Yduarch.Com - Cyprus Architectural Blog

strange hotel in china

Mustafa — Fri, 08 Jan 2010 12:13:27 +0000

I’ve seen my fair share of insane buildings over the years but I reckon I just stumbled across one of the strangest yet in the form of a Chinese hotel. What’s also interesting is that, to my knowledge, very few English speaking websites have seen or mentioned what has got to be one of the most bizarre pieces of hotel architecture on Earth.

Without further ado, I give you Tianzi Hotel…

To begin, this incredible hotel seems to have a few different names depending on what you read, as far as I can tell it has been known as: Tianzi Hotel, The Emperor Hotel, Son Of Heaven Hotel, and, in Chinese, 天子大酒. The hotel is located in Hebei Province and according to Chinese architecture blog CAIP it was built some time around 2000/2001, The building is 10 storeys/41.6m high and was designed to represent Fu Lu Shou (good fortune, prosperity and longevity). The blog also points out that the hotel won a Guiness World Record for being the world’s ‘biggest image building’. Largest mimetic building perhaps?

Finally, you’ll notice that Shou, the chap on the left as you face the hotel, is holding what is apparently a peach. That peach is actually a suite within the hotel, the two holes in its front being windows.

source: killerdirectory.com/blog/architecture/strange-hotel.html

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Sensitive hotel

Mustafa — Fri, 01 Jan 2010 13:31:06 +0000

In an area of almost unviolated nature in the South America, in Patagonia, territory spread in Argentina and Chile, architect German del Sol built hotel Remota. There are two buildings, thin cuboids, connected together not by huge lobby, but just by narrow pathways between wooden fence. Hotel absolutely respect the nature, it doesn´t create typical urban spaces that are conjunct with hotels.

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Hotel Caldor

Mustafa — Wed, 16 Dec 2009 22:37:24 +0000

Söhne & Partner projected the first Self Check In Hotel located in the city border of Vienna, near to the biggest Shopping Center of Austria.

The structure of the Hotel Caldor emerges along the road. From the centre cross point the Hotel is buckling. The buckling gives the hotel a high profile from the main road. At the cross point you find the lobby, the main access, the check in machine, etc.

The curtain wall is on hand the protection against weathering for the cross point. On the other hand it also gives shade and shelter. The perforation of the façade panels plays with the logo of the hotel, abstract its.

Interesting spaces inside/outside are created which emphasizes the communication between them. Low building cost where the basis for moderate fees for the rooms. A single room has the size of only 10 square meters, double rooms only 14 square meters including bathrooms. The combination of used colors and the use of just a glass wall as a separation between the room and the bathroom has created rooms which doesn’t feel small, even they are.

Photos by Severin Wurnig

source:coolboom

What is an Organic Architecture?

Mustafa — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 10:45:07 +0000

Architectural beauty is a natural outcome of the clear design plan of simple and harmonious relationships. All elements of a structure should be designed with economy according to the natural principles of geometrical relationships and the unadulterated use of appropriate materials.

These are the Famous Architects of there time, who practiced Organic architecture.

Louis Sullivan (1856-1924) was one of the first to introduce the concept of ‘organic architecture’. After closely studying nature, he concluded that form always follows function and made this principle the guideline for his architectural designs. Moreover, he brought his geometrical building.

Frank Lloyd Wright (1869-1959) broadened both the content and the language of organic architecture in many directions. He expanded the concept ‘organic’ to denote the relation between the building and its environment, the continuity of internal and external space and the use of building materials in accordance with their own nature.

Antoni Gaudí (1852-1926) was one of the first architects to express himself in sculptural form. These forms were often based on the forces at play in the construction. During the last phase of his life he developed a natural geometry of double curved surfaces that he applied in the church of the Sagrada Familia.

Rudolf Steiner (1861-1925) introduced in architecture the principle of ‘metamorphosis’ that he derived from Goethe. This enabled him to express development processes that are inherent to nature, culture and the human consciousness. By contemplating these forms an awareness for interrelations and the ability to think in processes can be developed.

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Prism Gallery / PATTERNS

Mustafa — Sat, 14 Nov 2009 21:20:14 +0000

PATTERNS has designed a new three story cultural center for West Hollywood, California. The center, known as Prism, will become a cornerstone of artistic experimentation, carving a new niche for the arts in Southern California. The facade will be the first in the nation to be constructed entirely out of a resin based composite polycarbonate. Inspired by automotive design supple forms, streamlined detailing and plastic finishes; the façade has a dual aesthetic performance associated to its plastic materiality and responsive to the lively energy of its context: it behaves as a reflectively glossy surface during daylight and as a translucent skin at night.

More about Prism after the break.

PATTERNS’ collaboration with 3Form, an advanced material fabrication company specializing on resin based composites, has led to the center’s dynamic form. Building surfaces are lift up and down, opening the interior while suspending its mass over the strip and producing a sense of weightiness over passerby pedestrian and vehicle traffic approaching from downhill. Its formal logic is the outcome of a productive negotiation between the ordering column grid of the existing building and the intense social and physical dynamism of the context.

As seen on E-Architect

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New York Times Company New Headquarters

Mustafa — Sat, 07 Nov 2009 19:56:03 +0000

In development
Renzo Piano Building Workshop
Fox & Fowle Architects
New York Times Company New Headquarters
New York, NY

“Each architecture tells a story, and the story this new building proposes to tell is one of lightness and transparency.”
Renzo Piano

The new 52-storey Times Company Headquarters, Renzo Piano’s first major project in New York City, will occupy one of the last sites in the 42nd Street Development Are; a 13-acre district adjoining Times Square designated for redevelopment in the mid-1980s by New York State and City government.

Renzo Piano calls the design for the New Times Company Headquarters, a collaboration with Bruce Fowle of Fox & Fowle Architects, “An Expression of Love” for New York City.

Image credit:
The New York Times Company / Forest City Ratner Companies / Renzo Piano Building Workshop / Fox & Fowle Architects © 2001 Jock Pottle/Esto
Eighth Avenue facade looking northeast

“The preliminary concept for the building incorporates a transparent glass tower that seems to float above a five-story base. The tower uses a double curtain wall technique that will allow the structure to appear vibrant and transparent, yet increase energy efficiency.
At the base of the building, an atrium is surrounded on three sides by floating concrete slabs to create an open urban landscape. This piazza-like space provides an arena for the Times Center, a public amenity devised by the New York Times Company.”

Image credit:
The New York Times Company / Forest City Ratner Companies / Renzo Piano Building Workshop / Fox & Fowle Architects © 2001 Jock Pottle/Esto

Piano took his inspiration from the utility and symmetry of Manhattan’s world-famous rectangular street grid in designing a building with a shape he described as “simple and primary.”
The majority of the double thermal-pane glass curtain wall will be screened by thin horizontal ceramic tubes placed on a steel framework positioned one to two feet in front of the glass; in other places the screen will be made of metal and glass louvers. The irregularly spaced horizontal rods bounce daylight up to the ceilings, tossing it into the tower’s interior.

Image credit:
The New York Times Company / Forest City Ratner Companies / Renzo Piano Building Workshop / Fox & Fowle Architects
On each panel the rods are interrupted at eye level, creating an open viewing space so those inside the building will not be seeing the city behind bars.

In addition to permitting a high-degree of energy efficiency in heating and cooling the building, the ceramic tubes will take on the changing color of the sky during the course of the day as light focuses on it from different angles.

Image credit:
The New York Times Company / Forest City Ratner Companies / Renzo Piano Building Workshop / Fox & Fowle Architects © 2001 Jock Pottle/Esto

The sunscreen starts at the second floor, leaving the first open, transparent and permeable; glass-enclosed retail spaces along the ground floor will allow passers-by to view activity in the lobby and ground-floor-level garden.

The newsroom will occupy occupies floors 2 through 7 overlooking the surrounding streets like a large magic lantern; continually lit and constantly active.
Floors 2 through 4 of the newsroom will overlook the ground-floor garden, the glass walls of which will rise through the center of those floors to the open sky.

A 350-seat auditorium, operated by the Times Company, will also be located on the ground floor level. The wall behind the auditorium stage will be glass, permitting the auditorium audience to view the ground-floor garden.

Image credit:
The New York Times Company / Forest City Ratner Companies / Renzo Piano Building Workshop / Fox & Fowle Architects © 2001 Jock Pottle/Esto

At the top of the building the screen of tubes will become less dense, and its lace-like appearance will permit a view of the roof garden foliage. The curtain wall will continue skyward above the roof to conceal the building’s mechanical elements and maintain the visual flow of the tower.
To increase the sense of interoffice community within the tower, as well as animate its edges, Piano pulled away the sunscreens and placed the staircases, sheathed in transparent panes, at the buildings corners,

Image credit:
The New York Times Company / Forest City Ratner Companies / Renzo Piano Building Workshop / Fox & Fowle Architects

The Times Company will own and occupy some 800,000 gross square feet of space on floors 2 through 28 of the building. The interior open plan, both vertically and horizontally, will ease communication and enhance collaboration.
Partitions will stop shy of the ceilings, set at loft like heights, letting daylight into the interior offices.

Image credit:
The New York Times Company / Forest City Ratner Companies / Renzo Piano Building Workshop / Fox & Fowle Architects © 2001 Jock Pottle/Esto
Ground Floor Plan

The building’s main entrance will be on Eighth Avenue with two additional entrances from 40th and 41st Street. The building will be set back 17 feet along Eighth Avenue and eight feet along 40th and 41st Street in order to facilitate pedestrian circulation.

Image credit:
The New York Times Company / Forest City Ratner Companies / Renzo Piano Building Workshop / Fox & Fowle Architects
View along 40th Street from 8th Avenue to mid-block.

The building will occupy the entire blockfront on the east side of Eighth Avenue between 40th and 41st Streets, anchoring the southwest corner of the Times Square area. It will contain some 1.54 million gross square feet of space.
The ground level will have retail space and a garden, with offices going up to the 50th floor. The top two floors will consist of mechanical space and a rooftop conference facility.
A common lobby, ground floor auditorium, the rooftop conference facility, and mechanical and below-grade areas will account for the remaining space in the building.

To develop the building, The New York Times Company and Forest City Ratner Companies (FCRC) have established a joint venture, with ING Real Estate, a wholly owned subsidiary of the ING Group, as FCRC’s financial partner. Upon completion of construction, the Times Company and FCRC/ING will each own a commercial condominium in the building.
FCRC will own approximately 600,000 gross square feet of space in the building. This will include office space on floors 29-50, which it will lease to corporate and service firms, and approximately 20,000 square feet of ground floor retail space.

Groundbreaking: Early 2003
Occupancy by The New York Times Company: Summer 2005
Tenant occupancy: Winter 2006

Government Team State of New York:
The 42nd Street Development Project
A subsidiary of the Empire State Development Corporation

State Architectural Consultant:
Robert A.M. Stern Architects

Development Team:
Architects:
The Renzo Piano Building Workshop
Fox & Fowle Architects, PC

Structural Engineers: Thornton-Tomasetti Engineers
Mechanical Engineers: Flack & Kurtz, Inc.
Vertical Transportation Engineer: Jenkins & Huntington, Inc.
Subsurface Investigation: Muesser Rutledge Consulting Engineers
Landscape Architect: H.M. White Site Architects
Lighting Designer: OVI (Office for Visual Interaction)
Acoustical Consultant: Cerami & Associates
Preconstruction Advisor: AMEC Corporation
For The New York Times Company:
Real Estate Advisors: Insignia/ESG
Development Consultant: The Clarett Group
Owner’s Representative/Interiors: Gardiner & Theobald
Interior Architect: Gensler Associates

The new Modern Art Museum – Tadao Ando

Mustafa — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 21:17:43 +0000

Nearing completion
Tadao Ando
The new Modern Art Museum
Fort Worth, Texas

The new Modern Art Museum, designed by Tadao Ando, will open to the public on Saturday, December 14, 2002.
The building is located in Fort Worth’s celebrated Cultural District, directly opposite the Kimbell Art Museum, designed by Louis I. Kahn, and near the Amon Carter Museum, designed by Philip Johnson.