opening occurring January 4, 2010. The Burj Khalifa Tower is the centerpiece of a $20 billion development located just outside of downtown Dubai. The project consists of the Tower itself, as well as an adjacent Podium structure, and separate 6-story Office Annex and 2-story Pool Annex. The 280,000 m2 reinforced concrete multi-use Tower is predominantly a residential and office usage, and also contains retail and a Giorgio Armani Hotel. The architects and engineers worked closely together from the beginning of the project to determine the shape of the Tower, in order to provide an efficient building in terms of its structural system and in its response to wind, while still maintaining the integrity of the initial design concept. The floor plan of the tower consists of a tri-axial, “Y` shaped plan, formed by having three separate wings connected to a central core. As the Tower rises, one wing at each tier sets back in a spiraling pattern, further emphasizing its height. In addition to its aesthetic and functional advantages, the spiraling “Y` shaped plan was also utilized to shape the Burj Khalifa to reduce the wind forces on the Tower, as well as to keep the structure simple and foster constructability. The structural system can be described as a “buttressed` core, and consists of high performance reinforced concrete wall construction. Each of the wings buttress the others via a six-sided central core, or hexagonal hub. Corridor walls extend from the central core to near the end of each wing, terminating in thickened hammer head walls. Perimeter columns and flat plate floor construction complete the system. At mechanical floors, outrigger walls are provided to link the perimeter columns to the interior wall system, allowing the perimeter columns to participate in the lateral load resistance of the structure; hence, all of the vertical concrete is utilized to support both gravity and lateral loads. The result is a tower that is extremely stiff laterally and torsionally. It is also a very efficient structure in that the gravity load resisting system has been utilized so as to maximize its use in resisting lateral loads. The top of the Tower consists of an approximately 230m tall structural steel spire, and the entire Tower is founded on a 3700mm thick reinforced concrete pile-supported raft foundation. ” - openbuildings.com

Work: Museum and Archaeological Park “Cabezo de la Almagra” in the Campus of the University of Huelva
Type: Museum
Location: University Campus of “El Carmen”, Huelva, Spain

Architect: Sebastián Cerrejón Hidalgo
Collaborators: Cerrejón Arquitectos, S. L. P., Joaquín Gracia Barberán (Metal Structure), José Sainz Sopeña (Foundation), Carlos Enviz (Agricultural Engineer), Juan Manuel Campos Carrasco (Archaeologist), Grupo JG (Facilities)

Sponsors: Municipal Management of Urbanism Town Hall of Huelva
Dates: 2004 – 2010
Construction: Terracivíl, S.A., Vicente Cantalapiedra (Chief of Work)
Materials: Cor-ten steel reused, acoustic plate of fine wood shavings with magnesite (Herakustik star), Cobblestone ceramic (Klinker)
Action Area: 21.489,68 m2
Photographer: Roland Halbe

There were various requirements to be met by the project: to represent the archaeological significance of the site, ordering a space which will enhance the image from the new highway access, and becoming the gateway to the campus ‘Carmen’ of the University of Huelva.

A few materials define formally the performance. A covered structure with opaque surfaces is raised and seems to float on the soil. The iron is capable of reflecting the passage of time of a recognizable way and durable, is expressing of multiple ways. The iron’s oxide melts past and present, and evidences our cultural identity, which is associated with characteristic colour of the Tinto river and its marshes.

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.

Completed in 1996, the Rachofsky House revisits questions of architectural scale and philosophy that have been central to our firm’s practice for three decades: the importance of procession from exterior to interior, and from formal to intimate domain; the role of natural light in defining living spaces; the relationship between manmade structure and its natural surroundings; and the correlation between private dwelling and community. Because this residence has been designed for an individual, we were able to explore in it certain materials and design elements that might otherwise have been impractical for a family that has many different priorities, traffic patterns and schedules. In other words, the Rachofsky House is an ideal – an investigation into all of the possibilities of house as a building type without many of the usual compromises. I like to think that the Rachofsky House is a kind of elegant case study, an exercise that encourages us to reflect upon what our notions of house and home encompass.

A visit to the Rachofsky House unfolds as a kind of procession through a series of zones, taking one from the outdoors to indoors, and then back outdoors again. All of the spaces of the house, works of contemporary art, and vignettes of the surrounding landscape combine to animate the interiors of the house. Grass, trees, pond and sky are visible from every angle of the house.

The heart of the house is the second floor living room. Secrets of the entire site are revealed through the double-height plane of windows that serve as a permeable membrane between nature and home. Whereas the front façade of the house is reserved and opaque, the back façade dissolves and allows constantly changing plays of light and silhouette to amaze people within and outside the house. Ultimately, the purpose of the Rachofsky House is to provide a place of residence and respite. Thepotential of the house as a work of architecture is as a catalyst for further contemplation of nature and art, and the science of bringing them together in harmony.

– Richard Meier

Architect: Richard Meier & Partners Architects, LLP
Location: Dallas, Texas, United States
Design Team: Richard Meier, Thomas Phifer
Structural Engineer: Ove Arup & Partners
Project Year: 1996
Photographs: Michael Bodycomb, D Jules Gianakos, Tom Jenkins

Design:  3XN architects

No waste
The Green Solution House conference center on the Danish island of Bornholm is designed and developed in accordance with the principles of Cradle 2 Cradle®. This means that all materials used in the building are either fully recyclable or biodegradable. Hence, the building design takes on the ambition to eliminate the concept of waste.

The project is managed by Kasper Guldager Jørgensen, head of 3XN’s innovation unit, GXN: In Denmark, the construction industry alone is responsible for 30% of all waste generated. Waste that puts an enormous burden on the environment, but with Green Solution House we demonstrate that this is a problem, which we can actually solve.

Eliminating waste means that everything must be part of a circulation. Thus, the building is designed for disassembly and constructed of defined recyclable materials. Solar energy produces the energy consumed in the building, rain water is collected and water used is biologically cleaned and reused. Integrated green houses produce organic fruits and vegetables for the hotel restaurant. Further, the daily material flows from running the center is either recycled or composted.

High ambitions
For Kasper Guldager Jørgensen it is part of his everyday work to investigate how fungus can be used as isolation material or how algae can be used in solar screening. This is why he is excited that the Green Solution house is a building in continuous development. It will be a dynamic building, a showroom that we will keep enhancing in order to demonstrate the most cutting edge solutions within sustainable building, and it will give the guests an inspirational and unusual experience.

The Island of Bornholm is already a popular travel destination and surveys made among professional conference organizers show that the Green Solution House will attract even more visitors to the small scenic island. Bornholm has a clear vision to become one of the most ambitious European communities within sustainable living and the Green Solution House is a core element of this vision.

Architects: OV-A
Location: Kraluv Dvur, Czech Republic
Head Architects: Jiri Opocensky, Stepan Valouch
Structural Engineering: Jan Pohl
Completion: 2009
Site area: 1212 sqm
Built area: 225 sqm
Total floor area: 188 sqm
Photographs: Tomas Soucek

ocation

A newly developed sloping plot at the edge of the town

Assignment

A single-story house for a family of five, with an unfenced garden and a layout with bedrooms in close proximity to the common living area

Architecture

A single-story house built over a square ground plan, without a cellar and with a flat roof, three bedrooms with amenities facing to the north and delineating the common living area with extends to the exteriors through roofed terraces, the facade, with its glazed walls, are covered by larch wood shutters witch can be used to create further rooms, the house works as a gazebo providing views of the valley and the wooded slopes opposite

Constructions and technologies

The load-bearing construction of the timber frame house consists of I-beams, thermal insulation of mineral wool and wainscotting, the flat ventilated roof is covered with a PVC foil with a layer of pebble rock on top, the facade system is composed of glazed walls in aluminum frames, terraces are from tropical wood, jatoba was chosen material for he interior industrial strip flooring.