Besançon Art Center and Cité de la Musique

Besançon Art Center and Cité de la Musique by Kengo Kuma and Associates.

Multidisciplinary cultural centre on the riverside of the Doubs to host an auditorium, a contemporary art museum (FRAC – Contemporary Art Regional Funds) and a Conservatoire.

(Source: europaconcorsi.com)

Tower House

Tower House by Gluck+
(Source: dezeen.com)

As a vacation home, the Tower House is used during a few weekends in the winter and most weekends in the summer. The design imperative was to develop a sustainable, energy efficient solution with minimal operating costs and maintenance for a house occupied part-time. The stacked north-facing bedrooms take advantage of light and views with floor to ceiling glass. In order to optimise energy savings for heating and cooling in this part-time residence, a two part sustainable strategy was employed to reduce the heating footprint of the house in the winter and to avoid the need for air conditioning in the summer.

While the house is heated conventionally, by compressing and stacking all of the wet zones of the house into an insulated central core, much of the house can be "turned off" in the winter when not in use. When not in use, only 700 square feet of the 2,545 square foot house is heated. By closing the building down to only the insulated core, there is a 49% reduction in energy use. In the summertime, the house feels comfortable without air conditioning. Cool air is drawn in and through the house using the stack effect. South-facing glass throughout the stairwell creates a solar chimney and as the heated air rises, it is exhausted out the top, drawing in fresh air through the house from the cooler north side.

Architecture and Construction: GLUCK+ (Peter L. Gluck, Thomas Gluck, David Hecht, Marisa Kolodny, A.B. Moburg-Davis)
Structural Engineer: Robert Silman Associates P.C.
Mechanical Engineer: Rosini Engineering P.C.
Façade: Bill Young
Environmental Engineer: IBC Engineering
Lighting: Lux Populi

(Source: dezeen.com)

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.

Dar al-Hajar, the Rock Palace

Dar al-Hajar stands atop a protruding rock formation in Wadi Dhahr, a fertile and pleasant valley of small villages and clay-walled orchards. Pictured in many books about Yemen, it has become a symbol of the country itself.

Imam Yahya (1911-48) built the five-storey palace in the 1930s as a summer residence. Building a palace in such an extraordinary place was not his idea; there were already ruins of a prehistoric building on top of the hill. The well penetrating the rocks next to the house is said to date from then. This summer palace of Imam Yahya is actually a group of palaces famous for its delightful location and its beautiful gypsum ornamentation in the Sana'a style.

(Source: wikimapia.org)

Dar Al-Hajar – is a historical monument, considered one of the symbols of Yemen. It is located in the village of Souk Al Wadi, and often referred to as the Palace of Islam. The exact date of the original construction of the castle is unknown. However, there is a perception that the first buildings appeared long before the advent of Islam. In the Middle Ages the castle was completely destroyed by the Turks, and only in the eighteenth century, partially restored.

(Source: freeyork.org)

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)

Protestant Temple

Protestant Temple by Ciel Rouge

Architects: Ciel Rouge
Location: Tokyo, Japan
Project area: 1100 sqm
Project year: 2006
Photographs: Henri Gueydan

The architecture for this Protestant Church is centered by a wide nave arranged with six arches and a bell tower that symbolically lay importance on the seven elements, the seven days of creation, the seven churches of the Orient… We create the impression of a biblical open sky image from which the light amid the Holy Spirit descends upon the followers and worshippers.

The softly curved arches specifically designed for fine acoustics also remind of a hand overwhelming the crowd. For the use as an authentic concert hall facility the temple displays the comfort of lodges discreetly positioned right from within the arches.

(Source: archdaily.com)

Kunsthaus Graz

Kunsthaus Graz by Sir Peter Cook and Colin Fournier

The Kunsthaus was built in order to celebrate Graz’s designation as the Cultural Capital of Europe for 2003, on a budget that is comparatively small for similarly focal cultural venues in large(ish) cities. Graz is the second largest city in Austria, a sprawl that can be appreciated from atop the castle in the center of town. From this location the Kunsthaus stands out like a rather blue, sore thumb. It is difficult to pass judgment on the aesthetic qualities of such a building; it definitely is there, and it definitely is blue and blob-shaped, but it also seems very much a part of the city.

You want to hate it, because of what it is: a symbol of the new modernism which has been pioneered by these architects since the 1960s and recently by the likes of architects Future Systems in Birmingham. But it is impossible to ignore how well the building works as a space to display art; and besides which, when up close, or even inside, the building becomes cute and actually quite lovable. Indeed, it has been nick-named ‘the Friendly Alien’. Built primarily of reinforced concrete and covered in translucent warm-blue plastic panelling with white plaster and metal mesh on the interior, the Kunsthaus feels very well constructed despite the low budget.

(Source: galinsky.com

The Kunsthaus provides 2,500 square meters of generously arranged space for changing contemporary art exhibitions, functions, and events. The amorphous form of the blue bubble blends in the heritage-protected part of the building 1,288 semitransparent acrylic glass panels have been used to create the bubble. While the glazed outer skin takes an important mediating role, it also generates power through integrated photovoltaic units. The Berlin designers realities:united used 930 computer­con­ trolled light sources located under the acrylic skin to create a display forty­five meters wide and twenty meters high that enables the museum to communicate with its environment. 

(Source: ignant.de)