OCT Museum in Shenzhen

OCT Museum in Shenzhen, China by Studio Pei-Zhu.
(Source: archinect.com)

Led by chinese architect zhu pei, designboom received a tour through the construction site for the 'OCT design museum' by beijing-based practice studio pei zhu while in shenzhen, china. Positioned within a cultural, recreation and entertainment development along the gulf, the spheroidal exterior evokes the imagery of a water droplet captured in time. its unique shape attracts visitors through 
the encompassing public plaza. The shell inclines outward from a constrained footprint to form an integrated overhang while a cantilever extends to encourage circulation below, guiding visitors around the building towards the entrance.
The lustrous metal cladding of the curved facade mirrors surrounding activity while triangulated windows and skylights mimic the scattered illuminated reflections found on the water's surface. The array of penetrations similarly introduce dappled streams of daylight within the internal atrium.

Europaallee Zurich

Europaallee Zurich by Max Dudler Architekt

Eurogate Zurich – originally HB-Südwest, later Stadtraum HB, and today under construction as Europaallee (Europaallee Zurich) – is one of the urban developments on the southwest side of the Zurich Central Station, otherwise known as Zurich Hauptbahnhof, or Zurich HB. For decades, various commercial uses were discussed for above and next to this central-Zurich site owned by the Swiss Federal Railways (SBB/CFF/FFC).

The previous developments under the name HB-Südwest changed to the Eurogate projects with the entrance of a new investor in October 1996 - the major Swiss bank, UBS (UBS Fund Management AG, Basel).

Also at this time, the corporation HB-Südwest, which had been founded in March of 1995 with the task of working through the overall project for HB-Südwest and the residential development for the Lagerstrasse in Zurich until start of construction, was renamed as Eurogate Zürich AG. With this change, the tasks were expanded to include the developing the entire project until completion.

Eurogate/HB-Südwest includes two major projects in Zurich:

• Development along Railway Tracks, Eurogate Zurich (Cost ca. 1.5billion Swiss Francs, planned since 1980)
• Residential Development along Lagerstrasse (Study 2000, 350 der 500 Wohnungen sowie Büro-, Gewerbe-, Freizeitflächen und Ersatzflächen für SBB-Anlagen)

The competition for the urban planning was won by the Zurich architectural office Ralph Bänziger Architekten. In the 1970s, Luigi Snozzi and Mario Botta had participated in the original competition with a design for a slender bridge-construction over the tracks, but their project was not further developed. Ralph Bänziger proposed a massive construction along the tracks.

The work on both designs and the many changes to the project lasted from 1980 until 2001.

Currently, various parts of the project, Europaallee, are under construction in central Zurich.

(Source: wikipedia.org)