Aerospace Museum, Jeju Island, South Korea

The country’s first Aerospace Museum commences build
The tourist hotspot of Jeju Island off Korea’s south border is adding the country’s first Aerospace Museum to it’s list of attractions. Jutting out of the green landscape like a spaceship has landed, the metallic cylindrical structure represents a move towards technological standing on the island, currently campaigning to become a ‘Global Education City’.

Aiming for completion in 2013, US$50.8 million has been invested in the project by the Ministry of Land, Transport and Maritime Affairs.

Covering 329,000 sq m of ground, Aerospace museum is comprised of the Aerial History Hall, Air Force History Exhibition Hall, Space Gallery, 4D Cinema, 4D Planetariums, and Training Center. An ‘outdoor monorail’ will be installed and a visual simulation of an air lane will be provided in the sky to deliver the real sensation of flying to visitors. Observatories are also scheduled to be installed.

The Korean Air Force have agreed to provide 50 aircrafts for the site as well as historical resources. Free outdoor exhibitions will take place including five theme exhibitions, namely Air Combat, Flight Training, Search & Rescue Flight, Military Airbus, and ‘Invisible Force’.

Jeju Island is undergoing six major projects to become a ‘Global city’: Health Care Town, English Education City, Jeju Science Park, Resort-type Residential Complex, Myths and History Theme Park, and Seogwipo Tourism Port. With the exception of Health Care Town and English Education City, the four projects have already been initiated.

source: http://www.worldarchitecturenews.com
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Office Complex, Centurion, South Africa

A3 Architects chosen for Centurion office design
A3 Architects (Pty) Ltd have been appointed to proceed with the new, state of the art office development, to form part of the new “Eco Park” mixed use development node in Centurion, Pretoria. The concept design is focused on a flexible tenant subdivisibility or alternatively a single “rationale”.

The 30,000 sq m office development focuses on a vast 6 storey internal atrium space over a multiple basement structure. The central atrium offers alternatives and may be used for exhibition shows and displays whilst affording tenants and users the opportunity of an “all weather” gathering and public space.

The aesthetic is bright, modern and high tech, offering a fresh new take on the area.

source: http://www.worldarchitecturenews.com
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Marni Miami, Miami, United States

New flagship boutique for Marni opens in Miami
This new flagship boutique designed by Sybarite captures the mood of Miami’s Design District. Circular forms repeat throughout, particularly in the treatment of the walls which are covered in a graduated pattern of circles in ‘haute relief’, slightly raised from the background, echoing the textured, Art Deco render of the local buildings.

Puncturing these walls are clusters of variably sized fibreglass boxes painted translucent white, specially made for the display of handbags and other accessories. Round tiered shoe displays in stainless steel are scattered around the space, along with round leather stools, modular seating and circular rugs, breaking up the expanse of polished concrete floor.

Appearing to float on minimal supports, a stainless steel rail undulates around the perimeter, inside of which stainless steel trees fan out. Clusters of mannequins hang from the ceiling, as if suspended in space. Elongated cylindrical fitting rooms are tucked discretely behind the display walls, concealing the stock and cash and wrap areas.

Simple glazing forms two of the exterior walls, making the façade appear wide open, capitalising on the bright, sunny climate and giving the space a feeling of airy lightness.

source: http://www.worldarchitecturenews.com
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Burj Dubai, Dubai, United Arab Emirates

SOM designed interiors steam ahead within world’s tallest building
As the long anticipated climax at the construction site of The Burj Dubai edges closer, the innards of the world’s tallest building are evolving at an even faster rate. International architecture consultancy, Skidmore Owings & Merrill (SOM), announce that the interiors too will soon complete.

SOM are responsible for the design of the tower’s exterior and all lobbies, public and common spaces. A confluence of architectural and interior design influences from around the world and the Arabic region is expressed within the design.

“Burj Dubai’s interiors are mindful of the building’s prominent international address and its true purpose as home to a number of residents,” said Nada Andric, lead architect for the project,“while being inspired by the fascinating local culture and the challenge of enhancing the value of a global landmark.

“This unique approach is reflected in all aspects from careful planning of all the public areas, the subliminal reference to free flowing Arabic script, colours and materials and the implementation with an aim to showcase global technology and human achievement.”

Andric’s design approach was not to take literal, stereotypical translations for the region’s cultural influences but to turn to scholarship to develop the vocabulary inspired by the region’s history, culture understanding of the heritage of the Arabic world and its interpretation into spatial elements, the right choices of materials and a concerted effort to blend the traditional motifs and patterns with modernity.

Upon completion, Burj Dubai will be the tallest building in the world in all four categories recognised by the Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat (CTBUH), which compiles and ranks the world’s tallest buildings. The tower, encompassing 160 inhabitable floors for residential, commercial, hotel, and entertainment facilities as well as the world largest shopping mall, topped off in January at 818m with little fanfare, the event barely reaching the press. The completion of the centerpiece of the US$20 billion Downtown Burj Dubai development in September this year is expected to be a much grander celebration.

Niki May Young
News Editor

source: http://www.worldarchitecturenews.com
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The Yas Hotel, Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates

Asymptote’s Formula 1 hotel nears completion ahead of Abu Dhabi Grand Prix
Asymptote’s design for the Yas Hotel in Abu Dhabi is so central to the Formula 1 Etihad Airways Abu Dhabi Grand Prix, that the track runs through it. The spectacular centrepiece to the Yas Marina development will provide a focal point for the brand new racetrack, which will hold it’s debut race on 30 October. The $36billion development is set to be the most exquisite motorsport venue in the world.

An expansive glass grid shell provides the most distinctive feature of the 500-room, 85,000m2 complex. Covering 217 metres the sweeping, curvilinear forms are constructed of steel and 5,800 pivoting diamond-shaped glass panels. Within this veil-like structure are two hotel towers and a link bridge passing above the Formula 1 track that makes its way through the building complex.

Optical lighting and reflective effects against the backdrop of the sky, sea and desert landscape of Yas Island turn the hotel into an entertainment spectacle.

Asymptote’s founders and partners Hani Rashid and Lise Anne Couture based their design around speed, movement and Islamic art and craft traditions. Rashid described the design as, “a perfect union and harmonious interplay between elegance and spectacle. The search here was inspired by what one could call the ‘art’ and poetics of motor racing, specifically Formula 1, coupled with the making of a place that celebrates Abu Dhabi as a cultural and technological tour de force.”

source: http://www.worldarchitecturenews.com
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North Kent Police Station, Northfleet, United Kingdom

Thames Gateway Police Station leads the way in energy efficiency
The 11,500 m2, four-storey landmark building includes 40 cells, conference rooms, restaurants, separate public and custody entrances and a new crime scene investigation garage.

The scheme features a number of ‘green’ technologies, including an innovative geothermal heating and cooling solution, reducing the building’s carbon footprint by 32 tonnes and making great energy savings.

The building is heated and cooled using a ground source heat pump system. The system circulates water through pipes which have been embedded in the structural concrete piles. These are further supplemented by remote geothermal piles located in the car park that extend to a depth of approximately 100m. The geothermal system will achieve at least 30% in overall energy savings, equating to around £18,000 per year.

Solar shading is provided to the southerly façade by means of brise soliel. The biggest area of glazing faces north which provides consistent external light and temperature to the offices.

The flat roof is being used for collecting rainwater for use in flushing the office block toilets.

The key feature of the building is the 80 metre long central atrium known as the ‘Street’. The building also comprises a two-storey custody block and a four-storey, 80m X 15m glazed office block.

The consortium working on the project includes Justice Support Services North Kent Ltd, comprising Reliance Secure Task Management, Bank of Scotland Corporate and the Kier Project Investment Ltd.

This is McBains Cooper’s fifth police PFI project with Reliance including the award-winning Gloucestershire Police Headquarters building.

McBains Cooper invited Glenn Howells Architects to work with them from conception stages. Glenn Howells Architects was responsible for developing the building concept and external envelope whilst McBains Cooper, with their in-depth knowledge of police buildings, developed the internal arrangements and adjacencies of the many departments and custodial suite

source: http://www.worldarchitecturenews.com
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Museo Tamayo ex-tension Atizapan, Mexico City, Mexico

Michel Rojkind and BIG win Museum competition in Mexico
Set upon a steep hillside in Atizapan on the outskirts of Mexico’s largest metropolis will soon sit the New Tamayo Museum which will serve as a nucleus of education and culture, locally, regionally, and internationally.

Named after the Oaxacan born artist Rufino Tamayo (1899-1991) the very strong and symbolic shape of the cross is a direct interpretation of the client’s preliminary program studies that defined the museum’s optimal functionality.

The main concept of Museo Tamayo ex-tension Atizapan is an open box that unfolds, opens and invites the visitors inside. Package, restoration and storage will serve as additional cultural spaces for visitors to understand the stages that an art piece goes through in order to get to its specific destination.

This is a very direct, strong and symbolic project. Where the shape derives from the client’s preliminary studies that defined the optimal functionality and was then enhanced by taking advantage of the best views from above, making the best of the steep terrain and shading the more social program below, exterior and interior spaces overlap to provide the best environment possible for each function, and optimal climatic performance.

Museo Tamayo ex-tension Atizapan makes the best of the steep terrain allowing the galleries to shade the more social programs below, exterior and interior spaces overlap to provide the best environment possible for each function, and optimal climatic performance. The permeable brick shading façade eliminates or reduces the need for AC and combines good daylight with no sunshine and plenty of natural ventilation.

Although, it will be the museums symbolic provocation of its form and content that will attract its visitors, once there, they will discover that its design, though modest, is intelligently and sustainably planned.

source: http://www.worldarchitecturenews.com
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Dragonfly, New York, United States

Dragonfly concept aims for ecological self-sufficiency in New York
The latest concept design from Vincent Callebaut Architects – the Dragonfly – has been designed with the intention of easing the ever-increasing need for ecological and environmental self-sufficiency in the urban cityscape. The proposed development, designed around the Southern bank of Roosevelt Island in New York, follows a vertical farm design which, it is hoped, would cultivate food, agriculture, farming and renewable energy in an urban setting.

The unique 128 floor, 700m concept design is spread over two oblong towers and suggests building a prototype of an urban farm in which a mixed programme of housing, offices, laboratories and farming spaces are vertically laid out over several floors and cultivated by its inhabitants. The architecture of the design proposes reinventing the vertical building, so associated with the New York skyline of the 19th and 20th centuries, both structurally and functionally as well as ecologically.

The functional organisation of the design is arranged around two 600m towers, symmetrically arranged around a huge climactic greenhouse that links them, and constructed of glass and steel. This greenhouse, which defines the shape of the design, supports the load of the building and is directly inspired by the structural exoskeleton of dragonfly wings. Two inhabited rings buttress around the ‘wings,’ and along the exterior of these are solar panels, which will provide up to half the buildings electricity, with the rest being supplied by three wind machines along the vertical axes of the building.

While most would argue that the unconventional design of Dragonfly would be more suited to Dubailand than New York, the conceptual design tackles the contemporary dilemma of food production and agriculture in a city sorely lacking in the horizontal space required to do so, as well as attempting to achieve this in an ecologically sound and renewable way by merging production and consumption in the heart of the city.

John Edwards
Reporter

source: http://www.worldarchitecturenews.com
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World Trade Center, New York, United States

Towers dwarfed by Port Authority fears
Plans being considered by the Port Authority to remove one of the World Trade Center Towers and to reduce Lords Foster and Rogers’ towers to stumps have been released to the New York Daily News.

A source familiar with the plans revealed that in order to protect the development of the Freedom Tower (now named Tower One), the Port Authority plans to reduce office space from 10million to 5million sq ft and make retail developments of the Foster/Rogers stumps. The news comes following a report for the Authority last month by Cushman and Wakefield which stated that the towers would not be fully occupied until 2037.

The office of World Trade Center Properties, led by Larry Silverstein and awarded $5billion in rejuvenation compensation following the collapse of the WTC, are resolutely opposed to the changes: “The Silverstein team has not wavered on rebuilding the World Trade Center, and we never will,” said Janno Lieber, President. “We remain committed to the plan all the stakeholders agreed to in 2004, and reaffirmed in 2006 – a stirring Memorial, a rebuilt transportation network, and replacement of the shops and soaring office towers destroyed eight years ago.

“This space is essential so that Downtown can re-emerge as an economic and jobs powerhouse for New York City. The Port Authority agreed to that plan, and has received more than $2 billion out of the rebuilding fund based on their promise to cooperate in executing that exact vision. Now, with 10,000 construction workers standing ready to get to work, there is absolutely no reason for turning our backs on the promises.”

Foster’s design for the 200 Greenwich Street tower was to rise to 390 metres while Rogers’ 175 Greenwich Street would rise to 350 metres. But the source advised that these would be replaced by two retail buildings of just 4 or 5 floors.

“One of the most difficult aspects of a vision is not the creation of it, but sticking to it,” said spokesperson for the Council for Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat, Jan Klerks. “As visions embed a long term span, the urge to change the vision when circumstances change, such as the economic climate, can be great. However, unique areas deserve a unique long term vision in which ambitions ideally shouldn’t be compromised by current circumstances. The development of these locations might be better off with temporary blanks or long term ambitions in the vision that can be shaped when tides are better, instead of being developed in difficult circumstances with economized ambitions.”

Mayor Bloomberg has called for a summit between involved parties next week. In the mean time the Port Authority has locked down communications with press on the matter while Foster + Partners and Roger Stirk Harbour + Partners are maintaining an uneasy silence.

Niki May Young
News Editor

source: http://www.worldarchitecturenews.com
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Clyde Williams Building, Loughborough University, Loughborough, United Kingdom

Clyde Williams Building, a new Biosciences Teaching and Laboratory Facility, opens
The new facility, designed by David Morley Architects at Loughborough University is home to the School of Sport, Exercise and Health Sciences. The facility comprises teaching laboratories and classrooms, a sprint corridor and analysis suites together with research laboratories.

The three storey, 5,500 sq m building is situated on the edge of campus with a street presence and bounding defining a sequence of external spaces that join Loughborough University with Loughborough College of Technology on the adjacent site. The building is orientated to optimise use of natural light and ventilation reducing energy consumption.

Ground floor accommodation is separated from the upper levels so that the tidal flow of students attending lectures does not disturb sensitive research activities at upper levels. The first and second floors are organised around a two storey central atrium. PHD students based in the atrium have ready access to the wide range of preparation, research and analysis facilities – and professors – on each side. The end walls of the atria are glazed and an ETFE roof above creates a vibrant working environment.

David Morley Architects has now completed four projects at Loughborough University, with a fifth due for completion in autumn 2009. This includes a post-graduate centre, the ECB National Cricket Centre, a 1,300 room student accommodation development and Sport Park (an office development to bring together a number of National Governing Bodies of Sport in an active landscape).

David Morley says of the project: ‘This building shows how a complex programme of research and teaching activities can be distilled into a simple building that also makes a positive contribution to the campus – I hope we have achieved our aim that the building should speak but not shout.’

The new facility will be opened by the Princess Royal on 12th May

source: http://www.worldarchitecturenews.com
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