Unitech office building in Bergen. Norway.

  The project develops the  enlargement Unitech office building in Bergen, Norway, for the multinational company Unitech Offshore.

A new module in the way of attic, is developed linked to the main building, overlooking the International Bergen airport  and the offices and industrial surrounding area.

OMN Offices. Duran Blazquez Architects.

The conceptual project is based on the construction of an office building of average size for the location of an expanding technology company.

High Tide Street. James Gardener

University of Westminster architecture student James Gardener has designed this conceptual bridge for the River Thames, London, made from a series of floating elements that would be linked together and free to move with the tide.

 

Elyte Restaurant. Duran Blazquez Architects.

Duran Blazquez Architecture_Engineering is developing this  author food restaurant project . We think is interesting enough to share.

Leuphana university in Lüneburg by Daniel Libeskind

Upon the nearly 13,000 square meters, you will find a research center, a study center, a seminar center and an event center.

Foeger Woman Pure. Pedrocchi Architekten

For 20 years, is "Foger Pure Woman" among the leading fashion houses in Austria. This is the work of its reliable and Midi Föger feel for styles and trends. In the 15,000-strong community Telfs in Tyrol offers its customers designer fashions from the world's major cities.



Now they are surprised with a startling and new construction of their headquarters. The Swiss architect Reto Pedrocchi expanded the fashion house is a dome-shaped building that houses the collections of new and promising fashion designers like Alexander Wang (New York) and Peter Pilotto (London).

This is their peculiar way Midi Föger continued spectacular: "First-class fashion requires a first class sales framework", said the owner of Pure Woman Föger their concept. In Reto Pedrocchi they found an architect who is their bold ideas is a perfect setting. With its 140 m2 large production, he created a new landmark in the 15,000-strong community Telfs.

This architecture should stand out, "said the Basel architect. Despite his young age (born 1973), he looks back on an impressive list of buildings. Reto Pedrocchi worked for the world-renowned architectural firm Herzog & de Meuron as a project manager at the glass Prada flagship store in Tokyo, designed with his former partner Beat Meier for the common architectural firm Pedrocchi Meier Architects in countries such as China and Davos.

For the avant-garde Japanese label Comme des Garcons designed the Basel architects two so-called "guerrilla stores". Another highlight is the participation in a project of the Chinese artist Ai Weiwei. In Inner Mongolia, Reto Meier Beat Pedrocchi planned with one of 100 villas which will be implemented in 2011. Since completion of the expansion of the fashion house Föger in Pedrocchi Meier Architects, Reto Pedrocchi now runs his own architectural firm, Architects Pedrocchi, in Basel.

The fashion house "Föger Pure Woman" directed by the architect as a place of innovation and contemplation. A partial forward tilted glass wall extends over the entire complex and combines the old with the new upstream. This is held ostensibly calm, sober materials such as raw concrete and glass contrast with a natural stone floor in warm colors and a light emitting security concept.

The new extension is a modern place of pilgrimage, "says the architect. Focal point in the interior is an intersecting concrete beam that runs through the 7.3 meters high dome-like structure made of glass and concrete half way up. At his oversized coat hook hanging from metal. "I wanted to in the presentation of fashion new ways," said Midi Föger.

Ever since she took over the fashion house in 1988 as a sole proprietor of her father, she is the creme de la creme of international fashion. Since the beginning of her career she sells. Design by design legends such as Miuccia Prada, Ann Demeulemeester and Dries Van Noten. On the occasion of the renovation of her fashion house, she is now expanding its product line with a number of international newcomer: "Young women 35-50 draw today for fashion not as deep in the pocket.

In design and quality, but still want to make any compromises. "Midi Föger provides you with the creations of the American Shooting Stars Jason Alexander Wang and Wu, the Briton Christopher Kane or the Tyrolean it-designer Peter Pilotto fashion that you hardly ever in Austria gets.

Style, Midi Föger believes is not a question of age or income. It should also be in the future success of their spectacular Tyrolean house.

The Leadenhall Building. Rogers Stirk Harbour

 

Work has restarted on the Leadenhall Building in London by architects Rogers Stirk Harbour + Partners.

Rehabilitation of canalejas Parking. Duran Blazquez Architects.

The work involves the rehabilitation, renovation of the facade of public parking Canalejas located in the center of Alicante. (Alacant) Spain.

Reformed house over the Mediterranean Sea. Duran Blazquez Architects.

  The project involves the comprehensive reform of a house near the sea in southern Spain. The house with more than 30 years old, was recently bought by a family of English origin and needed intervention:

EDP Foundation Cultural Centre by AL_A

Orts House. Spain. Duran Blazquez Architects.

  The property is located in a coastal urbanization of Alicante, Spain. 

The programed uses in the house, develops over 450 m2 with large outdoor entertainment areas and elements of shadow generation in order to control the sun because of the pleasant temperatures that exist throughout the year.

 

House in Almoradi // Duran Blazquez Architects.

The project involves the development of a residential program for a large house in southern Spain.

The project develops cubic forms in diaphanous overlay spaces through the use of local materials, glass and steel.

The house is designed in order to obtain the better cooling systems of the environment by using cross-ventilation. 

Trufa house. Anton García-Abril

The nose is a piece of nature built with earth, filled with air. A space within a rock sitting on the floor and mixed with the territory.







Is camouflaged, by emulating the processes of formation of minerals in its structure, and integrates with the natural environment, respecting their laws.

We made a hole in the ground, accumulating in its scope the topsoil removed, obtaining a retention dam without mechanical consistency.

Then materialized air volume building with bales of hay and filled the space between earth and air added to solidify. The mass concrete poured and protected air wrapped itself with the ground. Time passed and takes away the land to discover an amorphous mass.

The earth and concrete properties exchanged. The land provided the concrete texture and color, form and essence, and the land has given concrete strength and internal structure. But what he created was not yet the architecture, which had developed a stone.

We made some cuts quarry machinery to explore the nucleus and discovered his body inside built with straw, now compressed by hydrostatic pressure exerted by the concrete plant structure weak.

To empty the inside, the calf was Paulina, and enjoyed the 50m3 of the best food, which is fed by a year until she came out of their habitat, and as an adult and a weight of 300 kilos. She had eaten the interior volume, and the space appeared for the first time, the restoration of the architectural condition of the nose, having been a haven for animal and plant mass for a long time.

The architecture we were surprised. Its ambiguity between natural and built, the complex materiality the same building element, the mass unreinforced concrete, could provide the young architectural space at different scales.


Since the amorphous texture of its exterior, with the incision cut violent revealing its architectural vocation, leading to the expression of the solidification of the liquid inside the concrete.

This dense material, which gives the scale vertical walls padded, comes from the size of bullets, and contrasts with the continued liquidity of the roof that evokes the sea, frozen in the doorway of the spatial structure which is sublime to the Atlantic Ocean highlighting the horizon as the only line of interior space weather.

To provide the space with all the comfort and living conditions required in the architecture, we take the "Cabanon" Le Corbusier as a reason, recreating its program and its dimensions. It is the "Cabanon de Beton" the reference in a pleasant nose in nature, which has inspired and referred us.


And the lesson we learn is the uncertainty that led us in the desire to build with our own hands, a piece of nature, a contemplative space, a little poem.

Photographer Roland Halbe.

This is a  home in Spain by Anton Garcia-April of the Ensemble Studio, issued on the ground and emptied by a cow.



Called Truffle (truffle), the project consisted of pouring concrete into bales of hay stacked and buried within the surrounding soil.

Once cured, the resulting shape was exhumed and cracked.

A cow (called Paul) is then allowed to eat away the rest of bales of hay to reveal the interior space in the course of a year.


Project: Truffles
Location: Costa da Morte, Spain
Project Date: August 2006

End of construction: February 2010
Project Author: Antón García-Abril
Collaborators: Ricardo Sanz

Rigger: Javier Cuesta
Developer: Ensemble Studio

Collaborating companies: Tonga and banded Sorrowful, SL, Galicorte, Demolition Macías, Zurich Supplies, Paulina Livestock.

Project Manager: Francheteau
Floor area: 25 m²

Watch a movie about the project’s construction here.

Manuel Hertz. Jewish Community Center Mainz. Germany.

Mainz Jewish Community Center: הגולה מאור - Light of Mainz Diaspora



Manuel Herz Basel Architects have designed the Jewish Community Center in Mainz, Germany covered with green ceramic tiles.

Few Jewish communities to overcome Mainz in importance and tradition. During the Middle Ages, the main center of religious education, the importance goes back to a number of influential rabbis, especially Gershom ben Judah (960 to 1040), whose teachings and legal decisions that had an impact on Judaism in general. His wisdom was considered so great that he gave the name "מאור הגולה"

- "Light of the Diaspora. The new Jewish Community Center in Mainz try to extract this tradition.

The history of the Jews of Mainz, however, has also seen a different side. In almost any other city, Jews have been persecuted so often throughout history, and still have time and again tried to build a Jewish community-the community and in this city as seemingly serene Mainz.

From the first mention of the Jews' Magenza around 900 communities have been eradicated in a tragic regularity. And yet, a few years later Jews had the courage to settle again in Mainz.

Therefore, Mainz almost paradigmatically embodies the hope, learning and an unshakable belief in the future, and at the same time, the destruction of Jewish culture and people over more than a millennium.
 

After the Holocaust, the community was founded again by a small group of Jews. Until the 1980 about 75 Jewish families living in Mainz when the immigration of Jews from the former Soviet republics increased this number by six. The spaces in a small residential building can not comply with the requirements of the growing community-the community for religious, social and cultural. A new building for a synagogue center of the community is necessary, built on the site of the former main 'Hindenburgstraße Synagogue.
The building and its urban context

The shape of the building is in the abstract based on the Hebrew word for blessing and curves around a public courtyard.

The center houses a synagogue, office space, meeting rooms, school multi-purpose space.

The interior walls are covered with dense synagogue Hebrew letters arranged in some areas in poetry by the rabbis of the 10th century.


In order to integrate the Jewish community center in the suburb of "Neustadt Mainzer, which dates from the late 19 th century, the" perimeter block pattern (Blockrandbebauung) dominant in the area is used as an urban concept. Volume the building is parallel to the street facades are in keeping with existing adjacent buildings, creating a contained space of the street. The use of urban figure pattern of the perimeter of the building blocks, very unusual for religious buildings , also questions the sacred position in the urban context. By the orientation of the building that houses the synagogue to the east two squares or open spaces are created: an indoor garden room that offers the community for recreation and celebration and a public plaza facing the main entrance facing the center of the city and provide an open space area within a densely developed urban fabric.


The absence of any barriers that block or means that this square has become a true public space that is used for daily activities by the public in general, rare for a religious building, especially for a synagogue in Germany.

The urban context is dominated by tall residential buildings of six to eight plants, which are characterized by a firm, solid. Since the program for the center of the synagogue and the community demands of its main functions are lo-ed on the ground floor, the building rises to great heights because of functional or territorial quality, otherwise it stays low.

This creates a volume that continually alternates between highs and lows, with the for-tion of a response to urban context. The precise articulation of this profile is informed by the subject of writing and its relation to space.


In its history Judaism has never developed a strong tradition of building. Nor has developed architectural styles, as is the case with other religions, trying to translate certain values ​​and beliefs in the built environment. Instead, the writing can be seen as a replacement for the production space in Judaism. Specifically, the Talmud, written after the destruction of the Second Temple and the beginning of the Diaspora, can be seen as a response to the loss of Jerusalem as a central place in Judaism, and as an alternative spatial model. The dimension of architecture crosses throughout the Talmud, from the contents of individual chapters, through his method of writing, the techniques of argumentation-tion and discussion of the rabbis on their pages. At the level of words and letters, an object as expressed in the writings.

The Hebrew word for "word" (דבר - Davar) has the additional meaning of a thing or object. This quality of the writing subject and the concept of the Talmud (which found its central place of learning in the city of Mainz) and a notion of space in the design of a Jewish community center in Mainz.

Qadushah is the Hebrew word for raising and blessing, the five characters in an abstract way קדושה articulate the building's profile. With the pronouncement of a blessing an object is lifted profane or exalted. Rising from the everyday and becomes something special.

This is the special act of the building in daily use should be allowed. Glazed ceramic items facade to a different layer of writing and writing. Similar to a registration process or height of a wavy surface pattern and three-dimensional forms with ceramic tiles.

This pattern is arranged concentrically around the windows, creating a game-dimensional perspective. multiple perspectives to the windows of their vanishing points that arise in the building's facade. The spatial quality is enhanced by green transparent glass ceramic tiles, reflecting the changing light conditions of its environment and shows a wide range of hues and shades.


The synagogue is accessed through the main lobby. The organization of an area synagogue is usually characterized by some internal contradiction: on one hand synagogues are oriented and directed towards the east or Jerusalem.



Moreover, as the Torah reading is done from a central position in space and in the midst of the community, the emphasis is on a centralized space. This inherent contradiction is spatially resolved by a horn-like roof which clearly indicates the area to the east, but with the right light in the center space, falling exactly in the position where we read the Bible. References horn 'shofar (ram's horn), back to avoid the sacrifice of Isaac by his father Abraham, symbolizes the connection and trust between mankind and the divine.


The interior surfaces are composed of dense synagogue Hebrew letters that form a relief in the form of mosaic, although the creation of semantic content. In some areas the density of points is reduced by rearranging the letters and the text is legible. 'Piyutim' (religious poetry) written by the rabbis of Mainz in the 10th century and 11 are carved into the surface of the synagogue. In an almost "Brechtian" language these Piyutim narrate the love of Torah, alluding to the 'Song of Songs "or the events surrounding the destruction of the community during the first crusades, and the reference of the central role Mainz to Judaism.


Moreover, the Jewish community center houses offices, classrooms and two apartments, and multipurpose space in the community.

This multipurpose space is the social and cultural heart of the community and used for internal purposes and for public events throughout the city.



Community

Jewish communities in Germany have been marked by a desire not to attract attention in their activities. They play a minor role in the social and cultural life of a city. This synagogue, in a city of one of the most important Jewish communities, is helping develop a different consciousness. The new synagogue is a building that, with the confidence of the marks of a new active site on a map of the city. It wants to attract city dwellers, Jews and non-Jews, to participate in religious activities, social and cultural rights. It is a building to call attention, maybe the questions, concerns, interests or perhaps even anger, but also hope. First is a building that will help the Jews of Mainz in a visible and active part of society and the link with its rich history. In Germany, a country where synagogues always have a political significance, this building shows the power of the Diaspora.

Project Informati
on
Client: Project Team: Architect:
Project Management: Monitoring Site: Landscaping: Structural Engineering: Planning ceramic facade Electrical Engineering: Building Services: Building Physics:
Fire Services: Sound Planning: Total: Construction Cost: Completion:
Jewish community of Mainz Manuel Herz Architects, Basel and Cologne, Design Construction Manuel Herz: Elitsa Lacaze, Michalska Hania, Scheuvens Michael, Peter Sandmann, Design Concept: Cornelia Redeker, Sven Röttger, Sonja Klaus Mainzer Starke Aufbaugesellschaft Architekt Dittmar mbH, Mainz Harald Heims , Mainz Arup GmbH, Düsseldorf Keramikwerkstatt Niels Dietrich, Cologne K. Dörflinger GmbH, Allendorf Chamber of Engineers, Mainz IBC Ingenieurbau Consult GmbH, Ingenieurbüro Ingo Petry Mainz, Mainz Ingenieurgesellschaft für Technische Akustik, Wiesbaden approximately 2,500 square meters. 6.0 Mill. September 2010 Euro